U.S. enterprises hit by short-staffed security operations center, finds ManageEngine study
DEL VALLE, Texas — January 31, 2023 — Enterprises have limited staff manning their security operations center (SOC) and are deploying multiple tools in an attempt to address their cloud security challenges, a new study by ManageEngine, the enterprise IT management division of Zoho Corporation, has found.
According to Gartner Inc., a leading analyst firm, 85% of organizations will embrace a cloud-first principle by 2025. ManageEngine’s Cloud Security Outlook 2023 study has also revealed a surge in cloud adoption. 72% of the respondents were reported to be using multi-cloud applications, while another 5% use hybrid cloud systems. The adoption rate will increase this year, as 23% of the respondents plan to move in the next 24 months.
Amid this situation, enterprises are forced to tackle numerous cloud security threats, including account compromises. They are hampered by short-staffed SOCs, which has led to concerns about their cloud security resiliency. As much as 77% of the respondents stated they only have 3-5 professionals running their SOCs.
The ManageEngine study also highlighted that enterprises are increasingly finding it difficult to gain visibility into cloud activities and comply with various stringent regulatory mandates. Nearly half (48%) of respondents find compliance with cybersecurity laws, especially those related to cloud, to be highly challenging.
These factors drive them to adopt a consolidated security architecture that facilitates streamlined and efficient security operations. An overwhelming 97% of the respondents will be evaluating a solution that provides all security functionalities in a single console in 2023.
“Adoption of cloud access security brokers (CASBs) and security information and event management (SIEM) platforms help enterprises ensure security and integrity. However, having different tool sets leads to a visibility gap and complicates cloud security management amidst unpredictable threats," said Manikandan Thangaraj, Vice President, of ManageEngine. "Cyber resilience attributes to the minimum set of business processes and tools needed to enable business continuity. Cloud security resilience, therefore, necessitates enterprises to have visibility, enhanced policy enforcement, isolation of infections, and impact neutralization from a unified security architecture."The findings of the survey indicate that:
- Lack of staffing and orchestration makes the security process complicated
- 77% of the respondents stated that they have only 3 to 5 security professionals to run their security operations center.
- 94% of the respondents use different security tools to protect data, monitor user access, adhere to compliance mandates and gain visibility into cloud platforms.
- Identity-based security threats are the most impactful
- 35% of the IT professionals surveyed stated that cloud account compromise is the most common and impactful cloud security threat, followed by external cloud account exploits (23%) and unauthorized access and account compromises by insiders (14%).
- Together, identity-based security threats constitute the three most common and impactful cloud security threats.
- Compliance proves to be challenging for enterprises
- 48% of those who monitor their cloud access or have hybrid cloud systems deployed said the process of ensuring compliance is highly challenging. A further 37% acknowledged it to be "tough", but can manage the situation nevertheless.
- Only 16% of the respondents say they are all sorted when it comes to compliance with cybersecurity laws, especially those related to cloud.
Visit ManageEngine's website to access the entire Cloud security outlook 2023 report at
Survey Methodology
ManageEngine commissioned Censuswide, an independent market research agency, to study the cloud landscape and the market demand for cloud security tools. Around 500 IT professionals in the United States, spanning various industries, including healthcare, financial services, manufacturing and government, were surveyed.
About ManageEngine
ManageEngine is the enterprise IT management division of Zoho Corporation. Established and emerging enterprises—including 9 of every 10 Fortune 100 organizations—rely on ManageEngine's real-time IT management tools to ensure optimal performance of their IT infrastructure, including networks, servers, applications, endpoints and more. ManageEngine has offices worldwide, including the United States, the United Arab Emirates, the Netherlands, India, Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, Singapore, Japan, China and Australia, as well as 200+ global partners to help organizations tightly align their business and IT. For more information, please visit manageengine.com, follow the company blog and get connected on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.
