The saying goes: The more the better. However, for organizations going through digital transformation and using various tools for security testing and vulnerability management, having too much of a good thing can backfire.
In a 2021 survey conducted by Gartner, 78% of CISOs have 16 or more tools in their cybersecurity vendor portfolio, and 12% have 46 or more. A sprawling security stack doesn’t mean that an organization is more secure or a security team is better equipped.
Here are a few of the drawbacks:
Costs and Resources Can Skyrocket
Digital transformation has prompted software and application development teams to increase production and productivity. When the attack surface dramatically expands, organizations can find themselves purchasing even more tools and solutions to address their diversity of assets. The resources and time it would take to learn, onboard and train employees can become a heavy burden on an already taxed team.
Tools and vendor responsibilities can overlap or become redundant, and it can be difficult to determine whether these solutions are helping an organization’s security posture or causing gaps. This backs organizations into engineering complexity to manage complexity.
Fewer Integrations Mean Prolonged Timelines and Increased Friction
Effective integrations are a major component of a successful cybersecurity program and are pivotal during times of digital transformation. Security teams rely on them for workflow cohesion and a streamlined vulnerability remediation process. When organizations have multi-vendor environments, and each product or solution has a different integration process, this can create delays in response time and communication issues.
When vulnerabilities aren’t promptly addressed in a timely manner, an organization’s risk can increase and cause even more problems that need to be addressed.
Moving and Losing Talent
Today’s talent crisis also raises concerns. With around 3.4 million cybersecurity positions unfilled worldwide — not to mention high employee turnover – programs featuring an abundance of specific tools can pose challenges when it comes to losing and locating talent. Without the knowledge or specialized skills needed to maintain existing company tools and solutions, vulnerabilities can go undetected and new ones can emerge.
Using the Synack Platform to Consolidate
Vendor consolidation offers several benefits. With Synack, organizations get continuous security testing and vulnerability management on one platform, all while using the integrations their workflows rely on. The Synack Platform offers a risk-based approach to security testing with help from our community of security researchers, the Synack Red Team, so organizations can better manage their resources and worry less about causing gaps. Interested in learning more about the Synack approach?
