Cybersecurity & Networking Archives - Page 10 of 39

Security Hygiene and Posture Management Remains Decentralized and Complex

August 14, 2023

·

Jon Oltsik

Security hygiene and posture management has become increasingly difficult because of factors like a growing attack surface, the increased use of cloud computing, and the need to support a remote workforce. These factors can create security vulnerabilities that lead directly to cyber-attacks. Unfortunately, this pattern will likely persist as most organizations continue to approach security hygiene and posture management with point tools, spreadsheets, and manual processes.

Learn more about these trends with the infographic, Security Hygiene and Posture Management Remains Decentralized and Complex.

Download Now

Nile Secures Series C Funding– Pulls in $175M

August 2, 2023

·

Bob Laliberte

Nile has been out of stealth mode for almost a year now and has been steadily making progress delivering new capabilities, forming partnerships, and acquiring new customers. This $175 Million Series C funding was led by March Capital and Sanabil investments and a number of other strategic and contributing investors. Nile Raises $175M Series C Funding to Propel Its Vision to Redefine Enterprise Networks – Nile (nilesecure.com) An impressive round in an uncertain economy for sure.

Nile’s goal is to deliver next-generation network as a service (NaaS) solutions to its initial target market of k-12 and higher education markets, followed by enterprise customers. Nile delivers wired and wireless campus solutions via a cloud-based management approach that enables organizations to consume an inherently secure wired and wireless campus network entirely as a consumption-based service that includes initial assessment, design, deployment, and streamlined operations of the network.

Back in June, it announced a partnership with Palo Alto Networks to provide integrated security solutions and secure SD-WAN. The two companies have worked together to leverage APIs to integrate network data to provide enhanced zero trust (network, access, and isolation) solutions for their joint customers. Working with a global leader in security like Palo Alto Networks makes sense and its AI-powered and cloud driven approach is a good fit for highly distributed, modern network environments.

Having an initial focus on campus networks is a good choice for a startup like Nile as Wi-Fi technology evolves quickly (Wi-Fi 7 Consumer APs are already out) and high turnover rates (as compared to DC switches) provide an opportunity for Nile to gain traction quickly. Also, organizations are under pressure to re-imagine the campus — for the education market, it is about supporting more devices and ensuring secure and seamless experiences when coming back to campus. For the enterprise, the campus network needs to securely support the return to the office and accommodate bandwidth-intensive collaboration applications via Wi-Fi.

For virtually all markets, Wi-Fi connectivity is viewed as a utility, in the same way older generations simply expected to pick up a phone and get a dial tone (I know, I am showing my age). Nile understands that concept and has developed a solution that removes the complexity from assessing and designing a new solution and accelerates the deployment of new, secure campus wired and wireless technology. With its partnership with Palo Alto Networks, it provides enhanced security and includes secure SD-WAN as well.

Another notable aspect of Nile is who its founders are — namely Pankaj Patel and John Chambers. Many of you may remember John’s other successful startup — no, not Cisco, but Pensando — the company that set out to democratize smart NICs and distributed services for both enterprise and hyperscaler markets. Pensando is now part of AMD (April 2022 acquisition).

Nile came out of stealth with significant go-to-market channels already in place and has spent the last year acquiring customers and deploying solutions with streamlined operations that enable organizations to spend time working on strategic business initiatives and not responding to problems with their Wi-Fi networks. This latest round of funding will give them the opportunity to invest in additional resources to ramp up their go-to-market and deliver more tightly integrated solutions with partners like Palo Alto Networks.

Given the recent funding, next-gen technology, and veteran management team, it’s hard to bet against Nile. However, it should be noted that they do have formidable competition — not only from the established networking leader Cisco, but also from rising challengers, such as Arista, Extreme Networks, HPE Aruba Networking, and Juniper Networks (alphabetical order), that continue to innovate and grow.

Ultimately, this competition will drive innovation and Nile joining the field will only help to create a rising tide that will ultimately benefit all markets and enterprises with more secure, robust, and intelligent network environments. Nile has made a lot of progress in the last 12 months, and I am looking forward to seeing what the next 12 months bring.

Using Defense in Depth to Secure Cloud-stored Data

July 24, 2023

·

Jack Poller

As the amount of data stored in the cloud continues to increase, so too do the challenges of securing that data from malicious attackers. According to research from TechTarget’s Enterprise Strategy Group, organizations are more confident in their ability to secure on-premises data than data saved in the cloud. Indeed, 54% of organizations surveyed considered their on-premises data security strategies to be more effective than their public cloud infrastructure and application data security.

Read my blog to get more insights on how organizations are deploying cloud-native tools from CSPs and third-party tools from MSPs to achieve a defense-in-depth strategy and better secure cloud-resident data.

