Working in a security team can be frustrating. Not only do they have to deal with ever-changing attack patterns, but they are also forced to continually adapt their security strategy to rapidly changing business requirements. The increasing adaptation of cloud technologies in recent years is probably the biggest change in the business world and also the biggest challenge for security teams. However, as companies strive to meet the security challenges of the cloud and application modernization journey, many companies may have made their situation even worse.
Let us take a closer look at this.
When companies move their business processes to the cloud, data is fragmented between individual sites and multiple cloud ecosystems. It can be challenging for security teams to get an overview of the risks and threats in such infrastructures. Over the years, many companies have therefore begun to use new, specialized tools to address this problem.
This has led to a wealth of security tools. A study conducted by Forrester Consulting for IBM found that 91 percent of organizations are struggling with the increasing complexity of their security infrastructure. On average, organizations manage 25 different security products or services from 13 vendors. The latest "Cost of a Data Breach Report" logically identifies the complexity of the security infrastructure as the biggest cost driver in the event of a data breach.
In addition, distributed services lead to an explosive growth of security data. Many organizations aggregate this data to identify and analyze threats and risks. The resulting data stores, however, have their own challenges.
Finally, the variety of tools used adds to another problem: each has different data stores, user interfaces and workflows. This costs security teams additional time, integration and knowledge.
When organizations are faced with too many disjointed tools and too much disjointed data, the risk of overlooking a threat or failing to conduct a thorough investigation and coordinate a response in a timely manner increases, potentially increasing the impact of an attack.
Modern security systems are not islands; they must be interconnected to make them as effective as organizations need them to be. This means connecting existing tools and databases to gain details about threats and risks that threaten the business. On the other, it means connecting and automating workflows to coordinate the response to a security incident across the enterprise at all levels and improve response times.
We support organizations in meeting these challenges. With IBM Cloud Pak for Security, we offer a platform that integrates existing security tools from different vendors to gain deeper insight into threats in hybrid, multi-cloud environments. We use a common operating environment that is infrastructure-independent and can run anywhere. Security teams can quickly search for threats, analyze them and orchestrate the response with automated actions - without moving the underlying data.
With IBM Cloud Pak for Security, you can adapt a company's existing security landscape to the complex requirements of a modern hybrid multi-cloud environment.
