How to Stay Current with Changing Security Landscape

On the latest episode of the Security Soapbox podcast, I spoke with Ramy Houssaini, Chief Cyber and Technology Risk Officer at BNP Paribas, about the challenges Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) face in an increasingly complex digital landscape. 

Change happens quickly in the cloud, and many organizations are faced with the issue of evolving their security strategy at the same pace. This ends up leaving sensitive apps and data vulnerable to cyberattacks. I encourage you to listen to the whole episode, but here are some key takeaways from our conversation:

The problem with silos of the past

When most of your users and endpoints were in just a handful of offices, your IT team’s visibility and control over sensitive data was a little less complex than it is now. There was also less interconnectivity of services, which meant that many of the security solutions you implemented operated relatively separately from each other. 

But as Ramy and I discussed, it’s not just the traditional security tools that have become obsolete, it’s also the mindset behind them. In the past, security requirements were met by purchasing new products. But this created specialization, where security professionals focused on a particular problem and in turn created a string of point solutions solving very specific issues. 

Unfortunately, this strategy has continued into the cloud. Even though integrated cloud-delivered security solutions are increasingly accepted as more superior, organizations still look for point products. If you’re constantly jumping between consoles, it becomes difficult to uncover meaningful security data and protect your organization. 

If your team is stuck in specialized silos with security tools that don't talk to each other, it becomes difficult to succinctly process all of that data to create actionable results. This inevitably creates gaps in your visibility, and even when you theoretically have all the data.

Smart security decision should also enable business

Deploying disparate products to address each new security requirement is like putting a bandage on someone who really needs reconstructive surgery. In a world where most activity is happening outside your traditional perimeter, legacy strategies keep you from achieving a holistic security posture. 

While cloud-delivered solutions will help solve scalability problems, it is no longer enough to deploy them in isolation. To reign in the complexity, you need to look at security from a platform approach, where solutions work together seamlessly. This helps you quickly centralize and streamline your approach. Instead of wading through a sea of telemetry, you can easily make sense of the data and automate processes to close security gaps. 

But it's not only a smart security decision — Ramy explains that investing in the right security strategy can be a savvy business decision too. 

A solution that allows you to enforce Zero Trust efficiently is a business enabler. It means that you can empower your workforce to be more productive wherever they are in the world while staying confident that sensitive data is protected. Plus, a unified platform will help you streamline costs.

Check out the 2022 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Security Service Edge report to learn more about how a unified platform approach can keep your organization secure.