Mass-scale remote working and tightening budgets are giving IT security teams a constant and worsening headache, Juniper Networks concluded from a new study of 1,000 senior-level security pros in multiple industries worldwide.
In fact, those impediments are making evident the limitations of traditional approaches to network security, the networking specialist said. Network performance issues, an inability to upgrade the entire network, the daily grind of basic network maintenance and organizations slotting security as a drain on resources rather than a business benefit, ties IT security’s hands to innovate, Juniper said the findings showed.
Here are the study’s highlights (by respondents) and Juniper’s comments:
- 97%: Experiencing ongoing challenges to effectively secure their organization’s network. Problems before the sudden increase in remote work have been amplified by a threat landscape populated by prolific, constantly innovating bad actors.
- 86%: Organizations need to improve network reliability and performance. To be fully effective, a security deployment must be fully integrated into the network it protects, rather than an uncoupled overlay.
- 47%: IT teams’ time is taken up by keeping the lights on in the network instead of pursuing innovation.
- 87%: Want real-time visibility into their organization’s data and network, adding context to better understand what is happening. They also want to balance the demands of delivering compliance with managing security risks. Rip-and-replace to gain integrated security is not a viable option.
- 63%: Their organization positions IT security as a cost center and not an asset that drives value.
- 97%: Had to spend money on breach mitigation in the last 12 months at an average cost exceeding $276,000. Organizations may not fully comprehend how vulnerable their networks are to attack and how not investing in intelligent security depletes the bottom line and obscures real business benefits.
- 95%: Working with multiple vendors to meet their overall security deployment goals. Many IT security teams are currently driven to seek an answer to the reduced false positives/improved response times requirement from various sources simultaneously.
“Companies need threat-aware networks that bring speed and agility to enterprise security, coupled with a connected security strategy that allows all network elements to work together for increased visibility and action where it matters most,” said Samantha Madrid, Juniper security business and strategy vice president. “The old way of thinking about security will no longer suffice for those companies battling a new norm.”
