MSSP Opportunity: IT Trends Create Security Gap

Organizations are struggling to keep pace with the changing face of security, pointing to a potential opportunity for managed security services providers (MSSPs) to come to the rescue, a survey suggested. Many organizations are struggling to keep up with increasing security demands, including bring your own device (BYOD), virtualization, and the complexity of attack types. These organizations are less than adequate in protecting against threats related to these trends, with roughly one-third of respondents reporting that their security readiness is inadequate. Here's the scoop.

Application networking delivery provider F5 Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: FFIV) released the findings of its 2013 RSA Security Trends Survey, revealing that organizations are struggling to keep pace with the changing face of security. More than 150 respondents with IT responsibilities over planning, management, oversight, or implementation of security took part in the survey at last week's RSA conference in San Francisco.

Security is changing
Virtualization, the increasing complexity of threats, and BYOD were reported to be the top areas of concern. Each of these areas restrict organizations to a less than adequate level of security, leaving them vulnerable to various attacks. The shift in hacker motivation, data center focused infrastructure to cloud-based infrastructure, and traditional client-server applications to web-based applications were also top areas of concern.

BYOD is critical, but not critical enough
While 75 percent of respondents revealed that they see BYOD as being prevalent in their organization, 35 percent responded that they are not prepared to provide adequate security to protect against threats associated with BYOD, even though 66 percent believed that BYOD has an extremely high impact on security.

The shift to web-based applications and cloud-based infrastructure
As organizations shift to web-based applications and cloud-based infrastructures, many lack the security to do so. Nearly 64 percent of respondents see the shift to web-based applications as a trend affecting security, but 37 percent of respondents’ organizations are not providing adequate enough security to protect against potential threats. The findings for cloud-based infrastructure, however, were even more shocking. 66 percent of respondents see the shift to cloud-based infrastructure as a trend affecting security, yet 49 percent of respondents’ organizations are not providing adequate security to protect against potential threats.

IT trends are making security more complex
Security is becoming more complex. With that being said, many organizations revealed that traditional safeguards were less than adequate in protecting against threats resulting from IT trends, including the shift from traditional client-server applications to web-based applications; the shift from data center focused infrastructure to cloud-based infrastructure; BYOD; increased external threats; and increasing insider threats.