IT Needs Management Tools to Keep Up with Cyber-threats

When it comes to the top cybersecurity technology concerns of IT managers, new research has revealed a need for management tools that streamline processes and save time, such as automation, to be better equipped to keep up with the evolving threat-scape.

That’s the word from new research from ESET (News - Alert), which found that 99 percent of respondents ranked ease-of-use as "very important" or "important" in managing security.

"Our research shows that IT managers and administrators alike are looking for solutions that provide comprehensive protection, perform at a high level and allow them to do more with their time," said Andrew Lee, CEO of ESET, which sponsored the survey.

For instance, a full 87 percent of respondents agreed a Web-based dashboard would be useful in saving IT administrators' time.

"As businesses become a more attractive target to cybercriminals, proactive protection that is easy to manage, but still works effectively, is increasingly important,” Lee said. “Now that our re-designed business security suite is available globally, we can meet this demand in multiple markets."

When it comes to the types of security activities that take up the most labor time, nearly half of the survey respondents (49 percent) reported spending at least 10 percent of IT management time on reporting to meet regulatory guidelines and policies. But it’s remediating security events and deploying and updating clients were the largest components of managing security that took "excessive amount of time," according to respondents.

Interestingly, while there’s been a lot of hype (and very founded concerns) around the bring your own device (BYOD) phenomenon, just 16 percent of respondents cite BYOD as the "biggest security management challenge facing businesses," followed by "lack of time" at 15 percent. BYOD is a growing priority for many organizations, but the biggest challenges to implementing a mobile device management (MDM) solution were complexity of that deployment and the hassle of adding another management tool.