Security Hygiene and Posture Management Remains Decentralized and Complex

July 21, 2023

·

Jon Oltsik

Research Objectives

Security hygiene and posture management has become increasingly difficult because of factors like a growing attack surface, the increased use of cloud computing, and the need to support a remote workforce. These factors can create security vulnerabilities that lead directly to cyber-attacks. Indeed, a majority of organizations have experienced at least one cyber-incident due to the exploitation of an unknown, unmanaged, or poorly managed internet-facing asset. Unfortunately, this pattern will likely persist as most organizations continue to approach security hygiene and posture management with point tools, spreadsheets, and manual processes. Organizations are prioritizing spending on security hygiene and posture management, focusing on areas like continuous security testing, process automation, and increasing staff. Security professionals also aspire to consolidate disparate point tools into a security observability, prioritization, and validation (SOPV) architecture to gain a holistic perspective across all aspects of security hygiene and posture management.

To gain further insight into these trends, TechTarget’s Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) surveyed 383 IT and cybersecurity professionals at organizations in North America (US and Canada) responsible for evaluating, purchasing, and utilizing products and services for security hygiene and posture management, including vulnerability management, asset management, attack surface management, and security testing tools, among others.

This study sought to answer the following questions:

What are the biggest drivers for organizations’ security hygiene and posture management strategies and programs?
What groups are responsible for defining policies for security hygiene and posture management?
Have organizations automated security hygiene and posture management activities? If so, which ones have been automated?
Why do organizations perform external attack surface discovery?
What do organizations believe are the primary reasons for the increase in their attack surface over the past two years? What actions have they taken to reduce the attack surface?
Have organizations experienced some type of cyber-attack in which the attack itself started through an exploit of an unknown, unmanaged, or poorly managed internet-facing asset?
How often do organizations conduct comprehensive security asset inventory assessments?
What types of databases/systems/tools are currently in use as part of organizations’ IT asset inventory process(es)?
For which assets do organizations have the most difficulty maintaining a timely and accurate inventory?
What are the biggest challenges associated with vulnerability management? How do organizations determine which vulnerabilities to prioritize and patch?
What are the primary reasons organizations conduct penetration tests/red teaming exercises? What actions do they believe would most improve their penetration testing/red teaming program(s)?
How do organizations expect their plans for spending on security hygiene and posture management to change over the next 12 to 18 months?

Survey participants represented a wide range of industries including manufacturing, technology, financial services, and retail/wholesale. For more details, please see the Research Methodology and Respondent Demographics sections of this report.

(more…)

How to Get the Most out of Your MDR Journey

July 20, 2023

·

Dave Gruber

As part of a recent study by TechTarget’s Enterprise Strategy Group, cybersecurity professionals were asked about the processes, tools, and overall assistance they need from managed detection and response (MDR) providers to help their security teams gain control and ensure future security program success. The research revealed that organizations do view MDR as a path to accelerate program development and fill gaps—and, as trust is established, this kind of relationship often grows considerably over time.

(more…)

High Expectations for AI in Network Detection and Response

July 20, 2023

·

John Grady

Amid the proliferation of sophisticated cyber attacks, network security remains an overarching component of an organization’s overall security strategy to detect and respond to threats. Network detection and response (NDR) tools have proven to support a diverse set of use cases, including improving response capabilities, accelerating incident response processes, detecting advanced attacks, and monitoring cloud environments. Security teams recognize artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) embedded in NDR tools are critical in providing more accurate and faster threat detection, as well as greater operational efficiency.

(more…)

Threats to Encrypted Traffic Concern Businesses, but Visibility Gaps Remain

July 20, 2023

·

John Grady

Encrypted threats continue to pose a problem for many businesses. Nearly every organization decrypts and inspects some of its traffic, yet most companies refrain from decrypting all their traffic and therefore lack the visibility necessary to prevent encrypted attacks. Many enterprises use various tools and techniques in the hopes of increasing visibility with and without decryption. Network detection and response tools that detect encrypted threats without decrypting, help close visibility gaps, and prevent attackers from exploiting encrypted traffic are gaining wider attention.

(more…)

Challenges in Securing an Overabundance of Communication and Collaboration Tools

July 20, 2023

·

Dave Gruber

Research Objectives

Assess whether this threat vector is a significant concern for IT and security leaders.
Determine where this expanding threat vector fits into modern security strategies and practice.
Understand where and how organizations are currently securing this threat vector.
Identify key challenges, objectives, and opportunities to mitigate risk.

(more…)

For Stronger Public Cloud Data Security, Use Defense in Depth

July 11, 2023

·

Jack Poller

Public cloud use has been pervasive for years, and digital transformation initiatives and remote work have further accelerated the migration of data assets to cloud stores.

The Cloud Data Security Imperative, an April 2023 research report from TechTarget’s Enterprise Strategy Group, validates that conventional wisdom: More than a quarter of respondents (26%) currently store at least 40% of their corporate data in the public cloud — and this will double over the next two years — 58% of respondents expect to store at least 40% of their data in the public cloud 24 months from now.

