Get the Gum’ Off of Your Cybersecurity Shoes’

If you’ve ever stepped in some gum (and who hasn’t, really?), you know what an unpleasant experience that can be. Stepping in gum makes it challenging to move forward—your shoe sticks to the ground again with each step. Nobody wants gum on their shoe, and the natural response to getting gum on your shoe is to remove it as soon as possible—not add more. In the world of cybersecurity, unfortunately, there are many vendors out there trying to sell you more gum to fix the gum on your shoe problem.

Stepping in Cybersecurity ‘Gum’

Most organizations understand the importance of effective cybersecurity—but it’s not their primary focus. They are in the business of developing and selling products and services and don’t want or need cybersecurity solutions that get in the way of that. They want protection, but not at the expense of productivity.

The problem for many companies, though, is that there are no “silver bullet” solutions that will magically just block all malware and prevent all exploits. You also can’t dabble in cybersecurity. Implementing and maintaining cybersecurity effectively requires the right tools, but it also requires individuals with the right knowledge and skills to monitor it and respond appropriately to security events.

Making Things Even Stickier

Hundreds of cybersecurity vendors and tens of thousands of cybersecurity professionals and customers descended on Las Vegas for the Black Hat conference. When I asked Ryan Berg, Engineering Fellow at Alert Logic, for his thoughts on the event after walking the expo floor and hearing what some of the vendors were pitching, he responded, “Well, I’ve been working in security for a long time, and I think that there’s a lot of vendors out here that are trying to take gum and put it on your shoe.”

What does that mean? It means that there is no shortage of cybersecurity vendors out there creating solutions that address niche problems or gaps in other cybersecurity solutions. The problem is that each of these solutions has a cost, and each of these solutions requires that resources be dedicated, and time and effort invested to properly implement, configure, and manage the tools. In many cases, these solutions also introduce new problems—adding “gum” to your cybersecurity “shoe” and providing an opportunity for some other vendor to make things even stickier with another tool to fix that issue.

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Get the ‘Gum’ Out of Your Cybersecurity

Is it possible for an organization to implement and manage cybersecurity effectively? Maybe. But it won’t be cheap, and it won’t be easy. Monitoring and responding to incidents will require resources and detract from the primary focus of the business—adding “gum” that slows the business down. Even in a best-case scenario, the overall view of the threat landscape will ultimately be myopic and make it more difficult to proactively avoid threats.

Don’t step in “gum” and don’t try to fix the problem by adding more “gum” to your shoe.

Alert Logic SIEMless threat management and intelligence driven threat detection provide affordable, cost effective cybersecurity. Focus on developing and delivering innovative products and services for your customers, and let Alert Logic worry about defending your networks and protecting your data. Alert Logic can take the “gum” off of our shoe so you can move forward with confidence and peace of mind.