The Security Tool Conundrum: Tackling Sprawl in Your Environment

Consolidating and Reducing Security Tool Sprawl in Your Environment

As the world continues to embrace technology, cybersecurity has become a major issue. The adoption of new technologies has created a need for various security tools to ensure that hackers and other malicious actors don’t have access to sensitive information. However, with many tools, security teams are dealing with too many alerts, and this has become a problem that needs fixing. Here’s a detailed report on how to consolidate and reduce tool sprawl within your environment.

Key Problem of Alert Overload

Many security professionals complain about feeling as if they are running at full speed but not making any progress. One critical problem is that security teams receive too many alerts from many different tools, and the team can’t reduce risk because the alerts lack context, such as their severity and potential impact. Alerts without context are, therefore, largely meaningless.

This report identifies three keys to tool consolidation:

Take Inventory and Seek Alignment

The first step to reducing the tool sprawl within your environment is to take an inventory of all the tools you are currently using. Poll the team and make them part of this process. Identify what is being used, what is being pushed aside, what can be eliminated from your environment, and what can’t. A report by Verizon stated that security teams use between 55 and 75 security products or applications on average. All these tools mean dozens of management consoles, onboarding and training programs, and employee up-skilling requirements. To address this problem, involve the team, and make them feel that their input is essential since it directly affects their day-to-day job.

Once you understand the tool landscape in full and in practice, identify the delta between what is being used and what can be cut. Then evaluate the top use cases that the team faces, and determine if the tools used adequately address these use cases.

Choose Cloud-Native Platforms, Not Products

The solution to tool sprawl is to invest in platforms that can address multiple core use cases from on-premises to the cloud. Tools that were built for the cloud tend to mirror the functionality on-premises. Thus, this is the first and best place to identify opportunities for consolidation.

For example, a legacy data loss prevention (DLP) solution is a hugely expensive and complex product that takes months to deploy, configure, and train. For all that, it often produces too many false positives, resulting in noisy alerting mechanisms that create friction within the business. Cloud DLP exists, but it creates new data silos, making securing data challenging. However, a platform solution can provide DLP functionality across different environments, including cloud, containers, and virtual machines.

Automate

Platforms that were built for the cloud are designed to enable automation of tasks that used to be done manually, such as inventory and classification of assets, devices, data, and SaaS partners. Most cloud-native solutions will automate this across multiple environments, including infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), software-as-a-service (SaaS), and platform-as-a-service (PaaS), as well as on-premises.

De-Clutter Your Network

Cybersecurity exposures and risks associated with cloud workloads are inherently different from those of legacy, on-prem infrastructure. Employing too many tools can leave security teams ill-equipped to quantify, understand, or mitigate the exposure of sprawling cloud environments. A cloud-native security stack enables tool consolidation and broad automation, both of which are most welcome developments for your teams.

Editorial

With the current increase in cybersecurity threats, too many tools can be overwhelming for your security team. Consolidation of security tools is crucial for your organization to achieve efficiency and effectiveness. Investing in platforms that can manage multiple core use cases from on-premises to the cloud is essential. Therefore, organizations should integrate the three keys discussed above as a significant part of their security strategy. It’s time to prioritize upgrading to cloud-native platforms and automating tasks to solve the problem of alert overload and improve system security.

Advice

The rapid evolution of technology necessitates the adoption of new security tools, and every tool comes with management and integration overhead coupled with increased cost. Therefore, organizations should take the time to assess their security toolkits and leverage consolidation strategies by taking inventory, seeking alignment, choosing cloud-native platforms, and automating tasks. This will enhance operational efficiency while minimizing costs and reducing the risk of cyber attacks.