Read my blog to get more of my insights into this research.

Cybersecurity

July 6, 2023

·

linchpin

It’s more important than ever to accurately assess underappreciated risk and threat vectors and to identify effective and efficient ways to address them.

Our latest research shows the average number of planned investments in Cybersecurity technology tops all other tech categories we studied.

We work closely with vendors and end users alike to stay up to date on how organizations are investing, what problems they’re trying to solve, and how the market is changing or adapting to the latest trends. Enterprise Strategy Group’s Cybersecurity analysts and research cover every aspect of an organization’s cybersecurity needs and lifecycle, including:

Application security
Cloud security
Cyber risk management
Data security
Identity & access management
Network security
Security operations
Threat detection & response
User protection

Research Brief

Tool Consolidation and AI Push Cybersecurity Data Fabrics Forward

Today’s cybersecurity teams encounter issues such as fragmented tools, siloed data, and increased operational complexity, reducing their effectiveness in managing business and technology risks. Recent findings from Enterprise Strategy Group show a shift toward tool consolidation and the integration of cybersecurity data security fabrics and comprehensive platforms to tackle these challenges. This brief examines how […]

Analysts Covering Cybersecurity

John Grady

Principal Analyst, Network Security & Web Application Security

Areas of Expertise

Bot Mitigation
CASB
DDoS
Firewall
IPS
Microsegmentation

Dave Gruber

Principal Analyst, Ransomware, SecOps & Services

Areas of Expertise

All Things Security Operations
Leveraging AI in SecOps
Managed Detection & Response
MidMarket Cybersecurity Strategies
Ransomware Security Strategies
Security Analytics

Gabe Knuth

Principal Analyst, End-user Computing & User Protection

Areas of Expertise

Desktop & App Virtualization (VDI)
Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS)
Digital Employee Experience (DEX)
Digital Workspaces
Email Security
End-User Devices & Hardware

Melinda Marks

Practice Director, Cybersecurity

Areas of Expertise

API Security
Application Security
Cloud Security Posture Management
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms
Cloud-native Technologies
Container Security

Tyler Shields

Principal Analyst, Risk & Vulnerability Management

Areas of Expertise

API Security
Application Security Posture Management
Attack Surface Risk Management
GRC/Compliance
Offensive Security Technologies
Pen Testing Services

Aaron Tan

Regional Director, Analyst Services, APAC

Areas of Expertise

Application Modernization & DevOps
Business Applications
Cloud Computing
Cybersecurity
DevOps
IaaS/Cloud

Todd Thiemann

Principal Analyst, IAM & Data Security

Areas of Expertise

Agentic AI
Data Loss Prevention
Data Security Posture Management
Encryption & Key Management
Identity & Access Management (IAM)
Identity and Data Security for AI

Recent Cybersecurity Insights

Research Brief | June 6, 2025

The Imperative to Involve Security Starting Early in Application Development Processes

Melinda Marks
Emily Marsh
Bill Lundell

Research Brief | June 6, 2025

IT Roles Show Discrepancies in Application Development Perspectives

Melinda Marks
Emily Marsh
Bill Lundell

Research Brief | May 21, 2025

Strategic Use of Managed Services in Security Operations

Dave Gruber
Emily Marsh
Bill Lundell

Research Brief | May 21, 2025

Large SOCs Take a Multifaceted Approach to Optimizing Security Operations

Dave Gruber
Emily Marsh
Bill Lundell

Centralizing Cloud Data Security Management, Decentralizing Security Controls

July 5, 2023

·

Jack Poller

Facing pressure to do more work with fewer resources and a continuing cybersecurity skills shortage, organizations are looking to consolidate resources to drive more efficiencies in securing cloud-resident data while reducing overall risk. To secure data across hybrid environments, organizations are consolidating the efforts of on-premises and cloud data security teams. Multiple stakeholders, led by cloud security architects, create consistent security policies and determine security control requirements. Organizations also want an integrated platform that combines multiple security tools and controls and provides a global view of all organizational data. In the long run, controls tailored to secure data based on where it resides (on premises, SaaS, or IaaS/PaaS) will be used to account for the different techniques used across different environments.

(more…)

Challenges in Securing Cloud-resident Data

July 5, 2023

·

Jack Poller

The complexity of cloud environments and the speed and scale of operations in the cloud drive the multitude of challenges organizations face in securing their cloud-resident sensitive data. The most difficult challenges include discovery and classification of data as well as ensuring compliance with regulations. Despite confidence in their data security tools, organizations continue to lose data due to misconfiguration, misclassification, and unknown (shadow) data. Implementing a defense-in-depth strategy that combines third-party and CSP-native tools and controls can overcome these challenges in securing cloud-resident sensitive data.

(more…)