As the IBM TechXchange draws to a close and we wrap up another year in Vegas, it’s clear that the conversation around cyber resilience has evolved significantly over the last 12 months. Last year, the buzz was all about immutability, anomaly detection, XDR, SIEM and SOAR tools. These were seen and discussed as the front line in preventing, detecting and recovering from attacks.
Fast forward to this year, and while those tools and techniques are still very much front and centre, they’re being increasingly discussed alongside AI. The rise of AI-driven security and storage solutions has taken the spotlight, promising to revolutionise how we detect and respond to cyber threats. But amidst all the excitement, no one is really addressing the elephant in the room: the siloed nature of security and infrastructure teams.
Digging into the delegate analytics from TechXchange could provide some fascinating insights. Did security specialists stick to security sessions? Did infrastructure experts focus on storage? If that’s the case, it highlights the ongoing risk of keeping these two critical areas separate, even as AI creates new opportunities for better integration across systems.
And it’s not just security and infrastructure teams working in silos—within infrastructure itself, many teams are divided too. Most infrastructure departments have two or three backup products, with data scattered across different technologies, whether on-premise, in the cloud, or hybrid environments. Even these teams can be fragmented, and the lack of cohesion between them further widens the resilience gap.
The Real Opportunity: Breaking Down Silos
While AI is quite rightly grabbing headlines, breaking down the silos between security and infrastructure is arguably the the most impactful and cost-effective way to boost resilience. Bridging the gap between these teams can unlock massive benefits, enabling faster responses to threats and more robust recovery strategies. Yet, this important ‘fix’ isn’t being prioritised amongst businesses.
Here are three key actions companies should take to bridge this gap:
- Ensure Security Teams Gain Insights into Storage Security teams need a clearer understanding of how storage environments work, particularly in backup and recovery. If they know what’s working and what needs improvement on the storage side, they can better tailor their strategies to safeguard critical data. Conversely, storage admins should be informed about security trends and threats to ensure their systems are robust against potential breaches.
- Provide Consolidated Views Across Security and Storage A unified dashboard that brings together security and infrastructure insights is essential. Businesses should avoid the trap of isolated monitoring systems, which lead to disjointed decision-making. Instead, a consolidated view enables faster, more coordinated responses to threats, reducing the time it takes to detect and recover from cyber incidents.
- Focus on Recovery as Much as Prevention Businesses have become hyper-focused on stopping attacks, often neglecting the importance of being prepared for recovery. The reality is that no system is 100% secure, so it’s crucial for companies to invest in backup and recovery strategies. Making recovery just as much of a priority as prevention helps ensure that when attacks do happen, businesses can bounce back swiftly and effectively.
This year’s TechXchange may have been dominated by AI, but the real challenge remains the organisational silos that limit resilience. Bridging the gap between security and infrastructure teams (and even within infrastructure itself) is an immediate, cost-effective solution that can transform how businesses protect and recover from cyber threats. Let’s hope that by next year, the industry will finally be talking about and addressing the elephant in the room.
To find out how the Predatar platform can boost your cyber resilience by tackling these 3 challenges, contact the team.
See you next year, hopefully with fewer silos and stronger defences!
