Annual SolarWinds Study Reveals Opportunities for Business and IT Collaboration in Managing Enterprise Risk Driven by Internal and External Security Threats

• SolarWinds IT Trends Report 2021: Building a Secure Future examines how technology professionals perceive the evolving state of risk in today’s business environment following internal impact of COVID-19 IT policies and exposure to external breaches
• SolarWinds introduces Secure by Design program as a guide for industry-wide approach to help prevent future cyberattacks

SolarWinds (NYSE:SWI), a leading provider of simple, powerful, and secure IT management software, today released the findings of its eighth annual IT Trends Report. This year’s report, SolarWinds® IT Trends Report 2021: Building a Secure Future, released eight months after the broad and highly sophisticated SUNBURST cyberattack, is part of the company’s commitment to leading industry collaboration and transparency to prevent future cyberattacks and help technology professionals navigate the new threat landscape. It examines how technology professionals perceive their organizations’ risk management and mitigation readiness after a year of rapid transformation fueled by the global pandemic. The study analyzes the state of risk within the IT industry today and provides guidance on workplace strategy, tool sets, preparedness, and leadership for companies as they work to construct an organization built to withstand risk.

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Over the past year, tech pros were tasked with enabling a distributed global workforce and managing the adoption of public cloud services, as organizations quickly pivoted to implement a range of technologies to keep their businesses up and running during the pandemic. Against this backdrop, nearly every industry was confronted with the acceleration of high-level cybersecurity breaches, which highlighted the potential risk of incomplete security policies and procedures across the industry. This unprecedented upheaval has served as a critical catalyst for a broader exploration of organizations’ exposure to enterprise IT risk of all kinds—including risk introduced by the implications of remote, distributed work—and the degree to which organizations are prepared to manage, mitigate, and prevent risk in the future.

The findings of the SolarWinds IT Trends Report 2021 uncover a reality in which exposure to enterprise IT risk is common across organizations but perceptions of apathy and complacency surrounding risk preparedness are high as businesses exit a year of pandemic-driven “crisis mode.” Tech pros have outlined key areas of technology investment and upskilling to prioritize cloud computing, network infrastructure solutions, and security/compliance—demonstrating an inherent awareness that falling behind is potentially the greatest risk of all. This year’s study reveals the immense opportunity ahead for tech pros and IT leadership to align and collaborate on priorities and policies to best position not only individual organizations but the industry at large to succeed with a future built for risk preparedness.

“Technology professionals today are under even greater pressure to ensure optimized, secure performance for remote workforces while facing limited time and resources for personnel training. When it comes to risk management and mitigation, prioritizing intentional investments in technology solutions that meet business needs is critical,” said Sudhakar Ramakrishna, President and CEO, SolarWinds. “More than ever before, tech pros must partner closely with business leaders to ensure they have the resources and headcount necessary to proactively address security risks. And more importantly, tech pros should constantly assess their risk management, mitigation, and protocols to avoid falling into complacency and being 'blind’ to risk.”

2021 Key Findings

SolarWinds IT Trends Report 2021: Building a Secure Future explores how tech pros perceive the state of risk in today’s business environment, and how the global pandemic impacted technology investments across IT teams. Key findings show:

Security threats associated with external breaches and the internal impact of COVID-19 IT policies emerged as the leading macro trends influencing enterprise IT risk today.

• 46% of overall tech pros surveyed state their organizations have had medium exposure to enterprise IT risk over the past 12 months.
  • The level of perceived risk exposure differs by the size of the organization. A sense of high or extremely high-risk exposure is perceived more acutely by tech pros at enterprise organizations (19%) as compared to their small business (11%) and mid-size (7%) counterparts.

• Security breaches are perceived to be the biggest external factor influencing an organization's exposure to risk, with 76% of tech pros surveyed citing external security threats like cyberattacks as the top macro trend influencing their organization’s risk exposure.
• However, COVID-19 also had a critical impact on organizations’ risk exposure, with tech pros flagging these top associated risk-inducing factors (by weighted rank):
  • Remote work policies (70%)
  • Growth of data as a result of work-from-home (WFH) needs (51%)
  • Distributed workforce/employee relocation (50%)

• Likewise, 58% of tech pros surveyed said the accelerated shift to remote working was the number-one aspect within current IT environments considered to increase an organization’s risk exposure, followed closely by unknown human factors such as employee security burnout (due to constant MFA exposure, changing passwords, and other security best practices) (56%).
  • 75% of respondents say security and compliance ranked in the top three technologies most critical to managing/mitigating risk within their organizations, followed by network infrastructure (44%) and ITSM and/or ITAM solutions (28%).

• Although external security threats are the primary risk factor, internal vulnerabilities as a result of remote/distributed environments and employee cybersecurity hygiene (or lack thereof) cannot be overlooked in today’s work landscape.

Tech pros are confident in their risk management and mitigation preparedness strategies although enterprise IT risk exists within their organizations.

• 73% of tech pros surveyed “agree” or “strongly agree” their IT organization is prepared to manage, mitigate, and resolve risk factor-related issues due to the policies and/or procedures they already have in place.
  • This finding is echoed by organizations’ careful approach to technology adoption and implementations in response to shifting demands of COVID-19 distributed work environments: despite the accelerated timeline, nearly 40% of respondents said standard risk management protocols were followed.

• That said, as detailed in a recent McKinsey report, tech pros and their IT organizations will need to be careful to avoid complacency in today’s ever-evolving risk landscape and be sure to refresh and strengthen their approach to risk management for the future.

Tech pros are prioritizing investments in security and compliance, network infrastructure, and cloud computing as core technologies that can help manage risk, but implementation is hampered by dwindling resources and access to personnel training.

