Optimizing Your Security Investments vs. Looking for the Silver Bullet

No matter how much money and security technology organizations throw at their security problems, their defenses alone aren’t enough to solve the problem. Breaches remain a question of when, not if. Look no farther than ransomware attacks to see proof — last year, ransomware payments hit an astonishing $1 billion record, even as some operators were disrupted by law enforcement. 

Here’s the challenge. Rather than taking a closer look at their security operations, many organizations expect technology to solve their problem. And the cybersecurity industry is happy to oblige, responding to the growing attack surface with more solutions. From vCISO services (virtual Chief Information Security Officer) to managed detection and response (MDR) platforms, many vendors even claim to offer the silver bullet, compelling security teams to adopt a variety of new security technologies in hopes of better protecting their environment. 

But many of these solutions bring their own challenges, adding new complexities to an already complicated environment. The result is yet more tools, an even larger attack surface, and a labyrinth of complexities and inefficiencies the SOC must manage.

One of the simplest ways to escape this endless cycle is by going back to security operations basics. Properly deploying and configuring your security stack will optimize your security investments — so you can get the most value from your existing tools before deciding if you need more. 

The pitfalls of an ever-expanding security stack

Most surveyed SOC teams agree that the attack surface has expanded significantly in the past three years, and they’re seeing a considerable sprawl in the security tools they use.i Consequently, having too many tools is the second biggest frustration for security practitioners — right behind the frustration of doing too many repetitive, manual tasks. 

Some of the biggest problems stemming from tool sprawl include:

• Redundancies: Overlapping capabilities, whether that’s threat detection, threat intelligence, or vulnerability scanning, can significantly slow down productivity. Your team’s efforts are often duplicated, wasting resources and creating inefficiencies. There’s also the potential for confusion — which tool’s alerts should be prioritized?
  
  
• Improperly deployed or not deployed technologies: SOC teams are already pressed for time. With so many different solutions to roll out, many simply can’t keep up with the complicated and time-consuming deployment steps. It’s common, for example, for organizations to purchase endpoint protection for all their owned devices but only deploy the solution on half of them. And even if the technology is implemented, it’s very likely not deployed correctly. IBM Security researchers, for instance, found that 30% of pen tested web app vulnerabilities were due to misconfigurations.
  
  
• Complete gaps: Things like security data siloes, alert fatigue, complexity of the environment, and underutilized tools can create significant visibility issues. Without a complete and accurate picture of what’s going on across the entire IT infrastructure, the SOC team may not be aware of defensive gaps in specific areas. 

Essentially, the misconfigured or improperly maintained tools — or the lack of resources to manage them — create the opposite of the desired effect. It’s a breach waiting to happen.  

According to a Gartner survey, improving security posture is the main reason why organizations seek vendor consolidation. This trend is growing rapidly: 75% of organizations were pursuing security vendor consolidation in 2022, compared to only 29% two years prior. It seems security teams are realizing that more is truly not better when it comes to their technology stack.

What you need for building a right-sized stack  

Some estimates show that the cybersecurity vendor market has more than 1,000 categories and at least 8,000 different products. We certainly don’t recommend trying to navigate all these options. Instead, focus on the core technologies that create robust, layered defenses:

• Email security: Study after study shows that phishing is a prevalent tactic, and email is the main source of daily threats targeting your people. The latest Verizon Data Investigations Report found that 68% of threats involve the human factor. More often than not, that’s employees clicking on malicious links or attachments in their inbox. Email security stops threats like malware before they reach their target.
  
  
• Firewall: Even as your perimeter moves beyond the corporate walls, the firewall remains critical to your internal network defense. As with email security, the firewall blocks threats proactively, before they can get inside your network.
  
  
• Endpoint detection and response (EDR): You may have the best defenses in place, but sophisticated threats are bound to slip through. EDR is instrumental to quickly identifying and mitigating threats that are in your environment. Lack of visibility into endpoints is one of the biggest barriers to improving the security posture. A robust EDR solution not only provides this visibility but enables you to respond to threats in real time.
  
  
• Vulnerability management: Data shows that organizations that have an unresolved critical vulnerability are 33% more likely to have a cybersecurity insurance claim than those that have addressed it. A vulnerability management tool helps you to continuously identify, assess, and prioritize misconfigurations and other vulnerabilities, and then quickly mitigate the most critical ones.
  
  
• SIEM: Most SOC teams are drowning in alerts to the point they ignore about two-thirds of them.iii A well-maintained SIEM helps SOC teams cut through the noise, surfacing the most important alerts and eliminating false-positives.

The key to ensuring this fundamental technology stack does its job is proper deployment and configuration, along with continuous maintenance using best practices. Without these steps, any one of these tools turns into an expensive piece of shelf-ware. Then, you’re back at square one — lured by the latest vendor promise to solve your security problem with their newest shiny thing. 

Optimizing your security stack improves your team’s efficiency and productivity, ensures you’re getting the best value from your security investments, and boosts your security posture. Focus your efforts on properly deploying, configuring, and managing your security tools — and you’ll be much more likely to achieve your desired outcomes.

Security operations is the answer

At the heart of solving the cybersecurity challenge lies a strong focus on security operations. Instead of chasing after the latest shiny technology, organizations should prioritize building a resilient security framework grounded in well-executed operations. By enhancing security operations, teams can streamline processes, ensure proper integration of tools, and maintain continuous visibility across their entire infrastructure.

A well-managed security operations center (SOC) not only helps reduced mean time to detect (MTTD) and mean time to respond (MTTR), but also drastically reduces the risk of misconfigurations and underutilized tools. Investing in managed security services or vCISO services can further bolster your operations by delivering expert guidance and operational oversight, ensuring your defenses evolve with the ever-changing threat landscape. Ultimately, a robust security operations strategy is the most sustainable solution to optimize your security investments and protect against both current and future threats.

How Digital Hands helps

Working with a trusted vCISO service provider or cybersecurity services provider like Digital Hands can help ensure your tools are properly deployed and maintained, avoiding the pitfalls of tool sprawl.

When you partner with Digital Hands, you gain: 

• Strategic technology management to fortify your organization’s technological ecosystem and align your security infrastructure with your business objectives
  
  
• Tailored security strategies that align seamlessly with your organizational objectives
  
  
• Proactive risk management so you can implement targeted security controls and measures to mitigate risks effectively
  
  
• Incident response and preparedness to help you plan for incidents and respond effectively
  
  
• Leadership and guidance for your in-house IT and security teams so they can stay up to date with the latest threats and best practices