Centralization or Platformization?

Getting the Job Done

During a recent presentation I was giving, I got questions on “platformization” from some private equity analysts I respect.? This has evidently been presented by some vendors as a new advancement in cybersecurity management, and smart money is vetting it out.

Well, in the face of increasing cyber threats and complexity, the appeal of a single, unified cybersecurity platform to monitor, manage, and respond to all threats is obvious. Proponents argue that such platforms simplify operations, reduce vendor sprawl, and centralize data for better visibility. They’re right, of course.

Sadly, they were also right in 2000 when UTM’s (Unified Threat Management Devices) were first introduced.? They were right again with SIM’s/SEM’s (Security Information/Event Managers), now SIEM’s, in 2005.? Flash forward a decade, and 趋势科技 / Palo Alto Networks began promoting XDR (Extended Detection and Response) because solid cybersecurity requires data from multiple security domains (and networks/systems) to have a clear view.? Do you see the trend??

Unfortunately, in all of these attempts, the implementation of the idealized vision arrives with complications and costs that make the proposition impractical, leading to more confusion, investment, and then evolution. No single vendor platform can understand, much less act on, the always changing, always increasing, technical choices made by businesses, attackers, and security vendors alike.

That’s why I believe the right move in these complicated times is to an approach of informed centralized analytics, not to a specific vendor platform seeking to be the one cybersecurity data gathering and analysis ring-to-rule-them-all.? It’s a better idea, for many reasons, to pick the tools that your team can understand, operate, and use, and then create or capitalize on integrations, API’s, and visualizations that provide analytic interoperability and actionability between systems.

Challenge 1: The Diversity of Cybersecurity Data

Modern environments are composed of on-premises systems, cloud apps and SaaS services, IoT networks, and more.? Each domain generates its own flood of data in its own format, and some of that data is important, from logs and events to network traffic and endpoint alerts.

Consider the likely existing security domains and utilities for the average enterprise:

• Endpoints: These tools monitor devices with different operating systems, configurations, and use cases, and deliver both prevention and interactive defenses in the presence of attacks or malicious code.? Unfortunately, these common capabilities come with disparate outputs. ?Logs from 微软 Windows Defender differ from those of Apple Computer, Inc macOS or Linux-based systems, while specialized product from CrowdStrike , Trend Micro, or others, deliver specific security information dependent on their own proprietary capabilities.
• Cloud: Experienced security people know that protecting assets in the cloud is a completely different job, with different tools, than defending yesterday’s largely on-premise infrastructure.? Worse, of the 94% of enterprises using the cloud, 89% are using multiple cloud providers.? So, add multi-cloud setups from Amazon Web Services (AWS) , Azure, Google Cloud , and others, each with its own security formats, APIs, and telemetry.
• Network Traffic: Assets and infrastructure are critical areas for protection because that provide the services that have driven our digital transformation.? Other security tools, though, for monitoring, authenticating, and detection, also generate information.? Firewalls, IDS/IPS tools, and VPNs produce high-velocity data that can trigger, or support, real-time event notification and correlation.
• IoT: Sensor devices, machinery, and physical systems were historically treated differently and managed through bespoke platforms, and therefore often lack standard security frameworks, generating unique and inconsistent telemetry.

Challenge 2: The Need for Actionable Events

Even if a single platform could ingest and normalize data, its ability to respond meaningfully to threats would remain limited. Different environments demand different response strategies:

• Cloud Environments: Threats in AWS might require changes to security groups or IAM policies, while threats in Azure might involve adjusting NSGs or role assignments.? Their wide, more public, exposure emphasizes the urgency of these responses.
• Endpoints: An endpoint detection and response (EDR) action, such as quarantining a device, must consider the operating system and integration with enterprise workflows.
• IoT Devices: IoT’s lack of common standardized security frameworks, and often the physical mission criticality or dangerousness, makes automated responses even more challenging.

No single platform can develop the breadth of integrations, playbooks, and automation capabilities necessary to address these diverse needs comprehensively. Specialized tools are better equipped to handle responses within their respective domains.

The Case for Integrating Specialized Tools

A modular, best-of-breed approach allows organizations to:

• Leverage Expertise: Specialized tools (e.g., CrowdStrike for EDR, Netskope for SASE, Wiz for cloud security), etc. are purpose-built to address specific challenges.
• Ensure Scalability: Distributed systems can handle localized data ingestion and analysis, reducing the central platform’s load.
• Improve Resilience: Redundancy in tools prevents single points of failure. If one tool misses a threat, another can catch it.
• Avoid Vendor Lock-in: Security threats and new methods of protection are emerging all the time.? An integrating strategy provides organizational flexibility to acquire and apply protection where it’s needed, without waiting for a particular vendor to share your organizational concerns.

Critical to this approach is interoperability. Open APIs, standard data schemas (e.g., STIX/TAXII), and orchestration tools (e.g., SOAR platforms like Palo Alto XSOAR) help these specialized tools to be used together by teams who may not have experience in all of the underlying technologies.

Conclusion: Integration Over Platformization

The need for a centralized cybersecurity platform is clear, but current single-vendor platformization is impractical. The complexity, cost, and rigidity of such a solution make it unsuitable for the dynamic, heterogeneous, IT environments in most organizations.

Organizations should, instead, adopt an integrated approach: leveraging specialized tools for specific challenges and ensuring interoperability through open standards and orchestration platforms. By embracing this strategy, organizations can achieve the scalability, adaptability, and effectiveness necessary to combat modern cyber threats without being constrained by the limitations of an all-in-one platform.

While the allure of simplicity is strong, the path to robust cybersecurity lies in flexibility, specialization, and integration.