Do your security products look like the mega-sandwich of the Dagwood cartoon strip, with so many different meats and cheeses and condiments piled up that, while impressive, it’s impossible to consume? Although a potentially delicious solution (sandwich) to a very pressing problem (hunger), this may not be the best way to streamline your threat management operations.

Peanut Butter and Jelly Time

Let’s take the simplicity of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich: two ingredients and some bread. But even within that, there are permutations that can customize it to your particular tastes. Strawberry or grape jelly? White or wheat bread? Crusts on or off?

You can very easily go overboard customizing a simple sandwich instead of focusing on whether the sandwich will meet its most basic goal: satisfying hunger. The same pitfalls can happen when picking security products. If your goal is to stop advanced malware such as the Shifu or Dyre banking Trojans, are your security products really meeting the need? Unfortunately, many of today’s security products are striving to meet multiple needs: compliance standards, data protection, identity management and visibility into the network, to name a few.

Another consideration is whether picking the very best ingredients will make the best possible sandwich. Does your favorite sourdough bread work when paired with your favorite crunchy peanut butter and your favorite condiment of Dijon mustard? Sandwich ingredients, like security solutions, don’t work independently of each other. They have to work together.

Perhaps I’ve overcomplicated the simple sandwich. The good news is what while I may be a horrible cooking show host, I do have something to help demystify integrated security solutions: a new ebook called “Integrated Threat Management for Dummies.” The book covers the basics of evolving threats and gives helpful tips on making the most of prevention, detection and response strategies.

Later chapters drill down further into how to integrate threat protection solutions, as well as how to integrate it with security intelligence solutions. The author very helpfully distills everything down into 10 tips on integrated threat management to tie it all together. Along the way, there are warnings and tips in the standard “for dummies” layout that really net out the important things to know.

Read the complete e-book now to learn more about integrated threat management