International. Booming phenomena such as working in hybrid or remote mode, as well as the rise of multi-cloud architecture, make achieving complete network visibility a complex challenge for many organizations.
In this sense, security teams must face the expansion of the network footprint, due to the distribution of workers and the use of numerous devices, which increases the vulnerability of the ecosystem, with the consequent potential risk caused by the actions of malicious actors.
"Before the pandemic, the average number of devices connected to a network per employee was 4.9, and this figure has likely risen with the rise of remote work. This has led to 44% of remote devices being owned by employees, which discovered challenges for 42% of organizations," explains Iván Sánchez, Sales Director for Latin America of the company Infoblox.
Sanchez added that over the past 12 months, security breaches originated primarily from employee-owned remote devices, employer-owned remote devices (27%) and cloud applications or infrastructure (41%). Breaches also occurred in WiFi access points (34%), internal sources such as employees or contractors (32%), IoT devices or networks (28%) and network servers such as DNS, DHCP, IPAM (21%).
Current figures
A 2023 study revealed that approximately 87% of businesses rely on their employees use their personal mobile devices to access work-related apps and send emails.
"As enterprise networks expand and data breaches become an increasing risk, real-time visibility and control become more important. Uncovering critical threats early has become a priority for managers, especially since the average cost of a data breach is approximately 2.6 million dollars," says Iván Sánchez, of Infoblox.
In Mexico, 65% of global organizations have accelerated digital transformation with remote workers in mind.
The importance of integration and visibility
The Infoblox executive also points out that having end-to-end visibility tools does not mean much if the other areas of the company, including security teams, remain isolated and separated from each other.
Nearly two-thirds (61%) of respondents also agreed that investing in network discovery infrastructure was the best way to improve their security capabilities. That effort involves determining what's happening, where threats originate, and how long networks have been compromised. For effective protection, it is preferred to discover and eliminate unauthorized endpoints before they become a problem.
"Visibility tools must be integrated across the organization in order to provide a complete view of the network infrastructure. This allows security teams to monitor and remediate threats more efficiently and effectively. Ensuring complete end-to-end visibility into networks is essential to meet the security challenges in today's world," concludes Iván Sánchez.
