Widespread data silos slow down security response times

While the goals and challenges of IT and security professionals are aligned, 72% say security and IT data are siled within their organization, which Ivanti says contributes to organizational misalignment and increased security risk.

Leadership plays a key role in breaking down data silos

Due to insufficient data, IT and security specialists report the following:

• 63% say isolated data improves security response times.
• 54% say siled data weakens their organization’s security posture.
• 41% have difficulty managing cybersecurity together.
• They strive to make informed security decisions regarding software used by employees (including Shadow IT) (47%), devices that access networks and/or corporate resources (42%), and determining what vulnerabilities their systems expose (41%).

“While data silos can be a technology problem, solving them and gaining a comprehensive understanding of an organization’s risk landscape requires leadership. However, CIOs and CISOs disagree. They face a difficult challenge between ensuring employee productivity and ensuring data security, which may lead to an increase in cyberattacks. Collaboration is essential to ensure a safer workplace,” said Jeff Abbott, CEO of Ivanti.

“Bringing CIOs and CISOs together helps both parties build consensus on organizational risk tolerance while promoting cross-functional security and IT data collaboration. This eliminates costly side effects and increases the availability of data for AI investments,” Abbott added.

Data silos are a universal problem for CISOs and CIOs – and an especially thorny one given the speed of AI investment that will require data integration and availability. To ultimately strengthen an organization’s security posture and drive transformation, CIO and CISO alignment and executive buy-in on security are essential.

According to Ivanti research, cybersecurity is widely perceived as a top priority, even at the board level. As many as 80% of respondents claim that their boards include people with specialist knowledge in the field of security, and 86% say that it is a topic of discussion at the board level. This is promising news in light of the various cybersecurity concerns raised in the study.

Unauthorized BYOD remains an unresolved problem

For example, when it comes to a practice called BYOD (bring your own device), IT and security teams rely on tools designed exclusively for office use and have no effective way to track and manage employees’ personal devices at work.

Just 63% can track BYOD with company-owned IT assets, and 78% say employees use personal devices at work even when prohibited. 81% of office workers admit to using some sort of personal device at work.

Of the 81%, half log into networks and work-related software on their personal devices. And 40% say that their employers do not know about their activities.

Another cause for concern – 54% of office workers were not aware that advanced artificial intelligence could impersonate someone’s voice. Research shows that 95% of IT and security professionals believe that security threats will become more dangerous due to artificial intelligence. However, despite the increased risks posed by AI, nearly one in three security and IT professionals do not have a documented strategy to counter the generative threats of AI.

Given these varying concerns, the report highlights the critical need to align CIO and CISO approaches to security tasks. This alignment can help organizations identify areas of conflict and make operational improvements, eliminate data silos that hinder response times and hide key information, and gain a thorough understanding of the software supply chain. Ultimately, this collaborative effort promotes mutual accountability and improves overall safety.