Survey Highlighted Multiple Opportunities Where Better Automation Can Help Security Address the Increasing Complexity, Lack of Collaboration and Constant Change Cited as the Top Challenges Faced by Network Security Professionals
Tufin Technologies, the market-leading provider of Security Policy Orchestration solutions, today announced the results of a surveyof 169 security professionals on the current state of security operations. Conducted at Cisco Live! in Milan, Italy in January, 2014, more than 90% of the respondents reported that the on-demand nature of virtualization and the cloud has increased pressure on them to deliver applications and services faster. With more than three quarters of respondents believing virtualization will have the biggest impact on Security Operations over the next 12-18 months, the pace will only accelerate, underscoring the need for increased automation. In order to help security teams stay ahead of the accelerated pace, Tufin, in separate releases also issued today, announced new security, automation and orchestration capabilities and apartnership with IT automation software leader Puppet Labs.
These survey results complement the findings of a larger October 2013 Tufin-commissioned survey in which 71% of more than 500 senior IT professionals found themselves having to adopt new processes, learn new technologies and interact with new people because of these same trends. The Cisco Live! attendee responses pointed to additional problems being caused by the intense pace of change, highlighting several opportunities to improve Security Operations:
“As previous surveys have confirmed, the role of security within Operations is expanding in order to deal with the network security challenges brought on by the cloud and virtualization,” saidRuvi Kitov, Tufin CEO. “This leads to more and deeper collaboration with other IT groups in order to integrate and automate security into areas such as network design, change processes and operational performance. Our customers tell us this is the best way to ensure next generation networks are efficient, agile and equipped to deal with next generation security concerns. We agree and believe intelligent change and process automation will become standards as virtualization and the cloud become more pervasive.”
Survey respondents also made it emphatically clear that the threat landscape itself is changing just as quickly as corporate networks. When asked to name the three developments that will most greatly impact security operations over the next 12-18 months, advanced threats were the number one answer, nosing ahead of virtualization (number two) and the transition of mission critical enterprise apps to the cloud (number three).
However, the survey revealed that Security Operations teams are rising to the challenge. More than three-quarters believed their networks were more secure (55%) or just as secure (22%) than they were five years ago. Plus security teams identified that automation would positively affect the accuracy of policy changes (33%), the lack of consistent processes across departments (25%), and the lack of network control (20%). This underscored the need for a complete automation suite designed to handle these issues with features such as topology mapping and one-click repair.
“It is clear that virtualization and the cloud deliver great benefits but also introduce greater complexity and unforeseen risks that must be addressed,” said Kitov. “Our customers know that automation is necessary to properly safeguard today’s networks and support the needs of the business. Tufin continues to add capabilities to our product suite to provide the best-of breed automation and orchestration solutions needed to deliver the efficiency, agility and collaboration required for their ongoing success.”