An Integrated Cybersecurity Approach Is No Longer a Choice

Organizations Have Many Attack Vectors to Consider

No single cybersecurity tool will completely protect any organization from today’s onslaught of cyberattacks. Long gone is the time when an IT team could purchase and implement antivirus software and expect the organization to be secure from cyberattacks. 

And while most cyberattacks enter organizations via email, there are many other attack vectors to consider when evaluating cybersecurity solutions. Malicious links and files can arrive via messaging apps, collaboration software, removable media like thumb drives, employee’s personal devices, public Wi-Fi networks, software downloads, or by clicking a bad URL.

With Many Solutions Comes the Need to Integrate

The bottom line is that every organization is going to need more than one cybersecurity solution to stop every attack from every attack vector, and even still, threats might get through. In order to have the best chance of identifying and stopping advanced threats, organizations need to integrate as many of the cybersecurity products in which they have invested as possible.

The Benefits of Cybersecurity Integration

Analyzing the types of security tools that are needed is a great first step but deploying those tools without integrating them is much less effective. A properly integrated set of security tools will collect data at the point of attack and then share that data with all the other tools in the organization’s arsenal. An organization’s firewall, wireless network security appliances, intrusion detection systems, email security solutions, and antivirus software should all be integrated so that they work together. And while each of these tools performs a very specific task in the security spectrum, if these tools are not integrated, they end up working in isolated silos, limiting the organization’s overall security.

For example, if an email security tool discovers a threat that has arrived via email, it should not only quarantine other instances of the same email and malicious files, but it should also alert the organization’s other security tools to be on the lookout for the same file should the treat attempt to enter the organization through another attack vector such as a messaging app or collaboration software. 

An Integrated Approach

An integrated approach to cybersecurity is no longer a choice. Threats have changed over the years and so have the targets and speed of attacks. It’s not just the organization’s email gateway that is at risk, but also the organization’s employees, customers, supply chain, and business reputation. It takes just one breach to compromise an organization and damage their reputation. 

Technology executives have been talking about APIs and integrations for years now—decades, in some cases. And for good reason, especially in cybersecurity: Application programming interfaces establish a foundation for communication and have provided many opportunities for improving threat intelligence, expanding automation and accelerating response. We were early believers, so Mimecast exposed virtually all of our key functionality through hundreds of fully documented APIs and built one of the industry’s most extensive integration libraries.

Yet many customer organizations are still struggling to leverage these capabilities and haven’t achieved the ubiquitous, seamless integration they need to defend against state-of-the-art attacks in real-time. We are better together and organizations that focus on integrating their security tools will fare far better than organizations that do not.

Organizations wanting to learn more about the benefits of integrating security tools should contact Mimecast today.