Skybox Security reduces risk of data breach by 55%, Total Economic Impact Study reveals

• Avoid compliance violations and reliance on external auditors;
• Increase cyber security efficiency through automation;
• Eliminate downtime of mission-critical OT assets; and
• Consolidate tech stack while reducing business risk.

Skybox Security today released an independent cost-benefit analysis of its industry-leading Security Posture Management Platform. The Forrester Total Economic Impact (TEI) Study, commissioned by Skybox Security, quantifies how Skybox customers can significantly reduce their exposure to data breaches resulting from internal and external threat actors.

After deploying Skybox, a composite organisation comprising Skybox customers reported:

• Three-year return on investment (ROI) of 142%;
• 55% reduction in risk of a data breach;
• 50% reduction in downtime of mission-critical assets;
• 50% reduction in reliance on external auditors;
• 30% improved productivity of security analysts; 
• 30% increase in security operations efficiencies; and
• Total benefits of over $3.7 million over three years.

Forrester Consulting conducted the study by interviewing four Skybox Security customers to examine the ROI organisations have realised. Using Skybox, customers are able to prioritise and understand critical vulnerabilities while addressing compliance concerns on a global enterprise scale. Through increased visibility with the Skybox network model, customers acted on critical items faster across IT and OT functions – resulting in a 67% reduction in mean time to detect (MTTD) vulnerabilities.

“Legacy approaches to managing the enterprise attack surface are no longer enough. Skybox enables the most effective, systematic approach to security posture optimisation across IT, OT and cloud – going far beyond the traditional scan-and-patch playbook,” said Haggai Polak, Chief Product Officer, Skybox Security. “We believe this new study showcases the financial impact of the industry’s only solution that combines preventative security controls, advanced vulnerability prioritisation, actionable security posture remediation options and attack feasibility testing. As a result, Skybox exposure management and risk scoring uniquely identifies and mitigates the threats most likely to be exploited by adversaries.”

Additional customer benefits outlined in the study include:

• Decreases audit failures and reliance on external auditors;
• Discovers, prioritises, remediates and reports on vulnerabilities across IT, OT and cloud;
• Makes complex security policy management easier, faster and more effective;
• Tests changes before implementing to avoid misconfigurations, non-compliance and exposed vulnerabilities;
• Consolidates processes to reduce IT/OT convergence risk;
• Improves employee satisfaction with a reduction in menial tasks;
• Eliminates the need for segmented homegrown tools, spreadsheets and antiquated third-party solutions; and
• Provides opportunities for topline revenue growth.

According to the Forrester Consulting study: “Keeping assets and data secure has become more difficult for companies operating complex internal networks on a global scale. These challenges are compounded by ever-increasing pressures from compliance and regulatory requirements. Implementing Skybox’s suite of products enables companies to discover, prioritie, remediate and report exposed vulnerabilities as well as improve security policy management while driving efficiencies and decreasing operational downtime.”

• “We have thousands upon thousands of vulnerabilities that show up in scans. What Skybox does is look at vulnerabilities in the context of all the other things in the network to [produce] a risk assessment, and that’s what allows us to prioritise the vulnerabilities that need to be fixed.” – principal network engineer, IT security company
• “OT downtime is measured in lack of production. We had a four-hour incident every quarter and now we don’t have that. We reduced quite significantly the risk surface by implementing Skybox.” – director of cyber security, manufacturing company
• “We did a bake-off, and the value of what the capabilities were with Skybox drove the decision… it was also because of the features that they offered, and [competitors] did not have those features.” – IT security manager, financial services company
• A customer realised a 200% improvement in their ability to address internal attack vectors: “We’ve been able to use Skybox as a tool to limit movement once a threat is inside the network, to limit where it can go.” – principal network engineer, IT security company
• “For a published threat, Skybox can tell you where to find it. There’s no argument that the source of information is credible.” – director of cyber security, manufacturing organisation
• “Skybox has given us visibility across our network, and there’s no other tool that we’ve had in the past that allowed us to do that on a global scale.” – principal network engineer, IT security company
• “The IT team spends less time on the audit; they used to handwrite a report and try to come up with explanations. Now they just take the information from Skybox and say, ‘here’s the proof’.” – principal network engineer, IT security company

Forrester Consulting Total Economic Impact Study commissioned by Skybox Security, September 2022.

Skybox Security is a Display sponsor of the annual ITWeb Security Summit 2023 to be held at Sandton Convention Centre in Sandton, Johannesburg on 6 and 7 June 2023 and at Century City Conference Centre, Cape Town on 15 June 2023. In an increasingly connected, digital world, cyber security threats are constantly evolving and increasing in number and sophistication. Security professionals need to be up to speed with the latest technologies, techniques and skills for predicting and mitigating potentially crippling cyber attacks, the methods and tools in use by today's threat actors, and the latest legal and compliance demands. ITWeb Security Summit 2023, now in its 18th year, will again bring together leading international and local industry experts, analysts and end-users to unpack the latest threats facing African CISOs, CIOs, security specialists and risk officers, demystify emerging cyber security strategies in AI, blockchain, IOT, DevSecOps and more, and explain how to increase an organisation's cyber resiliency. Register today.