Smashing cybersecurity silos: Reining in tool sprawl to gain unified visibility

In today's increasingly complex threat landscape, organizations face a seemingly paradoxical challenge: They invest in and deploy security tools to protect their environments, but the proliferation often actually weakens their defenses. 

As the number of tools rises, operational effectiveness decreases while alert fatigue grows and agencies incur unnecessary costs.

Fragmented security and its consequences

Surveys show that over 65% of organizations believe they have too many security tools, creating a patchwork of disconnected data sources. Silos persist, with critical security information remaining trapped in product-specific consoles and databases (e.g. cloud assets, on premise servers, mobile devices, etc.) that require highly skilled resources and specialized training to use. No single platform provides comprehensive visibility across all endpoints and systems.

With this fragmented environment, teams struggle to gain real-time visibility during incidents, so they cannot effectively coordinate responses across tool boundaries. It also taxes security professionals who must master dozens of different interfaces and methodologies.

Rethinking security integration: The managed services model

Rather than adding yet another tool to the stack, focus on creating unified visibility with a cross-domain visibility framework. In many cases, this can be achieved by leveraging cloud-based technology. Cloud platforms, which may also include security data lake capabilities, often already include unified visibility capabilities, to gain comprehensive and enterprise (or even external) visibility that is so commonly desired.

This managed services model approach provides a vendor-agnostic implementation, so you’re free to work across multiple security vendors to create a cohesive operational picture. It allows you to evolve your solution more rapidly as you inherit enhancements across multiple vendors over time.

Many organizations don't need more tools – they just need their existing tools to work together more effectively. By assessing and integrating capabilities already available, and paid for, agencies can save significant costs while also streamlining operations and security.  Pair this strategy with cloud-based platforms as well as emerging AI capabilities, and you will exponentially enable your staff to operate more efficiently and effectively. This approach can be beneficial to agencies in the following ways: 

1. Cost efficiency:
   • Reduced expenses: Leveraging existing tools eliminates the need for additional expenditures on new software licenses, subscriptions and associated costs. Furthermore, utilizing cloud-based platforms reduces staffing costs from a platform operations and maintenance perspective. 
   • Maximized ROI: Organizations can maximize the return on investment from tools they have already purchased by fully utilizing their capabilities.
2.  Streamlined operations:
   • Simplified management: Fewer tools mean less complexity in managing and maintaining the security infrastructure, leading to more streamlined operations.
   • Reduced time to production: Cloud-based models enable faster go-live timelines, as security controls are shared between the platform owner and the provider, enabling faster times to gain authority to operate and streamline future reassessments. 
   • Reduced training needs: Teams can focus on mastering the tools they already use rather than spending time and resources on training for new systems.
3. Enhanced integration:
   •  Improved compatibility: Existing tools are likely already integrated into the organization's workflows and systems, ensuring better compatibility and fewer integration challenges.
   • Consistent data flow: Using a consistent set of tools can lead to more seamless data flow and communication between systems, enhancing overall efficiency.
4. Increased security:
   • Reduced attack surface: Fewer tools mean a smaller attack surface, reducing the potential entry points for cyber threats.
   • Consistent security policies: Maintaining a consistent set of tools allows for more uniform application of security policies and practices across the organization. 
5. Optimized resource utilization:
   •  Focused expertise: Teams can develop deeper expertise and proficiency with existing tools, leading to more effective use and optimization of their features.
   • Resource allocation: Resources can be allocated more effectively to other critical areas, such as threat analysis and incident response, rather than managing a plethora of tools.
6. Faster decision-making:
   • Quicker implementation: With existing tools, organizations can implement changes and updates more quickly without the delays associated with procuring and integrating new solutions.
   • Rapid response: Familiarity with current tools allows teams to respond more swiftly to incidents and threats.
7. Sustainability:
   • Environmental impact: Reducing the procurement of new tools can contribute to sustainability efforts by minimizing waste and the environmental impact associated with manufacturing and distributing new products.

The coming evolution of centralized visibility platforms

The future of cybersecurity centers around consolidated visibility platforms that bring together data from across the security ecosystem. Many vendors have matured their capabilities to enable cross-agency visibility in a centralized location, which allows for a more streamlined approach to managing compliance or risk and facilitates collaboration and expedites response times. More importantly, these platforms also include role-based access controls to clearly define and manage the level of permissions allowed from sources external to an agency-specific security boundary. These platforms will evolve in several key ways:

• Zero Trust architecture integration

Zero Trust requires identity validation to access resources and data, regardless of where the request originates, whereas traditional perimeter security assumes requests from inside the network are already authorized. The next generation of visibility platforms fully align with Zero Trust principles, providing comprehensive coverage across each of the Zero Trust pillars. 

•  AI-enhanced correlation

As these platforms mature and provide cross-domain visibility, artificial intelligence will play an increasingly critical role. Agencies should strive to grow beyond individual AI-enabled tools to AI-enabled capabilities in the cross-domain platform visibility layer. This will better situate AI to aid in:

• Identifying patterns across previously disconnected data sources
• Reducing false positives through multi-factor correlation
• Automating response actions based on comprehensive visibility
• Continuously learning from incident response activities

Taking action: Steps toward unified visibility

A structured approach will help organizations break down security silos. Broadly, key steps include: 

• Standardize enterprise-wide security tools:

Carefully choosing a few core security technologies creates a foundation for integration. Keep the number manageable and eliminate redundancies. Leverage those that output security data via an open standard (e.g. OCSF). Additionally, a critical consideration with this step is to also establish standard data collection and retention policies, define consistent investigation and response workflows, as well as prioritize integrations based on risk assessment (high-value assets, critical infrastructure).

• Integrate to unlock the full potential:

Prioritize tools with robust application programming interface (API) capabilities to maximize flexibility. Select integration platforms that can bridge proprietary systems, and work with security service providers who can demonstrate past successes in solving integration challenges. Determine whether current tools interoperate across Zero Trust pillars (e.g. Identity tools that talk to network policy engines, which talk to endpoint health detection and response tools).  Build basic dashboards, focused on the security posture of high-value assets that are based upon pre-defined success metrics.

• Choose vendors and industry partners carefully:

Ask prospective partners and suppliers some pointed questions: 

• What integrations do you currently support?
• What's on the near-term integration roadmap?
• Outside of price, how do you quantify value or justify investments for end customers?
• What is your approach to staying up to date with the latest technological advancements to bake into your products?
• How do your solutions scale to accommodate growth?
• What is your process for ensuring your products meet industry compliance frameworks?
• Do you support managed service models for centralized visibility? And does that include optional enterprise-wide aggregate views for larger organizations?
• How does AI factor into your roadmap? 
• Can your AI implementation, existing or planned, reduce detection and response times by a verifiable percentage? 
• Can you demonstrate the capability functioning with data that spans security domains?

Securing the future

The future of effective cybersecurity isn't about adding more tools – it's about enabling cross-platform visibility, that makes existing investments work together seamlessly. Prepare to leverage inherent AI capabilities of the platform(s), to reduce detection and response times.
 
As threat actors become increasingly sophisticated, the organizations that thrive will be those that achieve unified visibility across their security ecosystem and can respond quickly.
 
By standardizing, integrating, and partnering effectively, organizations can transform their security operations from a collection of disconnected tools into a cohesive defense system. 
 
Learn how CGI can enhance your agency’s cybersecurity capabilities.

Read the case study on CGI's partnership with CISA after the 2020 SolarWinds attack.