During the RSA Conference last week, some attendees visting the F5 Networks booth took part in a quick survey in order to determine what security trends have the greatest impact on their organization’s ability to reach their security desires. The results show that many of them are still struggling.
Data points like the ones from F5 are interesting, because they offer a decent view of a tradeshow’s audience, at the moment of impact so to speak. A majority of those attending RSA are there to scout vendors because they plan on spending money, and the vendors spare no expense in making sure their wares are on display. Yet, no two attendees are looking for the same thing.
So when asked, what trend it was that had the most impact on their organization’s ability to achieve the level of security it desires, respondents said virtualization, followed by complexity of threats (such as DDoS) as the top two responses.
This was followed by the use of personal devices; the fact that their organization has to face internal and external attacks; the shift from data center focused infrastructure to cloud-based infrastructure; and the shift from traditional client-server applications to web-based applications.
The BYOD aspect gained some additional insight, as a majority of respondents say that it is prevalent in their organization, and two-thirds of them say it has a high impact on security. Yet, only one-third of those people (35%) say they are not prepared to secure said employee-owned devices against the threats associated with them.
When it comes to the sky-high computing world, two-thirds (64%) of the respondents said a shift to web-based apps is a trend affecting security, yet only 37% of them cannot provide their organization with adequate security to protect against potential threats. Further, 66% said they see the shift to cloud-based infrastructure as a trend affecting security, yet 49% cannot secure those deployments.
“The security landscape continues to change rapidly and many organizations are struggling to properly address evolving threats,” said Mark Vondemkamp, VP of Product Management for Security at F5.
“Companies will do well to proactively address trends like BYOD and cloud security, but they should also look to raise their game in terms of threat detection and mitigation,” Vondemkamp added. “With employee behavior, business priorities, and infrastructure demands further expanding traditional threat vectors, the proper tools and procedures are essential in maintaining a healthy level of security.”
