One tool to rule them all

With Spanish cyber costs running out of control, moving to a single platform can help organisations optimise cost and improve protection.

Cyber security spending in Spain is accelerating at an unsustainable pace. Data from IDC suggests spending on cyber will increase at an average rate of 13% a year over the five years to the end of 2026. Faced with a rapidly escalating threat – the Spanish government says cyber crimes now account for 20% of all offenses in the country – many organisations have felt compelled to throw money at the problem.

That cannot go on for ever. What organisations need now is a more effective way to mitigate cyber threats that also delivers improved cost efficiency. Their priority must be to optimise for both cost and value. And the good news is that consolidation provide a means with which to achieve both those objectives.

Today, many Spanish organisations are managing cyber using multiple tools; each time a new type of threat or vulnerability emerges, they buy a new tool to address the issue. Each new tool adds to their costs, particularly as they are also likely to be paying for additional third-party consultancy to implement and manage their extra cyber mitigation.

Replacing this patchwork quilt of cyber solutions with a single set of tools through a platform such as Tanium therefore offers an opportunity to generate substantial savings. This strategy also optimises cost because the organisation can consolidate its third-party consultancy services, shifting to working with a single partner with expertise in the new platform.

Indeed, Tanium’s platform, implemented and managed by EY, offers a broad range of tools through one solution. Asset inventory and management, vulnerability identification, patch management, endpoint discovery and software deployment, for example, all sit under one roof. Organisations no longer need to buy and manage each tool separately.

As for value, consolidation will also enable organisations to strengthen their cyber posture. An integrated platform provides a unified set of data, greater process interoperability and enhanced communication. When the solution identifies a vulnerability, say, it can automatically put a patch in in place. There is no longer any risk of information becoming compromised or degraded because it has to be moved from one tool to another; rather, the platform offers a single source of the truth.

Recognising the potential to secure these enhancements is important because organisations sometimes worry that securing all their cyber protections through a single platform represents a compromise on quality. Instead, they invest separately in what they perceive to be best-in-class tools for each of their needs.

In practice, however, the integrated nature of a single platform such as Tanium is likely to deliver a superior level of protection. It also provides significant potential to optimise cost.

The bottom line is that Spanish organisations must get to grips with the increasing cost of cyber security. The threat is certainly not receding – both the number and sophistication of attacks continue to grow, particularly in an era of geopolitical tension where state-sponsored cyber crime is becoming more common. But buying ever more tools – and paying for ever more consultancy – is not the right way to respond to this imperative.

Rather, moving to a single cyber platform will enable organisations to both optimise cost and manage risk more effectively.

One final thought. Many organisations underestimate the significant impact that IT equipment including servers has on their carbon footprint. Dell, for example, puts the lifecycle impact of one of its servers at 5.260 kilogrammes of carbon dioxide emissions. Decommissioning unnecessary tools can reduce the capacity that organisations need – and therefor shrink their carbon footprints. A single cyber platform can therefore offer sustainability benefits as well as cost and operational efficiency.