Rise in unmanaged devices increases risk

Unmanaged device usage continues to increase, with only 43 percent of respondents to a new survey claiming to be actively monitoring 75 percent or more of their endpoints. For organizations with 1,000-4,999 devices, 34 percent are unmanaged, and more than half report experiencing several cyberattacks as a result of poorly managed endpoint devices.

The study, from Syxsense, of more than 380 IT and cybersecurity professionals shows that despite these blind spots most survey respondents believe endpoint security (56 percent) and management (58 percent) are getting easier compared to two years ago.

In addition, 91 percent of organizations report consolidating some or all of the teams and individuals responsible for their endpoint management and security. Almost half (48 percent) are consolidating endpoint management and security vendors, with 43 percent consolidating or integrating observability and security monitoring technologies.

This desire for consolidation is partly driven by the numbers of tools used. 68 percent of organizations report using more than 11 tools for endpoint management and security. There is a correlation between the increase in number of tools employed and a loss of comprehensive device management. In fact, half of organizations with more than 15 tools report more than 20 percent of their devices are unmanaged, compared to only five percent of unmanaged devices with teams using fewer than five tools. Given this degree of sprawl it’s unsurprising that organizations are combining endpoint management and security teams to improve service levels, gain efficiencies, improve compliance, and reduce attacks.

"The endpoint management and security market has changed dramatically over the past two years driven by a remote workforce and increased device usage. These changes are creating more endpoint visibility gaps, which ultimately translate into increased risk and attacks," says Ashley Leonard, founder and CEO at Syxsense. "But this also presents opportunity for vendors to better consolidate functionality -- for IT and security teams to work from a common view of asset inventory -- to centralize endpoint management and security. And with the rise in app and desktop virtualization and IoT devices, there's even further opportunity to ease the management burden of IT and security teams for endpoints."

You can get the full report from the Syxsense site.

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