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With many financial institutions continuing to feel an impact from The Great Resignation, and seeing tighter budgets across the board in 2023, security leaders are being asked to do more with less. So far in 2023, many organizations are hesitant to hire additional staff or even backfill open positions—forcing many security leaders to make do with fewer people than in the past.
According to a recent “What’s Going on in Banking” report from Cornerstone Advisors, two of the top-five concerns for banks right now are the ability to attract qualified talent and cybersecurity. With that in mind, how can banks and other financial organizations prioritize customer security in an increasingly sophisticated threat landscape with fewer or not-qualified resources?
Maintaining a successful security program in these uncertain times will depend on consolidation, integration, and automation going forward. Here are some steps that financial institutions should be taking.
Consolidation: Reducing Complexity and Optimizing Operations
Complexity is the enemy of security. With technology consolidation and movement to secure access service edge (SASE) solutions, security operations can become more simplified, which places less day-to-day demand on human security resources.
CISOs can move existing staff from managing more repetitive tasks (e.g., applying patches, configuration management, installing new releases) to higher value activities such as threat hunting or proactive risk management. A platform-based approach to security is an effective way to start consolidating solutions and functions.
Integration: Maximizing Investments and Applying Intelligence
A platform-based approach can also help maximize the value of existing security investments outside your SASE stack through solution integration. This may include email security, endpoint protection, identity management, and security operations functions. Additionally, integration offers the ability to apply threat intelligence across all systems for quicker incident response and better prevention against emerging threat variants