As the industry is pushing toward the cloud and cloud-based applications there has been a growing concern about gaining end-to-end visibility within a network’s infrastructure.
The consistent evolution of the cyber threat landscape has caused organisations to experience threats from various vectors such as phishing, privilege escalation and software vulnerabilities. These vectors are compounded by a lack of visibility of all technical assets, lack of knowledge, lack of staff and integration with other tools or having too many security tools.
‘Tool Overload or Tool Sprawl’ is where too many tools do not help improve the overall security posture but hinder it.
More security tools does not equal more visibility; Tool Sprawl actually increases security vulnerabilities.
By not knowing which tool to use when different types of attacks occur, the resources and networks will be more vulnerable than ever before. There are a variety of methods to fix Tool Overload, and doing so will enable businesses to improve their overall visibility and security posture.
Here are a few tips for improving your visibility and reducing Tool Sprawl:
- Evaluate your tools, what is necessary?
- Understand your Risk Exposure and Vulnerabilities
- Assess your risks and vulnerabilities
- Move towards automation to speed up and use less compute and user effort
- Invest in tools that integrate with well others to provide a single place for all security actions.
Growing Threats to Business Security
In 2020, when the global pandemic hit, companies were forced to rethink their security architecture. They needed to rapidly enable employees to continue working from their own homes throughout lockdown periods and this hybrid working model is now a part of everyday life.
Common issues that have arisen from using hybrid models are:
- Falling victim to Phishing
- Insecure Wi-Fi networks or using open Wi-Fi to access internal resources or applications
- Allowing BYOD devices to access internal resources without correct security policies or identity management in place
- Not correctly implementing Identity Access Management (IAM) to make sure correct users are only allowed access to information that is required for their role.
What is the solution?
The solution is pushing organisations towards Security Access Security Edge (SASE) architecture, which combines network and security controls within the cloud to enable consistent security no matter where the user is and allows an organisation to scale up or down when required, so they are not limited to hardware restrictions. Many vendors can easily integrate this architecture into their existing network, as most vendors only require an edge router or Firewall to create an IPsec tunnel to the cloud instance.
