EDITOR ’ S QUESTION
The sudden and immediate need to create a secure and collaborative digital workplace prompted businesses to increase their cloud adoption . This new mix of multiple cloud services has created a lot of ‘ spinning plates ’ for organizations to manage – the most difficult of which have been security and compliance requirements .
As businesses sought to support the hybrid workforce and innovate their way out of the crisis , the Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Index ( ECI ) reported 63 % of business who use public cloud use two or more public cloud providers . But this also created an upswing in cyberattacks , with McAfee reporting that businesses are facing a staggering 630 % increase in external attacks on cloud accounts .
In fact , Gartner reports that 99 % of the vulnerabilities exploited are ones known by security and IT professionals at the time of the incident . This means the biggest challenge organizations have in achieving effective cloud security is not implementing the newest and greatest security product or technology , but effectively managing the solutions they already have .
In other words , CCTV cameras will help deter burglars from robbing someone ’ s home , but only if the owners lock their doors or windows . Leave your doors wide open , and the complex matrix of bolt-on security products become senseless .
While there ’ s no silver bullet against cyberattacks , businesses need to implement security best practices at the foundation – the infrastructure level .
To do so , there are three main factors to overcome : Infrastructure complexity , labour-intensive maintenance and human error . workloads to the public cloud only produces more security systems for stretched IT departments to learn . Having a single platform that can manage any and all clouds , from public right through to private and edge sites , alleviates this complexity .
COVID-19 has pushed organizations to pay more attention to IT – with 76 % of respondents to our ECI Report saying IT is now viewed more strategically – but the CIO ’ s renewed relevance , while positive , is putting more pressure on an already boiling kettle .
To compensate , tasks perceived to be less urgent , such as patching , are being deprioritized or not completed . This leaves security tools vulnerable , not from new exploits , but from known vulnerabilities . Automating such processes can liberate professionals to focus on more strategic initiatives , without the headache of routine , labour-intensive tasks .
But unfortunately , human error still comprises a significant number of the vulnerabilities being exploited by bad actors . Although nothing can prevent human errors , having a single management plane will enable organizations to see all their managed infrastructure , and see what their security posture really is at a snapshot .
As technology and cloud solutions become more pervasive , hackers will endlessly craft new and creative ways to access business data . Deploying an invisible layer of technology that automates workloads across any cloud and reduces human intervention in low-level processes enables organizations to take control of their critical data , safely and securely , while also allowing skilled engineers to focus on tasks that move the needle . p
Silos of infrastructure create pockets of varied tooling requirements throughout the ecosystem and deploying
MATT MAW , HEAD OF TECHNOLOGY STRATEGY
A / NZ , AT NUTANIX
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