FINAL WORD
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WITHOUT 360-DEGREE VISIBILITY , THOSE RESPONSIBLE FOR SAFEGUARDING THE SANCTITY OF AN ORGANIZATION ’ S DATA ARE FLYING BLIND .
Aaron Ross , APAC Manager of Technical Services at Paessler
Australian cyber spy agency into their networks to fend off any major attacks .
This includes those operating ports , waterworks , power plants , telecommunications , defense organizations , universities , financial services firms , banks , healthcare organizations and those in the food and grocery sectors . There are severe penalties for non-compliance in excess of A $ 10,000 per day .
Most organizations today have multiple solutions that provide visibility across cloud workloads , on-premise , database , distributed endpoints and users . This quickly results in a fragmented view of an enterprise ’ s critical infrastructure .
Fragmented view
There is currently a high dependency on point solutions for critical infrastructure visibility when what is needed is a unified 360-degree view of the entire technology infrastructure . CIOs trying to solve the visibility issue are frustrated with too many complex , reactive solutions , which makes them vulnerable to sophisticated threats and attacks , as well as network downtime . Vulnerability management is not high enough on the priority list for most organizations and despite being advised to take a risk assessment approach to vulnerability , boards need to be educated on the importance of moving away from just checking a box to actually managing risk .
A research study , conducted by the Ponemon Institute , The State of Vulnerability Management in the Cloud and On- Premises , highlights the vulnerability management challenges for hybrid multicloud environments . The importance of automated , risk-based prioritization is one of the report ’ s key takeaways . It also said that the most dangerous security vulnerabilities continue to expose critical assets as a result of chasing down false positives and vulnerabilities that pose minimal risks .
IT administrators are struggling to gain visibility into the far corners of their critical infrastructure and often do not know how to prioritize risk . This blurry vision of the network adds pressure on already resource stretched IT teams to prioritize security in order to protect their critical infrastructure . Without 360-degree visibility , those responsible for safeguarding the sanctity of an organization ’ s data are flying blind .
Combating threats
In the battle to protect their hybrid multicloud networks in an increasingly threatheavy environment , other tools such as encryption can get in the way . Without the ability to perform what is often known as ‘ SSL inspection ’ or ‘ break and inspect ’, organizations can ’ t examine much of the data moving in or out of their networks .
A mass of scattered information means it is difficult to identify a malicious user , a lateral threat or suspicious activity across a distributed network . Without comprehensive visibility , how do you identify and protect high risk , critical assets ?
Post-COVID vulnerabilities
We are beginning to see skeleton staff that operated during COVID-19 now return to the workplace , in a staggered fashion . This adjustment in workflows can lead to mishaps and without full visibility lead to anomalies and changes to assets and devices in the environment , vulnerabilities brought in from devices that were used in the home can unknowingly cause major issues .
According to an article by the Australian law firm , Minter Ellison , lingering issues with remote access now constitute a threat to core business operations and stability . IT and telecommunications systems face new levels of strain and the impact of those systems failing has intensified .
360-degree visibility helps performance
In most enterprises there are separate teams , using different tools , to handle network performance monitoring ( NPM ) and application performance monitoring ( APM ) when they really need a system that delivers powerful network discovery , detailed device inventory and automatic network maps . These need to be brought together in a unified system to achieve real-time , end-to-end performance monitoring and troubleshooting , and proactive problem resolution .
Australian organizations should look at a system that provides network traffic analytics and contextual forensic insight to the traffic flowing across their networks , allowing them to monitor , visualize and report on every network conversation . The ultimate goal is to resolve degradation in user experience before users even notice there is a problem . •
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