Sleep-walking your way into security debt
When monitoring IT assets, it’s common for underutilised or legacy hardware to go unnoticed. Equally, many organisations will look to sweat existing technology to extend value and delay refreshes. While common, these behaviours contribute to a build-up in technical and security debt that could harm your business in the future.
What is Technical Debt?
Technical debt has crept into IT parlance in recent years and refers to the accumulation of out-dated technology deployed in an estate. Whether that’s due to IT teams who took their eye off the ball during Covid or businesses that welcomed the pause in IT spending – only to now realise the impact. Every IT estate will be composed of technology that is at different stages of maturity. Depending on its purpose having some tech that’s beyond its recommended lifecycle isn’t even necessarily a problem. It’s not unusual, in fact, around 86% of IT executives reported having been impacted by some form of technical debt across their IT estate in the last 12 months. However, there’s a tipping point between some technology no longer being fit for purpose and it becoming the hallmark of your environment.
Visibility challenges are invariably the root cause of most technical debt. When businesses can’t properly assess or monitor the technologies they have deployed, it’s hardly surprising that practical lifecycles come and pass. This blindsides IT teams, who often aren’t alerted until something goes wrong...
The rise of security debt
There are many types of technical debt, but it’s hard to think of any worse than security debt and the risk it places on your business. Security debt occurs in the defensive measures deployed across your business, such as firewalls, IPS, VPNs etc. It can also result from third-party security services and connectors like Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) embedded into critical applications, adding yet another visibility hurdle to consider when evaluating if you have a problem with security debt. Failing to understand all the cyber tech you have deployed, where it’s at in its lifecycle or overlooking updates and patches to applications, can leave your business compromised and vulnerable to a breach.
According to the State of Software security report, over 70% of organisations have security debt. If left unchecked, this will only grow. Whilst businesses might not feel the impact now, the future risks security debt could cause are worth taking into consideration.
Tackling security debt starts with establishing whether you have a problem in the first place. This all hinges on visibility and how well you know the protective measures you have deployed.
Preventative measures
Recognising the importance of minimising security debt, the UK Government’s Cybersecurity strategy plan proposes a manage, upgrade, remove approach to help tackle it.
Whilst technical debt is almost unavoidable, security debt needs to be kept in check. Here are some steps to help you achieve that:
- Create an inventory of security assets. Next-gen observability tools will help to uncover not just perimeter defences, but other measures included inside other apps and services you use – often looking into the cloud as well as on-premises.
- Watch end of support and end of life dates applicable to your protections, to ensure everything is up-to-date and you have migration paths for important applications.
- Ensure warranties are current and appropriate maintenance and support plans exist for software and hardware assets.
- Implement regular testing of your security defences.
- Invest in automated testing and patching to minimise cybersecurity breaches.
Navigating the future
Security debt isn’t going anywhere, so if you’re not sure where to start we can help. From reviewing your security strategy to better visibility over your current security measures, we’re poised to put you in better shape.
Want to discuss your potential security debt or any other security concerns? Get in touch with our experts today.
