BMC Partner Jon Fraser: Security Practices Are A Companywide Responsibility

Online Business Systems' Managing Director, Service Management, North America, Jon Fraser, explained that security is "everyone’s problem" and that companies should be eager to jump onboard with security automation.

"What we’re finding is that companies don’t have a good handle on their assets. They don’t know what they don’t know, and can’t protect what they don’t know," said Fraser.

Right now, there is a huge "chasm," according to Fraser, between security and IT organizations within a company.

"They just don’t work well together. Some of them share management, but often they work independently of one another. This is a big challenge," he said.

On average, Online Business Systems is finding that roughly 12 percent of the assets that companies own are, according to Fraser, "undiscovered, unmanaged, and unpatched," which poses a huge problem when it comes to monitoring, and consequently, a very large security threat.

"It’s only going to get worse in the next couple of years," said Fraser. "As the Internet of Things really takes off it will be worse because a lot of the threat vectors are coming from IoT devices such as webcams."

Fraser explained that even connected cars can be hacked, and, if companies don’t employ automated practices in their discovery, they will be putting themselves, and users, at risk.

Online Business Systems has developed a "maturity assessment" which is based on security best practices. Designed to help companies understand their maturity posture, the assessment will help businesses serious about understanding security to determine where the holes are in their system, either in technology or overall process.

"You simply can’t do it manually anymore. You can’t go around and count devices manually, it just does not work. Things change by the minute and the hour, not by the month and year anymore," said Fraser.

With new developments in technology comes new opportunities for a security vulnerability. By employing automation, and making employees aware and engaged, companies can stay ahead of the tens of thousands of security risks they face daily.

"It’s really a big people problem," Fraser said. "A lot of organizations don’t understand who needs to be involved in this process, and really everyone needs to be involved in security."