Six tips for optimizing network security vendor integration

As the network security situation becomes increasingly severe, corporate organizations are also constantly building network security. They continue to purchase various security products from security vendors, hoping to play their respective security functions. However, the increasing number of these isolated and loosely combined security products has also made the enterprise's own network security system more complicated and brought many security risks to the enterprise:

• Cooperation with multiple security vendors is complex, and enterprises need to consider many issues such as product maintenance, version upgrades, and contract renewals;
• When enterprises use multiple consoles to manage security products, it creates islands of visibility, which prevents security operations teams from gaining visibility into data flows across the entire enterprise, making security incident response more complicated.
• Under the loose, fragmented, single-point security protection model, it is difficult for organizations to transform from passive defense to active defense;
• After a cybersecurity incident occurs, the definition and division of responsibility for the accident is also vague, which makes it easy for disputes to arise.

Research firm Gartner conducted a user survey in 2023, and the data showed that 75% of the companies surveyed said they would seek to integrate security vendors in the next few years in order to improve their security situation. The main driving factors include high concerns about the complexity of security operations, the need to improve security risk posture, and improving the return on security investment.

Gartner analysts believe that if done properly, enterprise security vendor consolidation can help truly optimize security tools and bring the following benefits:

• Lower the total cost of ownership of your security solutions.
• Spend less time managing vendors and integrating solutions.
• Improved risk profile because inefficiencies are minimized and any gaps between security technologies are closed.

Although vendor consolidation in the cybersecurity field has become a trend, due to conflicts in integration, visibility, and control, organizations may face many problems in the process. Integration is often not achieved overnight and usually takes several years to complete. In order to reduce the challenges and difficulties in the process, organizations can refer to and follow the following suggestions when optimizing the integration of cybersecurity vendors:

1. Evaluate security spending categories and identify overlapping vendors

Enterprises should conduct a comprehensive review of the entire security architecture of the organization, and make a detailed list of vendors in categories such as web application and API protection (WAAP), web application firewall (WAF), bot management, API security, extended detection and response (XDR), client protection, vulnerability management and incident response. Observe whether there is any overlap in vendors.

Because each vendor often offers multiple security products and services, there can be a lot of overlap in capabilities. For example, an organization may find that it has purchased a bot management solution from two different vendors, but is only using the solution from one of them.

A comprehensive cybersecurity spending assessment will help you understand where you can reduce duplication without compromising your actual security protections.

2. Verify the supplier’s technical capabilities from an external perspective

Your organization may have multiple vendors, but are they all industry leaders? Are some vendors falling short? Which vendors can truly bring the greatest security value to your organization, and which ones are falling short?

When evaluating the service capabilities of security vendors, companies can refer to industry reports written by third-party security analysis agencies, which can quickly give a general overview. Of course, organizations can also consider hiring professional consultants, analysts or well-known third-party service providers to obtain more in-depth and specific information.

When researching vendor capabilities, companies should keep an open mind, because the results may be different from current perceptions, and may even surprise people. For example, some start-up security companies often claim to be the leading technology changers or innovators in the market, but in fact, security vendors with a long history have more innovative resources. These realities may be different from current perceptions.

3. Analyze the functions of existing products and find areas that can be streamlined

List the functional features of current security products, compare these features from the perspective of security needs, and find out the advantages and disadvantages. Through these analyses and comparisons, organizations can try to obtain the same or better security features from a more comprehensive supplier without sacrificing security needs, so that some point product suppliers can be replaced.

It should be emphasized that when evaluating the functions and product operating efficiency of suppliers, enterprises should consider them from the perspective of the overall application, including customer support, subsequent functional upgrades and iterations, and other services, so as not to reduce the actual effectiveness of the integration work.

4. Evaluate suppliers’ sustainable cooperation capabilities

Cybersecurity protection is a long-term process that needs to be carried out continuously and optimized. Therefore, supplier integration cannot only consider current needs. Enterprises need to study and select different suppliers based on their financial status, customer management quality, and technical roadmap. Are their finances sound? Is the previous cooperation experience good? Can the supplier really solve the security problems of the organization? Do they have sufficient expansion capabilities to cope with future development challenges?

There are many vendors that look great at a certain point in time (usually when your organization first purchases their solution), but it is important that in the context of vendor consolidation, companies look for vendors with whom they can work long-term, which can greatly reduce the costs and resources spent on re-selecting vendors.

5. Look at suppliers from more than a technical perspective

When evaluating a vendor, companies should consider some non-technical issues: Are their services as good as their products? How stable is their security team? Can they provide adequate help when we get into trouble or things go wrong? Can they provide adequate support capabilities in every region where we operate security? Do they provide security service capabilities directly, or do they often rely on subcontractors to do the work? Do they provide regular situation analysis reports to track threat trends and industry development directions?

Purely technical considerations are often of limited help in long-term stable partnerships with suppliers. Companies should consider the overall value of suppliers, which is important for supplier integration.

6. Pay attention to other risks when integrating suppliers

Before companies start reducing the number of cybersecurity vendors, they should be careful not to move too fast to avoid over-integration. Vendor integration does not mean working with only one vendor, which may also become a burden on the company's security construction.

If an enterprise over-integrates its network security architecture, it may encounter a concentration risk problem. If an organization becomes highly dependent on one vendor, it may also lead to problems such as being forced to accept price increases, increased maintenance costs, or poor service experience, all of which are vendor concentration risk issues.

The integration of network security suppliers needs to be carried out and implemented gradually according to the enterprise's own security threat situation and needs. The goal should be to narrow down the current loose and fragmented supplier model to a few strategic network security suppliers, rather than moving towards extreme integration of dependence on a single supplier.