Complexity issues will prevent 40 percent of organizations from updating their networks in 2017, and a big part of the problem is security products, a new survey has found.

Cato Networks’ “Top Networking and Security Challenges in the Enterprise” report revealed that most organizations are using between two and five different security products to protect their networks, while 25 percent of companies use even more than that.

The survey of over 700 information technology professionals from around the globe also found that organizations with more than 1,000 employees generally experience even greater security complexity, with 39 percent of those managing five or more security solutions.

Security is a big concern for enterprises these days. Indeed, more than half of all respondents, and three quarters of chief information officers, said warding off the threat of ransomware and other forms of malware is their biggest priority in 2017. When asked how they plan to do so, 41 percent of respondents indicated that “firewall as a service” was the most promising solution they were looking into.

“The results of this global survey highlight systemic weaknesses in network and security architectures currently built upon point products and dependent on hard-to-find skills,” Shlomo Kramer, founder and chief executive of Cato Networks, said in a statement. “Today’s network rigidity hampers IT’s ability to adapt to growing threats and dynamic business requirements. The only way forward is a radical simplification of the current infrastructure complexity that underpins on-premises and cloud environments.”

Survey respondents who rely on wide area networks also reported significant problems with infrastructure maintenance, user experiences, and controlling mobile access. Around half of the respondents cited the cost of buying and managing security hardware and software as their biggest network security challenge, while another fifty percent reported difficulties in enforcing security policies for mobile users. Almost half enable mobile access to the cloud via virtual private networks, while 15 percent of companies said they do so via a cloud access security broker.

In its conclusion, Cato Networks suggested enterprises should look to streamline their networking infrastructure to assuage security fears.

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