Tripwire Survey Finds IT Pros Lack Tools, Skills, to Defend Networks

A Tripwire survey finds that just 25 percent of IT professionals believe their organizations have the security technology and skills to detect network breaches.

However, just 25 percent of IT professionals say they have the ability to detect and respond to threats. Another 5 percent of respondents said they couldn’t answer the question because “technology is changing so quickly.”

A larger number of companies—32 percent—say they have the required technology to detect breaches, but don’t have the means to properly respond to alerts about suspicious behavior on there their networks. Surprisingly, 9 percent of companies say they have no technology that would allow them to detect a possible data breach on their networks.

Detecting a data breach is only one side of the equation; being able to respond to them is the other. And on that front, just 25 percent of companies say they can respond to a data breach. All the others—75 percent—say they cannot respond to a serious data breach in any way.

Enterprise security tools need to be integrated so they can exchange data during a breach. However, just 3 percent of companies say all their security tools are integrated and can exchange information. Another 20 percent of respondents say more than half of their tools have that capability.

A sobering fact from the Tripwire survey: 10 percent of companies say they have no ability whatsoever to integrate security tools and exchange data between those tools to respond to data breaches. Another 19 percent of companies say less than 10 percent of their tools have that capability.

Security teams need to be able to correlate data and security alerts from security tools to respond to possible threats. However, only 60 percent of companies engage in that behavior, with 40 percent of companies having limited to no ability to correlate data and security alerts.

Responding in real time can mean the difference between shutting down a data breach when it happens and allowing hackers to run amok on a network. However, just 21 percent of companies say they can correlate data and security alerts in real time to respond to threats.

Other companies aren’t as lucky to get actionable information in real time, according to Tripwire. Instead, the security firm says that 39 percent of companies are able to get the correlated data and security alerts, but it can take them days or weeks to get that information—long after hackers are gone.

According to Tripwire, 3 percent of IT professionals say they outsource their security response efforts to experts whenever they experience a breach. Apparently they believe they don’t have the requisite knowledge internally to address possible breaches.

In a statement, Tripwire said that 65 percent of IT professionals believe there’s a skills shortage that prevents them from delivering an appropriate incident response. If they had the right people with the right skills, companies say, they might be able to respond more effectively to threats.