Lacework this week revealed it is adding an agentless approach to securing workloads that can be employed alongside the agent software the company already makes available for the Lacework Polygraph Data Platform.

Kate MacLean, senior director of product marketing for Lacework, said the agentless approach, available in alpha, is intended to make securing runtimes simpler for IT organizations that prefer to not have to deploy software. The tradeoff is that the existing agent software developed by Lacework is required to maintain continuous monitoring of those runtimes.

In most cases, Lacework expects organizations will eventually mix and match both approaches depending on the nature of the workload, she added.

MacLean said Lacework is pursuing a comprehensive approach to security that combines signatures with behavioral analytics to secure IT environments versus requiring security teams to opt for one approach over another. That approach can then be applied to both emerging cloud-native, container-based applications and legacy monolithic applications, she added.

In general, Lacework is making a case for centralizing security management at a time when the size of the attack surface is expanding and there is more sensitivity to cost. Rather than implementing multiple security frameworks for each platform, it is more cost-effective to employ a platform that provides a single control plane through which cybersecurity can be managed, noted MacLean.

It’s not clear whether organizations are revisiting their cybersecurity strategies but in the wake of a series of high-profile breaches, it’s apparent that legacy approaches that focus mainly on protecting the perimeter are insufficient. The challenge is that stacking additional layers of security is expensive, both in terms of acquisition and finding personnel capable of managing them. However, as cybercriminals become more adept at exploiting a wider range of vulnerabilities, organizations are finding they need to finally move beyond relying on firewalls and endpoint security software.

In the meantime, from a management perspective, cybersecurity is evolving into more of a team sport. Cybersecurity professionals are working more closely with IT operations teams and developers—there is not enough cybersecurity talent available to implement all the policies required. In many cases, responsibility for security operations is shifting left toward, for example, DevOps teams to make up for the lack of cybersecurity personnel. In effect, responsibility for managing security workflows is now spread out across multiple teams.

Regardless of the approach, there is not—nor will there ever be—such a thing as perfect security. However, organizations make it too easy today for cybercriminals to compromise their IT environment. Cybersecurity must be strengthened and prioritized well beyond what is called for in a compliance mandate. Like it or not, cybersecurity is now a major cost of doing business in the age of digital transformation. It’s not so much a question of whether cybersecurity will become more costly to maintain as much as it is about how to limit costs by employing the right combination of products, people and processes.