Organizations Embrace Consolidation Strategies to Combat Surge in Sophisticated Attacks

By Brian Gleeson, Head of Infinity Product Marketing

Today’s global market conditions and trends in information security push organizations to employ consolidation strategies.

“Too many security vendors results in complex security operations and increased security headcount,” writes Gartner’s’ Kasey Panetta in a recent blog post on top security and risk trends for 2021.

According to Gartner’s 2020 CISO survey, 78 percent of organizations work with16 or more security vendors; and 12 percent include a whopping 46 or more solutions in their cyber portfolios.

CISOs understand that consolidating the number of vendors’ solutions will reduce costs and lead to better, more efficient security.

Shifting priorities: Doing more cyber with less

The twin forces of the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise in supply chain attacks will transform enterprise security for years to come. Threat actors took advantage of the chaos, stepping-up phishing and ransomware attacks, and even targeting the supply chains responsible for distributing vaccines. Without doubt the most devastating supply chain attack was the breach of the SolarWinds Orion platform. Press reports maintain that the primary targets of the attack were U.S. federal agencies, however the SolarWinds Orion tool is used by some 18,000 public and private organizations around the world.

The possibility of a breach could be everywhere. The SolarWinds Orion attack calls into question the trustworthiness of the solutions and systems organizations use to maintain the day-to-day operations of their IT infrastructures.

Register for the webinar As the Cyber World Turns: A Strategy to Increase Security Efficiency in North America and EMEA/APAC time zones.

A Check Point survey found that the top three priorities for CISOs in 2021 will be securing remote workers, investing in endpoint and mobile security technologies, and hardening public and multiple cloud environments.

In light of SolarWinds Orion breach, there will likely be two additional priorities: Organizations will need to understand threats to the software applications IT develops and finding ways to discover live attacks running in their systems on a day-to-day basis.

As progress is made battling the COVID pandemic, erasing its economic impact is expected to take time. The International Monetary Fund indicated that there will be a 5.4 percent increase in economic growth in 2021 over 2020. However, this would leave 2021 GDP some 6.5 percentage points lower than in the pre-COVID-19 projections of January 2020. Meanwhile, investment analyst firm Wedbush anticipates a near 20 percent increase in IT security spending in 2021 based on three factors: the SolarWinds Orion breach; governments and businesses enabling remote workers; and the push for companies to adopt cloud technologies.

The Drive for Consolidation

Slowed economic growth and the push to secure systems from sophisticated new threats presents a conflict for many companies. IT organizations are tasked with implementing new controls and increasing their overall security posture, while at the same time searching for greater efficiency because they have limited buying power. New priorities will need to be established.

Register for the webinar As the Cyber World Turns: A Strategy to Increase Security Efficiency in North America and EMEA/APAC time zones.

Organizations the world over will seek technology partners that provide security platforms – multi-function systems that address more than one need – because they must consolidate the vendors with whom they work to cope with the challenge of doing more security with less funding.

To make consolidation work they will need platform providers to deliver centralized, automated management tools that analyze the overall health and operational efficiency of the systems they maintain, all while securing the move of their IT operations to the cloud.

Check Point Infinity is built to solve these strategic imperatives. Infinity provides a complete security architecture across cloud, network, endpoint and mobile. Check Point’s market leadership in threat prevention technologies provide a qualitative advantage. Finally, Infinity’s efficient, easy-to-use management tools enable organizations to implement controls throughout the enterprise.

Learn how to implement a consolidation strategy in your organization and register for the webinar As the Cyber World Turns: A Strategy to Increase Security Efficiency in North America and EMEA/APAC time zones.