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I t’s not an exaggeration to say that 2020 has been a year of seismic change for businesses. The CO- VID-19 crisis has shifted the way that people work, established new priorities within the enterprise and forced organizations to cut costs to help ensure business continuity. It has also brought the role of cybersecurity partners into focus. At a confusing and stressful time for all CIOs and CISOs, support from trusted partners is needed to as- sist with cutting through complexity, protecting critical assets within the expanded network perimeter and streamlining security processes and operations. But the ability for partners to deliver on these needs and, in turn, develop deeper service-led engage- ments with their customers is hampered by their outdated modes of working. The biggest issue facing partners today is their bloated arsenal of point products. At the time, investing in solutions that solve hyper-specific se- curity problems made a lot of sense – customers had focused issues, and providers were understandably keen to offer a range of answers to those prob- lems. But the cybersecurity landscape has changed. Enterprises now have large, sprawling and multi-faceted hybrid estates. They are realizing that their overarching cybersecurity prob- lems don’t exist in isolated bubbles but are defined by a lack of strong process, limited data integration and a need for increased automation across their entire security environment. The customer is interested in solv- ing big problems. To do this, they are gaining focus by consolidating their products and vendors. They need their partners to share this big picture mindset. But when their partners’ at- tention is stretched across a wide range of different point products, it is only natural that their expertise is going to become diluted, leading cus- tomers to lean on the vendor, rather than the partner, for support. A security ecosystem A standard dilemma for partners when building a security ecosystem is determining which products they should focus on. To better manage modern cybersecurity demands, it is important for partners and vendors to develop a cybersecurity ecosystem that can consolidate data from mul- tiple integrations and improve overall levels of cybersecurity while delivering on ROI. Where a product can deliver basic value, integrations allow you to increase overall capabilities. Any vi- able product that they choose to work with needs to form part of a wider pro- cess – instead of working in isolation, it should be working to improve all other tools that make up the wider estate. When OldWays Don’tWork By Uri Levy Why cybersecurity partners need to develop an ecosystem-led mindset CYBER PATROL 42 CHANNEL VISION | July - August, 2020