Written by:
Purandar Das The pandemic has grown the technology stack to accommodate remote work and cloud infrastructure. This created an opportunity for attackers causing cyber-attacks to be up 29% and malware attacks to be up 93% in 2021. Businesses rapidly added point solutions to secure data in these new locations in response. Many were implemented to address specific targeted needs rather than deliver a more holistic approach to data security.
These solutions have already been implemented and are providing needed functionality. Even though moving to integrated solutions that deliver multiple functionalities is the best direction long term, there is no reason to rip and replace everything and start fresh. While it would fix the problem long term, it will create data security gaps in the process, leaving your organization open to attack.
This article explores the challenges of moving to more holistic solutions and how they can be implemented effectively for long-term optimization without having to rip and replace existing security solutions.
Cleaning the Mess
Every time data security challenges emerge, there is almost always a point solution created to address them directly. Over time, these solutions add up and become an administrative nightmare to manage. When implementing new solutions, the goal is not to add to the clutter, but to decrease it for more efficient operations. Unfortunately, dumping these solutions outright is a financial waste and creates more opportunities for attackers.
Retaining Investments
It’s essential to remember that all of the point solutions were expenditures made for a purpose. Replacing them for a new solution is not cost-effective, no matter how effective the new solution is. It is better to leverage these solutions for their existing functionality. These existing solutions can retain effectiveness by finding solutions that can integrate and add additional functionality, such as centralized data security management or monitoring. At the same time, your organization benefits by decreasing surveillance and operational costs.
Reducing Risk
The other danger of removing existing solutions is creating data security gaps in the process. Even if the new solutions implemented overlap in functionality with existing solutions, pulling them out and replacing them is not the most effective solution. When the time comes to replace these solutions, a complete gap analysis will guarantee that nothing has been missed in the transition.
With attackers constantly scanning organizations looking for vulnerabilities, technology transition times can create organizational risk. Going about the transition methodically and identifying your gaps before attackers do will help reduce your corporate risk.
Enhance the Stack, Don’t Replace It
To reduce the risk with new technologies, your organization needs to find solutions to meet multiple security needs at once. While scrapping the old solutions and replacing them with better technologies sounds good, the technologies that integrate and allow gradual transformation are optimal.
Building on What Exists
The best solutions work in conjunction with the tools that are already operational. Solutions that enhance existing tools and work in a partnership rather than purely a replacement simplify the transition process and reduce organizational upheaval from the change. These tools also combine data and analytics from other sources to create more in-depth insights helping your organization identify attacks early and head them off rather than deal with them after the fact.
A sign of a good solution is that they work across technologies rather than being entirely self-contained. Examples include those that leverage existing active directory (AD) solutions to handle authentication and access control and integrate that into their framework. This approach simplifies operations and builds upon them by extending them into the new solution.
Filling in Holes
Reasonable solutions also bring something new to the table in security functionality. When considering new solutions, the driver often fills in existing gaps. Rather than using new point solutions that only address a few needs, more holistic solutions that address many needs are more efficient.
An example of this would be a data encryption solution implemented because the organization needs to keep its data private. This point solution does not answer any of the additional needs that arise from managing access, detecting attempts to decrypt the data, the ability to use or analyze data while it stays encrypted, or identifying when accounts have been compromised, because bad actors are attempting to get to the data. More holistic solutions can bridge these gaps and deliver all this functionality at once.
Revolutionary Data Security
Sotero is a complete data security solution that can provide your organization with comprehensive data privacy. Sotero’s data security platform takes a data-first approach to security and delivers multiple functionalities to protect your data throughout its entire lifecycle. It oversees not only the protection of the data but manages access and threat protection of the data under one umbrella. This whole solution is managed through an easy single-pane-of-glass interface to help simplify operations and decrease the strain upon your existing security staff.
Schedule a demo today to learn more about how the Sotero Data Security Platform can integrate your existing data security and provide in-depth data protection.
Link back to gap analysis article