“If I might change one factor about my group’s segmentation method, it could undoubtedly be to additional automate and combine our segmentation instruments and processes. By leveraging automation and integration, we might improve the effectiveness and scalability of our segmentation technique. This variation would have important affect on effectiveness and effectivity.”
UK, IT, telecoms, and expertise, 2025 Cisco Segmentation Report
Segmentation is a posh and evolving expertise that bridges a number of layers of the IT stack. Any change in community structure or utility entry has the potential to kick off a sequence of chain reactions that will disrupt or break workflows. In consequence, many organizations – from world wide throughout market segments – are within the technique of modernizing their segmentation insurance policies to higher align with the altering manner individuals work at present.
It’s necessary for distributors like Cisco to higher perceive prospects’ experiences with segmentation implementations in order to higher meet their particular wants and expectations. Cisco commissioned a world survey to higher perceive the drivers, challenges, approaches and advantages of segmentation. The analysis concerned surveying 1,000 respondents with information of their group’s community safety and segmentation practices throughout the Americas, EMEA and Asia Pacific.
The responses within the 2025 Cisco Segmentation Report clarify that in an period the place 84% of organizations suffered a breach prior to now 12 months, segmentation has develop into the inspiration of resilience. This idea – together with different insights – helps Cisco to higher perceive and tackle organizations’ safety wants and meet our final purpose to assist allow safety within the fashionable world.
Listed below are the primary takeaways from the report.
1. Precedence vs. Actuality: Segmentation is a excessive precedence for a lot of, however few have absolutely executed
Based on the responses within the report, a majority of organizations say that segmentation is a prime precedence (79%), however just one third have absolutely applied each macro- and micro-segmentation (33%). This contradiction tells us that organizations know what they should do, however complexity and outdated approaches are holding them again. That is backed up by the truth that practically 9 in 10 mentioned that their segmentation processes want enchancment (87%).
The principle problem holding organizations again is the elevated complexity as a result of hybrid IT, cloud, containers and legacy programs. Coupled with community decentralization, this complexity prevents safety groups from gaining visibility into distributed workloads. Restricted understanding of how these disparate customers, units, purposes and providers are connecting and interacting with one another makes it tough to create, apply and implement segmentation insurance policies.
Segmentation is a precedence for many organizations…
…however implementation lags behind.
2. Vital asset safety and assembly regulatory compliance are widespread driving elements for implementing segmentation
In the present day’s organizations are beneath stress to guard what issues most with out impacting productiveness and are utilizing segmentation primarily to guard high-value / essential property (57%) in essentially the most non-disruptive method doable. Assembly necessary necessities and strengthening resilience towards breaches are additionally priorities, in response to the report. In different phrases, segmentation is now not about danger discount. It’s about safeguarding enterprise continuity and buyer belief.
Asset safety is a driving issue for implementing segmentation.
3. Full segmentation might ship measurable positive factors for organizations seeking to present safe entry to purposes and customers
The respondents within the survey who’ve applied each macro- and micro- segmentation of their organizations agree that their methods have strengthened community safety, decreased the affect of breaches and improved operational alignment. Performed proper, segmentation isn’t only a management. Segmentation accelerates enterprise restoration, aligns groups throughout operations and creates a basis for automation.
Particularly, organizations which have applied each macro- and micro-segmentation report that they’ve decreased restoration time from 29 days to twenty days throughout all the assault cycle (discovery, containment and restoration). Moreover, 87% of those organizations say their groups are absolutely aligned, versus solely 52% of organizations that haven’t absolutely applied each macro- and micro- segmentation. Organizations with full implementation usually tend to strongly agree that automation is the important thing to scaling and maturing segmentation initiatives (63% vs 50% with out full implementation).
Segmentation speeds restoration time.
Transferring ahead with segmentation
Segmentation has emerged as a foundational safety technique, permitting organizations to make sure enterprise resilience, align groups throughout operations and create a basis for IT automation. Nonetheless, few organizations have applied profitable macro- and micro-segmentation methods and report being hamstrung by rising complexity, restricted visibility into workloads and a lack of expertise of professional communication flows between programs. The 2025 Cisco Segmentation Report helps Cisco align our segmentation product methods to those buyer challenges in hopes of finally enabling safety within the fashionable world.
Discover the complete 2025 Cisco Segmentation Report to see how your friends are rethinking segmentation in an more and more complicated world.
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