Less is More: Consolidating Cybersecurity Tools Improves Enterprise Security

Many enterprise businesses are grappling with cybersecurity tool sprawl, and as they invest in numerous tools, they risk missing gaps in coverage, duplicating efforts, masking hidden vulnerabilities, and exposing new ones. Couple that reality with a well-documented security skills shortage and enterprises are struggling to equip their security organizations with the right technologies and talent to protect assets, data, and customers. 

Managed security services represent an alternative to multiple on-premises solutions that solves both the tools and skills challenges in one fell swoop. Partnering with a managed security services provider (MSSP) will provide the protections enterprise organizations need with leading-edge security technologies as well as bring any lacking security expertise to the security operations center (SOC). 

Fewer Tools, Better Results 

The state of cybersecurity tool sprawl is driving many to consider reducing the number of tools and vendors they use to secure their enterprise. 

CDW in March 2024 conducted a survey of more than 950 technology and security professionals across the U.S. and found that the majority of respondents had between 10 and 19 security tools and/or platforms running in their organization. Another 31% reported running between 20 and 29 tools, while 10% said they have between 50 and 99 security tools. Just 16% said they had fewer than 10 tools, and only 5% reported having more than 100. 

Statistics like these have industry watchers predicting that companies will consolidate the number of security tools and vendors they rely on to protect their organizations. Gartner in a 2022 survey found that 75% of organizations are looking to consolidate security vendors, a number that had increased by 29% from 2020. The Gartner survey revealed that 65% of respondents wanted to consolidate tools to improve their overall risk posture. 

Separately, IDC’s North American Tools/Vendors Consolidation Survey showed that nearly half of organizations are looking to consolidate threat intelligence; security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR); NDR, and XDR in some way. IDC reports that 60% of organizations began their consolidation efforts in 2023. According to IDC’s survey, organizations expect cybersecurity tool consolidation to reduce mean time to respond (MTTR) by an average of almost 21% and decrease remediation time by 19.5%. 

How Managed Security Services Can Help 

MSSPs specialize in security delivered as a service, and depending on the environment, will provide managed cybersecurity for highly distributed organizations—ensuring every asset and location received consistent protections. 

Partnering with an MSSP will kickstart any consolidation efforts and simplify the management of security tools across an organization. MSSPs can offload as much monitoring and threat hunting as the customer needs. Because customers often end up with multiple security tools and vendors, their attempts to manage security introduce more system complexity and, in some cases, increased network latency. An MSSP consolidates multiple security services under one provider, effectively reducing the tool management burden for the customer. 

Security service providers can also provide improved security coverage and monitoring. For instance, customers might have gaps in their security coverage and an MSSP will offer a more comprehensive suite of security services including EDR, MDR, and NDR to address some of those gaps. One example is east-west traffic: many organizations monitor north-south traffic, or the traffic moving in and out of a network, but some struggle to see east-west traffic, or the traffic that is moving laterally within a network—typically once an attacker has gained access they try to move laterally within an environment. 

Monitoring east-west traffic is crucial to detect and respond to internal threats and prevent the attacker from gaining additional privileges because the bad actor has already bypassed the outer defenses. 

By choosing an MSSP, customers reduce the number of vendors and tools they must manage immediately as well as lessen the training overhead they might incur from keeping staff up-to-date on the most recent security tools. With an MSSP, customers can tap into a team of specialized security experts to augment the customer’s internal staff. 

Hughes Managed Security Services 

Hughes provides a comprehensive suite of security solutions, including threat monitoring, intrusion detection, vulnerability scanning, incident response, and more through a cloud-based platform. 

Hughes utilizes artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyze network data and identify potential threats proactively, while offering 24/7 support and expert security analysts to manage and respond to security incidents on behalf of our clients. AI is also utilized for user behavior analytics and pattern recognition, flagging things for the SOC team that go against pre-established norms. 

MSSPs like Hughes often partner with leading-edge security providers. For instance, Hughes teams up with Fortinet for unified threat management (UTM) and firewalls. Hughes partners with Netskope for secure access service edge (SASE) solutions. Hughes collaborates with Lumifi for endpoint detection and response (EDR) as well as some aspects of managed detection and response (MDR). Hughes partners with Cynamics to provide Network Detection and Response (NDR) capabilities. Partnerships such as these enable Hughes to offer its customers the best-of-breed security solutions and manage the complexity of a full stack security architecture. 

Working with Hughes Managed Security Services can help organizations reduce the number of tools needed to protect their environment and increase the security expertise watching over their distributed networks. 

Learn more about Hughes Managed Security Services here.