5 reasons customers are choosing a cybersecurity platform over point products 

Cyber-attacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated and targeted, with the average number of weekly attacks per organization soaring to 1,673 in 2024 -- a 44 percent increase from 2023. In response, researchers and defenders are harnessing AI-powered analytics, anomaly detection and correlation engines to bolster security efforts. It’s an ongoing cat-and-mouse game that makes cyber compromise a question of when rather than if.

Effective defense hinges on resilience and minimizing the attack surface. However, many businesses are finding that traditional point-based solutions are leaving them with gaps in their security posture due to limited tools, skills or resources. There are five key factors that are leading organizations to look for a more sustainable and comprehensive platform-based approach.  

1) Reducing complexity

As businesses have embraced digital transformation and adopted cloud-based cybersecurity, challenges have increased. One of the side effects has been the volume and complexity of tooling, with organizations using an average of 45 cybersecurity tools.

It’s challenging, resource-intensive and expensive to manage a variety of point solutions as each product requires its own interface, policies and maintenance schedules. The siloed nature of information increases administrative overheads, heightens the risk of human error and also makes it difficult to mitigate threats and analyse security alerts effectively.

While some organizations have adopted SIEM systems and logging tools to help address these challenges, this approach still demands that administrators interpret complex logs and develop search queries to extract valuable insights. In contrast, converging security and networking functions into a single cloud-delivered service provides a centralized console and unified policy management, significantly reducing the complexity of managing disparate tools.

2) Short-term savings versus long-term costs  

The point solution approach to cybersecurity has often felt more cost effective with investments being made around specific threats or vulnerabilities. However, in many organizations, the cumulative expense of all these tools has spiraled. Each product comes with its own licensing fees, maintenance requirements and specialized training needs, increasing operational costs over time.

Organizations taking a longer-term view are now investing in a unified security platform. They have built the business cases to show that although there is significant upfront investment, overtime costs will drop as tools are consolidated, complexity is removed and security operations are streamlined.

3) Integration

Effective cybersecurity relies on seamless integration, allowing organizations to automate repetitive tasks and achieve 360-degree visibility across their entire infrastructure. However, fragmented systems complicate the automation and integration journey, requiring significant developer time and organizational expenditure to ensure different vendor solutions communicate effectively and work together. If integration fails, the reliability of an organization’s ‘one true source’ of information is compromised.

A platform approach removes such challenges by consolidating cybersecurity and networking tools under one platform. It removes the burden of managing siloed systems, allowing IT teams to focus on proactive security management rather than troubleshooting compatibility issues. A platform-based approach also makes it much easier for an organization to fully reap the benefits of AI and machine (ML) learning as all security data is in one place.

4) Rapid response to changes in the cybersecurity landscape 

As new threats and vulnerabilities emerge, an organization’s cybersecurity posture needs to evolve to address them. With a fragmented approach to cybersecurity, it is challenging to respond in real-time, as solutions needs to be carefully evaluated, not just on capability but also on how they integrate with the wider security stack, to avoid introducing an unforeseen vulnerability to the organization’s security posture.

Additionally, with the rapid advance of changes in the cybersecurity landscape, organizations cannot afford to spend weeks or months implementing new capabilities to their cyber defense posture. It is this reality that makes a platform-based approach to cybersecurity particularly effective.

In a platform-based approach to cybersecurity the vendor has already completed the end-to-end integration of new tooling into the platform, so for users of the platform it is simply a case of enabling the new functionality and defining the required policy that fulfills the organization’s security posture requirements. This enables teams to respond to evolving cybersecurity challenges at the speed of business.

5) Ensuring a consistent security posture 

Security is fundamentally a data challenge. A unified platform can help build a robust security posture by delivering high-quality, contextualized data in real-time for protection while storing it in a centralized data lake for AI-powered threat detection.

By consolidating tools and streamlining workflows, a platform approach eliminates gaps in coverage, accelerating decision-making during the critical window when an organization is most vulnerable. The faster you can access relevant threat information, the quicker you can shut down potential vulnerabilities.

Moreover, the integration of AI and ML tools within platforms enhances security efforts, allowing IT teams to stay ahead of evolving threats. With a platform approach, organizations can use AI and ML to reduce noise and improve threat detection and rapid incident response by presenting administrators with all correlated events tied to an attack.

Achieving holistic security coverage

Ultimately, it’s clear that continuing to add product after product isn’t a sustainable cybersecurity strategy. A platform approach enables organizations to reduce the complexity and overhead costs associated with traditional point-based solutions and fragmented legacy network services while achieving holistic security coverage. The enhanced observability across networking and security available when using a unified platform minimizes the risk of data breaches, improves threat detection and accelerates responses to emerging challenges.

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Dean Watson is Lead Solutions Expert, Secure Networking at Infinigate.