Slightly more than nine in 10 organizations (91%) in a new study are consolidating some or all of their endpoint management and security teams, according to a new study by Syxsense, a unified endpoint security and IT operations management specialist.Management and security tool sprawl also continues to present challenges for IT and security teams and is driving the desire for better integration and tool consolidation. With 68% of organizations using more than 11 tools for endpoint management and security, there is a correlation between the increase in number of tools and a loss of comprehensive device management. Half of organizations with more than 15 tools report more than 20% of their devices are unmanaged, compared to only 5% of unmanaged devices with teams using fewer than 5 tools. The use of general purpose IoT devices is accelerating in most organizations and is a top priority driving management and security consolidation. Unmanaged device use is growing across organizations of all sizes and increasing risk. For organizations with 1,000-4,999 devices, 34% are unmanaged with more than half reporting experiencing several cyberattacks as the result of poorly managed endpoint devices.
What's Happening with Endpoint Management?
Nearly half (48%) of the 380 IT and cybersecurity professionals in the study, entitled Endpoint Management Vulnerability Gap, are consolidating endpoint management and security vendors. More than four in 10 (43%) are consolidating or integrating observability and security monitoring technologies.However, unmanaged device usage is increasing, with most organizations suffering from endpoint security blind spots. Only 43% of respondents claim to be actively monitoring 75% or more of endpoints.Despite these blind spots, and the fact that unmanaged device usage is growing, most survey respondents believe endpoint security (56%) and management (58%) are getting easier compared to two years ago.Why are IT and security teams consolidating management and security functions? Answer: Centralizing endpoint management and security will help to deliver new applications to end users, improve regulatory compliance and reduce cyberattacks resulting from poor coordination of those teams, according to Syxsense.Commenting on the survey, Ashley Leonard, founder and chief executive at Syxsense, said:“The endpoint management and security market has changed dramatically over the past two years driven by a remote workforce and increased device usage. These changes are creating more endpoint visibility gaps, which ultimately translate into increased risk and attacks. But this also presents an opportunity for vendors to better consolidate functionality for IT and security teams to work from a common view of asset inventory to centralize endpoint management and security.”
