Siloed technology management increases operational blind spots and cyber risk

Oomnitza revealed a snapshot survey, conducted by Gatepoint Research, which found that siloed technology management is increasing operational blind spots and cyber risk.

While 76% of enterprises employ multiple systems to oversee the underlying technology that supports their IT and business services, 71% of IT leaders anticipate increased security breaches and operational expenditures.

According to IDC, 60% of the total U.S. workforce will be mobile workers by 2024. While IDC expects cloud workload migration to grow in the double digits, shadow IT growth, demonstrated by the use of unauthorized cloud services, has become a commonplace occurrence within as much as half of all industries.

In addition, a recent PWC survey showed that a third of executives support a mixed in-person, hybrid, and remote workplace model. The influx of technology, combined with mobile, cloud, and hybrid workplace dynamics, are challenging conventional enterprise IT asset discovery, lifecycle management, and security controls.

“The siloed and costly ways enterprise organizations manage their IT estate today are affecting IT service delivery and satisfaction, budgeting and audit efficacy, and Cyber Asset Attack Surface Management (CAAS) integrity,” said Arthur Lozinski, CEO of Oomnitza. “The survey findings serve to raise awareness of increasing enterprise technology management challenges and how IT leaders are responding.”

The survey examines how enterprises are governing technology, the operations issues and business impact they are experiencing, and where they intend to make investments. The research found that solely relying on disparate systems to manage classes of technology, from endpoints and applications, to network and cloud infrastructure, does not provide the integrated visibility, lifecycle control, or automation necessary to optimize resources and manage risk.

The risk of siloed technology management

• Technology management: 76% of enterprises are using multiple systems to find inventory data about different technologies
• Security impact: 71% expressed increased risk of security breach and associated costs
• Top operational issues: Insecure and lost endpoints, unaccounted for or incorrect data on assets, poor visibility into asset status, lack of compliance adherence, and overspending on software and cloud resources
• SaaS oversight: A quarter of enterprises use more than 100 SaaS applications and 15% use more than 200 SaaS applications
• Top 5 business impacts: Include wasted spend in software licenses or cloud services, lost time tracking down asset status/details, wasted spend due to unaccounted assets, delays onboarding/offboarding employees, and compliance audit fines and exposure
• Corrective action timeframe: 52% intend to take corrective action for technology management this year with 11% having projects already underway
• Desired management capabilities: Key focus areas were unified technology view and data, comprehensive asset discovery and tracking, security policy enforcement and lifecycle process automation, and mechanisms to improve employee experience