• More than 80% of tech pros surveyed “agreed” or “strongly agreed” technology is the best way for organizations to manage, mitigate, and resolve issues related to risk.
  • IT teams prioritized investment in security and compliance (54%) and network infrastructure (52%), followed by cloud computing (35%) to accommodate the unprecedented demands of COVID-19 and the shift to remote work.

• However, despite the understanding that technology can play a critical role in enterprise IT risk management, barriers to its adoption and implementation exist. The top three reported challenges when it comes to using technology to mitigate and/or manage risk within organizations are:
  • Lack of budget/resources (57%)
  • Lack of training for personnel (48%)
  • Decreased staff size (36%)

• Interestingly, challenges for enterprise organizations differ with 44% of enterprise respondents citing unclear or shifting priorities as their biggest barrier to using technology to mitigate/manage risk.
• Implementation is further hampered by 45% of tech pros admitting that while some of their monitoring/management tools are integrated to enhance visibility across their IT environment(s)—whether on-premises, cloud-based or hybrid—other tools are still siloed.
• Tech pros are overcoming these barriers by:
  • Prioritizing the introduction of new technologies to the environment (such as multi-factor authentication and/or additional/new monitoring) (54%)
  • Developing policies and processes (50%)

Tech pros are capitalizing on an opportunity to foster greater alignment and collaboration with senior leaders to best position their organizations to manage and mitigate risks in the future.

• 61% of respondents are confident or extremely confident their IT organization will continue to invest in risk management/mitigation technologies over the next three years.
• 62% perceive their organization’s senior leaders or decision-makers to have a heightened awareness of risk exposure, believing it’s not “if” but “when” they will be impacted by a risk factor. But while 36% believe their organization is prepared to mitigate and manage risk, 26% said their senior leaders have difficulty convincing other leaders of this reality, ultimately limiting resources to address risk.
  • This reinforces how nearly half (48%) of tech pros surveyed state their IT organizations are improving alignment between IT business goals and corporate leadership in response to other tech adoption barriers like a lack of skilled IT staff triggered by cost- cutting, consolidation, or outdated skillsets, and a lack of available IT management tools.

To explore and interact with the 2021 findings, please visit the SolarWinds IT Trends Index, a dynamic web experience presenting the study’s findings by region and additional insights into the data, as well as charts, graphs, and socially shareable elements. This year’s study features an interactive component where visitors to the web experience can see how they compare to the results.

The findings of this year’s North American report are based on a survey fielded in March/April 2021, which yielded responses from 228 technology practitioners, managers, directors, and senior executives from public- and private-sector small, mid-size, and enterprise organizations across the United States and Canada. All regions studied in 2021, as reported on the SolarWinds IT Trends Index, were North America, Australia, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, and the United Kingdom, with 967 respondents across all geographies combined.

SolarWinds Outlines Secure by Design Principles for a More Secure Future

To address the industry-wide ramifications of the SUNBURST cyberattack and help strengthen its own security posture going forward, SolarWinds has introduced an initiative to become Secure by Design. Under this approach, SolarWinds is focused on further securing its internal environment, enhancing its product development environment, and ensuring the security and integrity of the products it delivers as it seeks to evolve into an industry-leading secure software development company.

The learnings resulting from the SUNBURST investigation have also presented an opportunity for SolarWinds to lead an industry-wide effort around transparency and collaboration, and for SolarWinds to develop a new model for secure software environments, development processes, and products. In partnership with former CISA leader Chris Krebs and former Facebook Chief Security Officer Alex Stamos (co-founders of the Krebs Stamos Group), SolarWinds is developing best practices to enhance the SolarWinds security posture and policies, while also serving as a guide for other organizations as they work to prevent future attacks. Customers, partners, and tech professionals can follow along with the SolarWinds Secure by Design blog content and join live webcasts hosted by members of the SolarWinds executive team, its Head Geeks^™, customers, partners, and industry cybersecurity experts to learn more about Secure by Design best practices and learnings from the SUNBURST attack.

Additional Resources

• SolarWinds IT Trends Report 2021: Building a Secure Future
• SolarWinds Secure by Design Resources

Past SolarWinds IT Trends Reports

• SolarWinds IT Trends Report 2020: The Universal Language of IT
• SolarWinds IT Trends Report 2019: Skills for Tech Pros of Tomorrow

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Forward-looking Statements

This press release contains “forward-looking” statements, which are subject to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements regarding our database performance management portfolio’s improve the quality of life for data professionals. These forward-looking statements are based on management's beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to management. Forward-looking statements include all statements that are not historical facts and may be identified by terms such as “aim,” “anticipate,” “believe,” “can,” “could,” “seek,” “should,” “feel,” “expect,” “will,” “would,” “plan,” “intend,” “estimate,” “continue,” or similar expressions and the negatives of those terms. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, the risks and uncertainties described more fully in documents filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the risk factors discussed in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the period ended December 31, 2020 filed on March 1, 2021 and our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the period ended March 31, 2021 filed on May 10, 2021. All information provided in this release is as of the date hereof and SolarWinds undertakes no duty to update this information except as required by law.

About SolarWinds

SolarWinds (NYSE:SWI) is a leading provider of simple, powerful, and secure IT management software. Our solutions give organizations worldwide—regardless of type, size, or complexity—the power to accelerate business transformation in today’s hybrid IT environments. We continuously engage with technology professionals—IT service and operations professionals, DevOps and SecOps professionals, and Database Administrators (DBAs) – to understand the challenges they face in maintaining high-performing and highly available IT infrastructures, applications, and environments. The insights we gain from them, in places like our THWACK community, allow us to address customers’ needs now, and in the future. Our focus on the user and commitment to excellence in end-to-end hybrid IT management has established SolarWinds as a worldwide leader in solutions for observability, IT service management, application performance, and database management. Learn more today at www.solarwinds.com.

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