There was a time when companies were hesitant about their IT and security teams using automation to discharge some of their duties.

“I think much of that was due to the feeling that if a task was automated and something went wrong, IT was not in control and did not have as much visibility,” Candace Worley, Chief Technical Strategist at McAfee, told Help Net Security.

But the increasing quantity and sophistication of threats, the massive amount of data flowing across the corporate network, the exponential complexity of enterprise environments, the chronic shortage of cybersecurity talent and increasingly pervasive privacy and security regulations have forced companies to overcome their reticence.