IT teams struggle with asset visibility and management

Even though there are many different tools now available, IT and security teams are increasingly losing touch with their asset base.

A new study from Enterprise Strategy Group, commissioned by asset management platform Axonius reveals that an ever-increasing number of end-user devices, rapid cloud adoption, and a growth in IoT devices are leading to increased complexity and risk and decreased visibility.

"When we speak with customers from the midmarket up to the Fortune 100, we hear the same challenges: teams are faced with too many assets, a patchwork of security tools, and maddeningly manual processes to understand what is there and whether those assets are secure," says Dean Sysman, CEO and co-founder of Axonius. "This survey with ESG uncovers the depth and breadth of the asset management challenges we see today and what's on the horizon."

The study finds that 52 percent of VMs now reside in the cloud, running in multiple cloud environments, making it increasingly more challenging for organizations to manage them effectively. At the same time, container usage is mainstream among cloud users, with continued predicted growth that will add further complexity.

Even though the trend towards BYOD began more than 15 years ago, organizations are still grappling with evolving BYOD policies, especially with a typical employee now using more than four devices each week. As a result, organizations believe they are blind to about 40 percent of end-user-devices. At the same time, IoT continues to play an increasing role in the workplace, with more than half of organizations reporting active IoT projects. Yet, 77 percent report an IoT visibility gap.

The results show 75 percent of organizations have experienced several serious VM security incidents as a result of cloud visibility gaps, and 73 percent admit to experiencing multiple serious incidents as a result of an end user device visibility gap. In fact, organizations with visibility gaps experience 2.3 times more security incidents than those without.

"Together, these changes are putting enormous pressure on IT and security teams, who are already struggling to find new management and security tools that can keep up," says Dave Gruber, senior analyst at ESG. "VMs, new devices, and new device types are driving complexity. Most say that they already have too many tools, yet still report visibility gaps in what they can see versus what they want to see across cloud, mobile, and IoT environments. This gap directly translates into added security risk. 85 percent of organizations plan to increase investment in asset management to help overcome these issues."

The full report is available from the Axonius site.

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