Understanding the State of Endpoint Security
What You Need to Know About the State of Endpoint SecurityBy Ericka Chickowski
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The Ponemon Institute recently conducted a study on behalf of Lumension to take the pulse of decision makers from both IT security and IT operations groups about endpoint management and security. Unsurprisingly, Ponemon found among the key findings that endpoint management systems still remain too complex and costly for organizations and IT ops and security still don’t quite see eye-to-eye when it comes to keeping endpoints both safe and reliable. The study surveyed more than 3,000 participants from five countries, with a rough half-and-half ratio between ops and security players.
Security Budgets Hold
More than 53% of participants reported that their IT security budget will likely stay the same in 2010.
Endpoint Disruptors
Among key technologies that affect the manageability and security of endpoints, the one most likely to see increased use in 2010 was cloud computing, with 69% of participants predicting a boost.
Endpoint Disruptors
Around 68% of those surveyed believed they would increase use of virtualization in 2010.
Endpoint Disruptors
Another 65% said they would bump up use of Web 2.0 next year.
Endpoint Management Complexities
On average, organizations have 3.7 software agents installed on each endpoint to perform management, security or other operations tasks.
Endpoint Management Complexities
The average number of distinct software management consoles for endpoint operations tallies up to 3.9.
Personal Devices, No Policies
Approximately 40% of respondents reported that employees can connect their own devices to enterprise networks, yet only 26% have a policy that permits those employees to do so.
Ops-Security Collaboration Woes
Only 17% of those surveyed see collaboration between security and operations as excellent.
Ops-Security Collaboration Woes
31% believe collaboration between the two groups is poor or non-existent in their organizations.
Ops-Security Collaboration Woes
The perception of problems in managing endpoints differs between ops and security.
Ops-Security Collaboration Woes
For example, 43% of operations people said that overly complex technology is a top difficulty with endpoint management, while only 18% of security responded similarly.
Ops-Security Collaboration Woes
In the same vein, 41% of security participants listed misalignment of IT with the business as a top difficulty, while only 24% of operations respondents said the same.
Some Agreement
One problem that both groups agreed was a big problem: lack of skilled personnel.
PC Lifecycle Management
Currently only 38% of surveyed organizations have PC lifecycle management solution that includes features such as asset, configuration or patch management.
PC Lifecycle Management
An additional 41% say they plan on implementing such a tool in the next one to two years.
Endpoint Management Wish List
80% of all respondents wish for antivirus and antimalware in their integrated endpoint management suite.
Endpoint Management Wish List
70% wish for whole disk encryption.
Endpoint Management Wish List
65% want whitelist application control.
Endpoint Management Wish List
68% demand patch and remediation management.
Endpoint Management Wish List
61% wish for IT asset management.