Why IT/Security alignment is the key to efficient operations

"The root cause of IT/Security misalignment lies in their fundamentally different organizational mandates. CIOs focus on innovation, growth, and operational efficiency, whereas CISOs prioritize risk management and threat mitigation. This creates a natural tension, with IT teams optimizing for uptime and user productivity while security teams implement controls that protect the enterprise but may impact performance and slow progress toward launching new capabilities. Additionally, IT and security teams often rely on separate tools and data sources for asset management and vulnerability assessment, creating information silos that prevent comprehensive visibility."

"'Siloed data is a significant problem that saps an organization's potential, because they can't make data-driven decisions,' says Karl Triebes, chief product officer at Ivanti. 'Without unified data sets, organizations struggle to maintain accurate inventories of their attack surfaces, leaving critical assets unprotected and dangerous vulnerabilities unaddressed.'"

"The consequences of this misalignment extend far beyond IT operations. Increased security risk becomes inevitable when unpatched vulnerabilities persist due to communication gaps between the security teams that identify them and the IT teams responsible for remediation. But even when the messages get through, incident responses may be delayed - giving attackers additional time and opportunity to strike - because the sheer volume of exposures gives IT no guidance on which are the most urgent priorities."

IT and security operate with different mandates: CIOs pursue innovation, growth, and operational efficiency while CISOs focus on risk management and threat mitigation. That divergence drives tension as IT prioritizes uptime and productivity and security enforces controls that can reduce performance and slow new capabilities. Separate tools and data sources create information silos that prevent unified asset and vulnerability visibility. Siloed data undermines accurate attack-surface inventories and leaves critical assets exposed. Communication gaps cause unpatched vulnerabilities and delayed remediation, increasing attackers' windows and heightening regulatory and compliance risk.

Read at Computerworld