If Money Can’t Buy Happiness, Can It Buy Security?

Gigamon has just published the results of a recent Vanson Bourne survey that polled IT and security decision-makers from the U.S., U.K., France and Germany on their cloud security preparedness and network visibility issues. Though it covers cybersecurity, cloud and GDPR trends, at its heart, the survey tries to answer the question: What makes our networks insecure?

Even with an abundance of security tools at their disposal, companies remain vulnerable to compromise.

New cyber threats make everyone insecure. To restore our own perception of safety, the tendency is to buy new security tools. In fact, many of those surveyed plan to increase cybersecurity spend by 36 percent over the next three years. However, at the same time, 70 percent of respondents intuitively recognize that more money toward more tools doesn’t necessarily mean better security against new cyber threats.

What Else Can We Do?

What is preventing us from securing our networks? In its research, Vanson Bourne identified three key factors that are putting networks at risk:

1. Hidden data: A large amount of network data remains hidden due to segmentation of data and tools between NetOps and SecOps.
2. Too much data: The increasing speed and growth of network traffic is stressing monitoring and security tools.
3. Lack of cloud security: Organizations are migrating high-value information to the cloud, where security is limited and application data is difficult to access.

All together, these factors result in data blindness: the inability to see, understand and secure network traffic. A by-product of this is an inability to adapt our networks, change our strategies and anticipate threats. For instance, the survey reveals that lack of visibility into network traffic is also making GDPR compliance more difficult by preventing enterprises from developing a robust GDPR strategy that maps to dedicated budget.

Fighting Data Blindness with Network Visibility

While survey respondents aren’t necessarily convinced that buying more and more security tools is the answer, they aren’t sure what is and must continue to do something to help guard against increasing cybersecurity threats and the risk of data loss. At the same time, this doesn’t mean that existing security tools aren’t capable, but rather, that they may not have the visibility into the data they need to do their jobs as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Take a fleet of Ferraris. These are high-performing cars, but only if they are provided the right fuel. No fuel, no go. It’s the same for security tools. There are incredible products on the market today, but without visibility into the data they need, they may underperform.

The Vanson Bourne survey results confirm that it is imperative for enterprises to adopt a platform that provides greater visibility into their network traffic, and one that’s integrated with their security tools for increased speed and effectiveness. One like GigaSECURE, the industry’s first Security Delivery Platform that can help organizations see what matters in their enterprise and beyond for better data protection.

Read the Vanson Bourne survey and our analysis. I hope that it will help you consider how these factors are influencing your own network security and cloud strategy. See What Matters.™