How to avoid blind spots due to fragmented data

Mike Guigli

Jun 20, 2023

In the digital era, where data fuels business operations, organizations face numerous security challenges. It’s not uncommon for data to be scattered across multiple systems, platforms, and departments, resulting in fragmented and inefficient security efforts. Enterprise-wide data consolidation presents a compelling solution, enabling security teams to streamline their operations, enhance threat detection, and respond more effectively to incidents. In this blog post we’ll explore the significance of data consolidation for security teams, highlight the key benefits it offers, and show how tools like Perygee can be used to drive change.

Challenges of scattered data

In modern enterprises, data is generated and stored in a multitude of sources, including on-premises systems, cloud platforms, employee devices, third-party applications, and IoT/OT devices. This typically doesn’t account for another type of information called “little data” that is equally as important, but even harder to access and manage. It also lives in disparate systems, but it’s often unstructured or undocumented, and it’s stored in places like emails, PDFs, or hardcopies on employees’ desks. All of this fragmented data creates blind spots, making it difficult to gain a holistic view of the organization's security posture. Monitoring, detecting, and responding to threats become complex tasks when data is dispersed, impeding timely incident response.

Benefits of enterprise-wide consolidation

Enterprise-wide consolidation brings together data from various sources into a unified platform. This consolidation allows security teams to access and analyze data from different departments and systems, eliminating silos and providing a comprehensive view of the organization's security landscape. With a centralized data repository, security teams can gain insights into patterns, anomalies, and potential vulnerabilities across the enterprise.

By consolidating data, security teams can leverage advanced analytics and artificial intelligence to manage and prioritize their risk more effectively. A centralized data repository enables multidimensional visibility and contextual automations, empowering teams to identify and take action on vulnerabilities or indicators of compromise that might go unnoticed in a fragmented environment. Real-time monitoring and proactive threat intelligence become feasible, leading to quicker detection and mitigation of potential security incidents.

Data consolidation also simplifies incident response for security teams. With a unified data platform, security professionals can swiftly correlate events, investigate incidents, and perform forensic analysis. Comprehensive visibility into data helps in identifying the root cause of an incident and assessing its impact across the organization. Rapid response and containment actions can be executed, minimizing the potential damage caused by security breaches.

Finally, data consolidation aids in meeting compliance and regulatory requirements. Many industries, such as healthcare and utilities, have stringent data protection regulations. A centralized data repository facilitates easier auditing and reporting, simplifying the process of demonstrating compliance with these regulations. Security teams can quickly gather the necessary data and generate comprehensive reports to fulfill regulatory obligations, saving time and effort.

How to bring consolidation to your enterprise

The phrase “single pane of glass” is often used to describe the aggregation of information into one dashboard, allowing multiple teams to benefit from and collaborate on shared data. Most talk about a single pane of glass as the desired state. However, at Perygee, we don’t believe the concept’s value is derived from a single shared view, but rather from a unified data architecture. In fact, Perygee was designed so that dashboards and workflows can be customized to the exact specifications and needs of individual teams.

Consolidating data across an enterprise is easier said than done. Most traditional security solutions use a relational database with fixed data fields. Integrating data into this type of environment is never seamless and usually creates new challenges. On the other hand, Perygee is a graph-based data platform that makes it easier to bring together information from various sources and standardize it using best-in-class data modeling tools. Another advantage of Perygee’s graph is that customers are not limited to a set of out-of-the-box connectors or pre-built integration (e.g. ServiceNow) you typically see in the security ecosystem. The graph’s flexibility supports true enterprise-wide consolidation by enabling customers to create an integration with any published API or SDK, broadening the types of data you can unify into a single source of truth. Even the “little data” that may reside in spreadsheets can be easily reconciled in Perygee using our advanced CSV import tool.

Conclusion

Don't let blind spots due to fragmented data compromise your organization's security. Take action now by embracing enterprise-wide data consolidation and leveraging innovative solutions like Perygee. By doing so, you'll empower your security teams, enhance threat detection and response, and ensure compliance with regulatory requirements. The time to act is now—unify your data and fortify your security posture.