The face of cybersecurity operations management is changing. As new threats surface, organizations require new ways to effectively manage and control incidents and requests in an efficient manner. The answer to this problem in the past has been to utilize different, disparate solutions for each facet of one’s business infrastructure, such as network, endpoint and cloud.
This presents a new set of challenges for SecOps, ITOps, and NetOps teams having to monitor multiple solutions to manage one complete network. These separate systems generate a monumental amount of alerts, bogging down engineering teams and taking time away from identifying and focusing on real threats.
An integrated platform that combines all aspects of a company’s network adds an enhanced layer of security and a less complex, more cohesive, and cost-effective way to manage tickets and alerts while communicating effectively across cross-functional teams.
Integrated Platforms Offer Increased Security
Utilizing separate tools to monitor your entire network can create serious gaps in security. When an influx of alerts comes in, SOC teams are forced to quickly scan them, prioritize what they can, and ignore the rest. After all, there are only so many qualified engineers on a team and only so many hours in the workday. This can lead to unimportant alerts being reviewed, while potentially legitimate ones are left in the queue untouched. Failing to act on legitimate alerts can lead to data breaches, malware infiltration, or worse.
Utilizing an integrated security platform with Artificial Intelligence (AI) embedded within the solution is a game-changer for SecOps teams because it can learn over time which alerts are routine and can be ignored. As the AI platform collects more data and learned behaviors of the engineers running the tool, automated workflows can be created to immediately dismiss those alerts that don’t need to be addressed by a human. This saves a highly skilled engineer from having to manually review them, freeing up their time to address higher-priority issues.
Integrated Solutions Are More Cohesive
Using independent solutions to monitor and manage each portion of a corporate infrastructure immediately puts both the business and the teams responsible for managing the tools at a disadvantage. CIOs are faced with either staffing multiple teams to support the various tools or making one team responsible for intimately understanding each platform. This results in low morale, frustration among teams, and more room for human error.
An integrated solution allows businesses using either model – either separate teams responsible for each portion of a network or a single team managing them all, to consolidate all monitoring and working tools into a single platform. This is extremely beneficial because engineers aren’t wasting time trying to master each tool and won’t have to switch back and forth between each to completely monitor all alerts. With an integrated solution, all engineers work out of the same tool, monitoring, troubleshooting, and communicating as one cohesive unit.
Integrated Platforms Are More Intuitive
One of the major concerns with utilizing separate tools to manage every faction of a business network is that each tool comes with its own reporting platform. This forces CIOs and business analysts to navigate through multiple reports each month to evaluate the effectiveness of each tool. Having to analyze multiple points on the network takes time and energy, and can lead to false statistics because those reviewing them are forced to come to their own conclusions about the information they are given.
Integrated platforms combine all reporting into one effective reporting engine and provide enhanced insight into the network as a whole. Analysts are no longer forced to draw their own conclusions. Additionally, integrated platforms and the AI that runs them allow different factions of the network to feed off of one another, creating more robust, holistic reports.
Integrated Platforms Save Businesses Money
One of the most troublesome aspects of utilizing siloed tools to manage an entire network is that as new technologies are implemented, new solutions are required to manage and monitor them. Oftentimes, CIOs, SOC Administrators, and other decision-makers are forced to engage with multiple vendors to procure tools that support their infrastructure as a whole.
Utilizing a singular, integrated platform frees SOC teams from having to understand and use tools from different vendors, where the workflows, reports, and alerts may be different. Since integrated tools combine all aspects of network management into a single interface, businesses have the opportunity to utilize one vendor, saving a substantial amount of money.
Integrated Security With Cisco SecureX
Disparate tools for managing one business network are quickly becoming obsolete in favor of integrated platforms. Solutions like Cisco SecureX offer a way for CIOs to manage their cloud, network, and endpoint infrastructure from a single platform, strengthening the security infrastructure and enhancing collaboration across cross-functional teams.
This comprehensive platform includes robust reporting and communication tools and can be used with Cisco-exclusive enterprises or those that have a mix of network and security tools.
For more information on how Cisco SecureX’s intuitive solution can help your NetOps, DevOps, and SecOps teams optimize how they manage your network, download the SecureX Whitepaper: From Complex to Cohesive, or check the solution out at a glance.
