Many organisations are increasingly becoming overwhelmed by the challenge that cybersecurity represents, everything from increasing security budgets, compliance with regulations and the threat of an attack are enough to push many businesses to the limits of their internal IT teams.This is the primary reason many organisations are now turning to a managed security service provider (MSSP) to help them cope, it can simply be too much to deal with for most. The challenge of strengthening your people, processes, and technology in an effort to properly secure their intellectual property and data, as well as stay in compliance with cybersecurity regulations can be an onerous task at the best of times, even with a well-staffed IT department.With that in mind, here are my top four reasons for choosing an MSSP over in-house security.

Using An MSSP Can Save You Money

Cybersecurity ecosystems are expensive to build, run and maintain, many software solutions can require dedicated hardware and appliances to run, and almost always come with recurring licensing costs. Further increasing the costs are the salaries of the cybersecurity employees and the cost of the training they require to properly leverage new tools and technologies. The beauty of using an MSSP is that they allow you to exchange the often large, and recurring, capital expenditure required to onboard new tools with operational expenditure in the form of predictable and ongoing monthly costs, something most CFO’s really appreciate in their budget.For a fraction of the cost, businesses can leverage an MSSP to provide them with constant (24/7) security monitoring and coverage, providing an immediate return on investment for businesses deciding between building a cybersecurity capability internally and outsourcing to an MSSP. A recent study reported that 46% of MSSP customers cut their annual IT costs by 25% or more. Cutting the costs of staffing is another huge area where MSSP’s can really shine when it comes to providing staffing and diverse security skillsets. They distribute these costs across their entire client base, providing a shared service so that individual customers do not need to bear the cost alone. In a recent survey, migration to an MSSP provided a return on investment of up to 152%, with total benefits of $1.3 million from cost savings over 3 years. MSSPs provide businesses with access to experience, technology and expertise that would be impossible to build in-house.

MSSP’s Allow You To Focus On Your Business

For most organisations, security is not a technical issue, it is a business issue and one which must be managed so that the business and its executives can maintain a laser focus on the mission of the organization. The organisation exists to serve customers and leverage its employees to deliver value and returns to its shareholders. The requirement to balance security needs with business objectives has always been challenging for even the largest organisations. As the complexity of attacks continues to increase, the requirements for defensive capabilities has challenged and strained most organisations grappling with the issue. Partnering with an MSSP is a way that businesses are reducing the requirements associated with maintaining a cybersecurity program, allowing you to change focus from cybersecurity onto core business needs. When you outsource your cybersecurity processes, people and technology to an MSSP, you are simply better positioned as a business to focus on what is most important.

MSSP’s Have Better Tools

Any security professional will tell you that the security tools and technology they use can generate an enormous amount of actions (logins, uploads, alerts, etc) on a daily basis and that only a small percentage of these represent real threats. In a recent research study, more than 31% of those surveyed admitted that they ignored alerts because they think so many alerts are false positives, and more than 40% feel that the alerts they receive lack actionable intelligence. To further compound matters, many businesses have up to 20 different cybersecurity technology solutions and more than half surveyed use more than six different solutions and the problem with this is that many of these tools do not integrate with one another. This creates siloes of data which aggravate the problem of sorting through the cybersecurity actions generated daily. MSSP’s, however, will usually have done the heavy lifting around tools and technology integration and have integrated them over time in order to more efficiently serve their customers. In addition, MSSP’s also incorporate advanced technologies and capabilities, from machine learning to artificial intelligence and dark web cyber threat intelligence in an effort to improve the efficiency of their tools and these capabilities are a major driver for organisations partnering with an MSSP.

MSSP’s Can Help You Remain Compliant

When implementing a cybersecurity program, organisations need to align the program to the business needs, understand the risk tolerance of the business, put ISO, NIST, or CSC controls in place, set goals concerning how their organization should manage the controls and work out how to improve their cybersecurity posture without overspending. In addition to this, many organisations also face industry-specific challenges. Retail businesses often need to meet the PCI DSS compliance requirements, a complex set of security controls that includes access management, endpoint protection, and secure development. Healthcare providers must meet the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy Rule and Security Rule. Publicly traded companies must meet Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) requirements. These are only a few of the industry-specific compliance challenges. Each industry faces different risks, challenges, and threats. A good MSSP will provide assistance to help them meet their compliance need and also to tailor their cybersecurity program to the unique risks specific to their industry. A good MSSP (like us for example) will employ consultants whose expertise lies in implementing controls, managing risk, and developing cybersecurity strategies to meet compliance requirements.

If you need any help cutting your cybersecurity costs, refining your cybersecurity processes, getting to grips with cybersecurity technology, adhere to you compliance requirements or simply want to speak to an experienced managed security services provider, then get in touch with ITSEC. Our security professionals have a wealth of experience securing organisations large and small, we always have something to bring to the table and can usually help you find the information security solution you are looking for.