A comprehensive global study from the IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV) with Palo Alto Networks reveals the challenges organizations face regarding security complexity, with respondents managing an average of 83 disparate security solutions sourced from 29 different vendors.
70% of companies that have achieved a high degree of security platformization report tangible business outcomes from their cybersecurity investments, including enhanced operational efficiencies and increased revenue streams.
The study, “Capturing the cybersecurity dividend: How security platforms generate business value,” indicates that 52% of executives recognize that the fragmentation of their security solutions hinders their ability to effectively address cyber threats, while 75% of organizations that have adopted a platformized security approach agree that enhanced integration among security measures, hybrid cloud, AI, and other technology frameworks is essential.
Cyberattacks have evolved in sophistication and become more challenging to defend against, while the application of AI by both defenders and adversaries heightens the urgency in advancing cybersecurity capabilities.
In an evolving threat landscape, surveyed executives estimate security fragmentation and complexity costs their organizations an average of 5% of their annual revenue. For a $20 billion annual revenue company, that’s a $1 billion cost to the business in aggregate. Tally the costs of security incidents, lost productivity, failed digital transformations, stalled AI initiatives, loss of customer trust and reputational damage and the numbers add up.
“Organizations continue to be challenged with updating their security posture to address new threats while simultaneously being pressed to reduce complexity and decrease spend,” said Mark Hughes, Global Managing Partner for Cybersecurity Services, IBM. “Security executives need to enable innovation, protect assets, and derive value from their cybersecurity investments to help their organizations thrive and further their business goals.”
Also Read: IBM and Pasqal collaborate for quantum-centric supercomputing with QiskitThis recent survey shows the crucial insight from surveyed business leaders:
- 52% of executives say complexity is the biggest impediment to their cybersecurity operations;
- 80% agree they face pressure to reduce the cost of security, and 41% say security fragmentation has driven up procurement costs;
- 4 out of 5 non-platform organizations say their security operations cannot effectively deal with the sheer quantity of threats and attacks;
- 80% of platformization adopters say they have full visibility into potential vulnerabilities and threats; and,
- For platformized organizations, mean time to identify (MTTI) and mean time to contain (MTTC) security incidents are shorter by an average of 72 and 84 days, respectively.
“We have seen the positive impacts of adopting a platformized approach to security, and the benefits it delivers to organizations. In today’s AI-fueled world, strong partnerships are more essential than ever,” said Karim Temsamani, President of Next Generation Security at Palo Alto Networks. “IBM and Palo Alto Networks are aligned on a common vision of creating better outcomes for our customers – whether in value, operational, or security…and platformization accomplishes all of them. This isn’t just about improving fragmentation today, it’s about enabling better outcomes for the future.”
