Chief information security officers (CISOs) are wasting millions of dollars on security products they don’t use – or they are investing in tools that fail to protect their organizations against cyber threats.
Almost 75 per cent of attendees at the June 2022 RSA Conference found they were wasting the majority of their cybersecurity budget. Meanwhile, a recent Forbes article claims that the problem stems from money being thrown away by buying layer upon layer of security tools that are unable to communicate with each other – and that leave security teams overwhelmed with alerts.
Building an effective business case for investing in security is another challenge for CSOs. An InformationWeek article quotes a risk specialist from Deloitte. They feel that one of the other reasons why companies waste money on security is that: “cyber risk and its business impact is often put into technical language that the C-suite does not understand”.
The message in 2022 going onto 2023 seems to be that in order to get the best value from your security spending, you need to choose security tools that work together, can analyze all your data and can detect actual threats in real time – not just create an avalanche of useless alerts.
At LogRhythm, we have spent years developing a SIEM (security information and event management) platform that combines multiple specialist tools capable of collecting data from different sources, which then uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyze that data. And it will only produce alerts that require further human investigation. We also don’t meter data usage, so you don’t have to gamble on which system logs need reviewing while leaving others unguarded. We believe this approach will result in the best possible security coverage for your enterprise – and give you total peace of mind on costs.
Once you have identified the right security solution for your business, it’s essential to communicate that effectively to the people holding the purse strings – and at the same time, show that you understand what matters to them and speak in terms they care about that will resonate with them.
Security doesn’t sell itself to the board and needs supporting with a compelling business case to get buy in. But you don’t need to take our word for it. Analyst firm Forrester has conducted an independent Total Economic Impact study on the LogRhythm SIEM platform, with the company’s analysts interviewing a cross-section of our customers, from multinational companies to mid-sized enterprises. Forrester created a composite organization that was representative of the four companies it interviewed to aggregate overall benefits.
Following the study, Forrester was able to report that organizations investing in the LogRhythm SIEM platform discovered real threats faster – usually in real time – and only had to deal with alerts that needed intervention. This faster investigation and resolution time – a 90 per cent time reduction for security teams – was valued at more than $1.7 million to the composite organization over three years in the research.
This means that highly paid (and difficult to find and retain) security analysts didn’t waste their time sorting through thousands of alerts a day. Instead, their time was used efficiently investigating actual threats to the IT system. Forrester calculated that the improvement in the prioritization of investigations and resolution that LogRhythm affords helped to deliver savings of $816,827 to the composite organization over three years.
Using the LogRhythm SIEM, threats were detected faster, investigations took less time and security incidents were quickly resolved. The report valued the reduced risk of a security breach at $504,447 over three years.
Overall, Forester found that organizations using the LogRhythm SIEM solution enjoyed an on average 258 per cent return on investment (ROI) on their technology investment, meaning it paid for itself in less than six months.
Read more about the Forrester Total Economic Impact study and discover how LogRhythm can help your enterprise become more secure – and how to convince your board to back the investment in the coming year. If you need more support developing your business case, read our e-book on how to nail your next board presentation.