The Digital Big Bang

12COMPLEXITY MANAGEMENT

“You're no longer just managing IT and security; you're managing complexity.”

Michael Daniel, Cyber Threat Alliance

“If your security policies can't accommodate evolving business needs, people will find ways to work around them.”

Jay Gonzales, Samsung

Copernicus and Galileo came up with special models to explain each point of light in our solar system, greatly simplifying previous models. That simple model of a complex system opened the door to exploring and solving the true unknowns of space. Scientists of the day no longer wasted time pursuing extremely complex explanations of the motions of the network of planets and stars they were watching. The same is true for cybersecurity: We must remove the complexity associated with managing cybersecurity. Then we can focus on discovering and mastering higher-order problems such as freeing up humans to pursue more advanced thinking and leveraging integrated machines to automatically defend against sophisticated tools.

The critical and escalating necessity of complexity management is being driven by the convergence of three separate and increasingly powerful forces. The first is the increasing volume of devices and data, which provides cover for cybercriminals and gives them more things to exploit. The second is the sprawling increase in scale of today's networks, as well as the elimination of clear ...