IT and security teams are consolidating management and security functions to help better deliver new applications to end users, improve regulatory compliance, and reduce cyberattacks resulting from poor coordination between endpoint security and management teams, according to Syxsense.
Endpoint security blind spots
For example, a key report finding indicates that unmanaged device usage continues to increase, with most organizations having endpoint security blind spots – only 43% of respondents claim to be actively monitoring 75% or more of endpoints.
Despite these blind spots, and the fact that unmanaged device usage is growing, most survey respondents believe endpoint security (56%) and management (58%) are getting easier compared to two years ago.
Furthermore, 91% of organizations report consolidating some or all of the teams and individuals responsible for endpoint management and security. And almost half (48%) are consolidating endpoint management and security vendors (with 43% consolidating or integrating observability and security monitoring technologies).
Integration and tool consolidation
Management and security tool sprawl also continues to present challenges for IT and security teams and is driving the desire for better integration and tool consolidation. With 68% of organizations using more than 11 tools for endpoint management and security, there is a correlation between the increase in number of tools and a loss of comprehensive device management.
In fact, half of organizations with more than 15 tools report more than 20% of their devices are unmanaged, compared to only 5% of unmanaged devices with teams using fewer than 5 tools. As a result of this sprawl, organizations are combining endpoint management and security teams to improve service levels, gain efficiencies, improve compliance, and reduce attacks.
“The endpoint management and security market has changed dramatically over the past two years driven by a remote workforce and increased device usage. These changes are creating more endpoint visibility gaps, which ultimately translate into increased risk and attacks,” said Ashley Leonard, CEO at Syxsense. “But this also presents opportunity for vendors to better consolidate functionality – for IT and security teams to work from a common view of asset inventory – to centralize endpoint management and security. And with the rise in app and desktop virtualization and IoT devices, there’s even further opportunity to ease the management burden of IT and security teams for endpoints.”
Top priorities for organization
Some additional key insights from the report include that device diversity is on the rise, increasing management responsibilities and the attack surface.
The report shows that the use of general purpose IoT devices is accelerating in most organizations and is a top priority driving management and security consolidation. Also, unmanaged device use is growing across organizations of all sizes, increasing risk. For organizations with 1,000-4,999 devices 34% are unmanaged, with more than half reporting experiencing several cyberattacks as the result of poorly managed endpoint devices.