What investments in security will organizations make in 2017? Our discussions with CSOs and other security leaders throughout 2016 have a common theme: simplification. This is why FireEye expects to see organizations making significant investments in the form of orchestration and automation in 2017.

The past few years have seen organizations spending high dollar amounts on security technologies and other infrastructure that either do not work well together, or require a great deal of effort and personnel to follow and address the myriad alerts. Organizations seeking to simplify everything in 2017 will set their sights on integration. A single pane of glass for all security needs will drastically improve the organization’s security posture and show companies the true value of all the products they have acquired. We refer to this as security orchestration and it is part of the reason we acquired Invotas in early 2016.

Automation is the final piece of this puzzle and – considering the resource struggle impacting the industry – will likely enter the mainstream as we move into 2017. Automation enables organizations to more efficiently address critical needs, which is particularly useful for enterprises that are struggling to keep pace with an escalating threat landscape and constant advances in cyber attacks. FireEye plans to take the lead in helping customers deal with the severe shortage of resources by automating the security process and building intelligence into their operations. We expect security orchestration capabilities will enable organizations to move from alert to remediation in minutes.