Maximizing Cybersecurity Investments: Bridging the Awareness and Utilization Gap

By Venkata Satish Guttula, CEO, Suven Cybersecurity Pvt. Ltd.

In today’s evolving threat landscape, organizations invest heavily in advanced cybersecurity solutions such as Next-Generation Firewalls (NGFWs), Data Loss Prevention (DLP) systems, DMARC configurations, etc., to secure their assets. However, my experience conducting ICT audits and posture assessments reveals a persistent challenge: organizations often fail to harness the full potential of these tools, leaving critical vulnerabilities exposed despite deploying state-of-the-art technology.

The Awareness Gap: A Hidden Risk 

Many organizations select cybersecurity products based on vendor reputation or popularity without fully understanding or utilizing the solutions’ capabilities. This leads to essential features being left unused, often due to a lack of awareness. For example, NGFWs are deployed with default settings, neglecting advanced features like encrypted traffic inspection, deep packet inspection (DPI), or Advanced URL Filtering—critical capabilities that remain idle despite being included in the licensed package.

Similarly, in DLP solutions, organizations deploy the technology but fail to perform proper data classification or configure DLP policies accordingly. This results in the DLP operating in a passive state, only monitoring traffic without blocking or alerting for violations, making it ineffective against real-world threats. For instance, encrypted email attachments containing sensitive data are allowed through without even generating alerts.

With DMARC implementations, many organizations adopt policies like p=none or quarantine, overlooking the primary purpose of DMARC—to block spoofed emails from reaching their targets. Such lax configurations create a false sense of security, leaving businesses vulnerable to phishing attacks despite believing they are protected.

The Role of Vendors and OEMs: Empowering Customers Through Education 

While vendors and partners play a crucial role in deploying these technologies, their responsibility should extend beyond installation. Many organizations depend heavily on their vendors to ensure the proper functioning of security tools but miss out on the vital step of understanding the product’s full potential. Tools like Best Practice Assessments (BPAs) or AIOps dashboards are available, yet without clear guidance on aligning these recommendations with business-specific security needs, these tools are underutilized.

OEMs and vendors must adopt a more proactive approach, providing targeted training and awareness programs during the deployment phase. Such training ensures that customers not only know what features they’ve paid for but also understand how to configure and maintain these solutions effectively. Aligning the technology with the organization’s operational and compliance needs is essential for unlocking the full value of these investments.

The Need for Continuous Expertise: Cybersecurity is Not “Set-and-Forget” 

Deploying top-tier solutions is just the starting point; cybersecurity requires continuous monitoring, tuning, and adaptation to evolving threats. My experience auditing organizations has shown that without the right expertise, even the most advanced technologies are underutilized, leaving gaps that attackers can exploit.

For example, I’ve encountered businesses that deployed DLP systems but did not classify their data or enable blocking mechanisms for critical violations. Their DLP setup was merely observing traffic without preventing data leakage. Likewise, NGFWs were configured without HTTPS decryption, limiting their ability to detect threats within encrypted traffic—essentially turning a next-gen firewall into a legacy device.

With DMARC, organizations tend to stop at p=quarantine without progressing to the stricter p=reject policy. This incomplete implementation leaves room for spoof emails to slip through, undermining the effectiveness of their anti-phishing defences.

Organizations must engage experts who understand the technical intricacies and compliance requirements to maximize the effectiveness of these solutions. Businesses can optimize their cybersecurity posture only through professional reviews, audits, and continuous management.

Conclusion: Aligning Awareness, Expertise, and Collaboration for True Security 

Investing in sophisticated cybersecurity solutions is just the beginning. To achieve true security, organizations must combine awareness, expertise, and collaboration across vendors, implementation partners, and internal teams. Activating advanced features, aligning configurations with business needs, and ensuring continuous tuning are essential steps toward creating a robust defence.

Organizations that make the effort to move beyond default settings and utilize the full range of capabilities—whether through enabling TLS decryption on NGFWs, classifying data for DLP policies, or progressing DMARC to p=reject—can significantly strengthen their defences.

Engaging cybersecurity professionals who can bridge the awareness gap, configure tools effectively, and guide continuous management ensures that organizations unlock the full value of their cybersecurity investments and remain resilient against evolving threats.