Enterprises today struggle with an ongoing battle to defend against online attackers that can strike at any moment. Whether it’s viruses or denial-of-service attacks or unauthorized website access, if these offenders succeed, they can wreak havoc by impacting business operations and workforce productivity, damaging the infrastructure, and creating security breaches that can harm a company’s reputation. Successful compromises or breaches are also expensive, in terms of operational impact, resources required to remedy the breach and potential loss of business.

 

The need for information security is broadly accepted. A successful security program demands deep insight into the current threat landscape. It also requires a strategic approach to managing the cost and complexity of the security technologies needed for security event and log management, vulnerability scanning, email security, and other activities. However, with the wide variety of current and emerging security threats, companies managing their own information security often lack the in-house resources required to protect online systems on a 24/7 basis.

 

Advanced security practices require highly skilled personnel who can be expensive to recruit, hire, and retain a challenge for firms with limited IT budgets. In addition, implementing and managing security solutions can divert IT resources from other critical initiatives, including preventing the next attack. Instead, IT teams are forced into a reactive posture that ignores the more important strategic role of an IT security function.