You only merely need to glance at the headlines to hear about many stories of hacking, malware, virus infections, security breaches and ransomware. If you read the stories behind the headlines, you will hear the stories of businesses, large and small, seemingly helpless against ransomware and associated downtime, loss of services and loss of revenue. Effective recovery is expensive and damages the confidence of your customers.
Statistically, there is a good chance you’ve already had this happen to your business, as the number of attacks keep rising.
In addition, your business must always be able to count on having secure access to all customer data and business-sensitive data, while at the same time being in compliance with all regulations, legislation, and company policy.
What can a business do? One effective option gaining popularity is to hire another company whose sole purpose is the monitoring and protection of your environment – a Managed Security Services Provider (MSSP). Do you think an MSSP may be effective for your business? In evaluating this question, keep the below items in mind.
Does your business have multiple layers of advanced technology to monitor for today’s advanced attacks and prevent them? Not only is such software expensive, but it is also time consuming and complex, requiring much ‘care and feeding’ beyond the initial installation and configuration. Most small businesses have enough on their plate running their business, they do not need the extra hassle, resource drain, and expensive in managing a stack of security products.
An MSSP can handle this for you – they give your business access to advanced software tools and highly trained personnel to monitor your environment for security events, giving you piece of mind while you refocus on your core business
Does your business have security technology beyond antivirus and a firewall? Today’s advanced attacks come through many firewalls and have active antivirus avoidance techniques. Your business needs more – in many cases, much more.
An MSSP has access to all the professional security tools – advanced desktop protection and response, threat management, intrusion detection and prevention, vulnerability scanning, real-time monitoring, and security compliance. An MSSP can assess your business to see which tools and techniques would be appropriate given your existing controls and the types of threats against them.
Does your business have dedicated expertise in security technology, and do they keep current with the rapid pace of change of today’s attacks? Today’s hackers and mal-intended attackers are constantly changing their tactics to work around any defenses. This level of agility requires a matching level of security expertise in defending against these attacks. Does your business hire only the best security personnel? And keep them well trained with multiple, expensive security training courses per year?
An MSSP’s core business is security – it hires the best security personnel to have on the front line, protecting your business. It keeps these people trained in latest attacks and defense techniques, because they will see these attacks as they evolve, every day.
Even if your business has an effective security technology stack, and agile, trained personnel to manage it, are you sure you can retain these experts? The security job market has had negative unemployment (more jobs than people to fill them) for quite some time and as a result salaries for security experts have risen quite high. Do you have the compensation package to effectively retain your existing personnel?
An MSSP can take this concern off your hands, providing an active, dynamic environment that security personnel crave and thrive in. Let the retention problem be the MSSPs problem, not your business’ problem.
Is your business aware of all the regulations applicable to it, and effective at keeping up with the changing legal landscape? Privacy regulations, in particular, are changing almost daily, and your business doesn’t want to be inadvertently caught out for not following a regulation that changed while you were busy running your business.
An MSSP keeps up on such regulations regarding privacy, healthcare, credit cards, other payment methods, and many, many more. An MSSP can help you stay compliant in a world of constant regulatory churn.
Does your business have security personnel watching over your systems 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? Most small, medium, and even some large businesses simply do not have the number or bench depth of personnel to monitor your systems at all hours of every day.
An MSSP staffs such that you can be assured of 24×7 monitoring and protection of your environment – you and your employees can sleep well at night while your MSSP has eyes-on-glass on your behalf.
All the above advantages of an MSSP would be useless if the service didn’t come in at a reasonable cost. In most cases, an MSSP can provide a level of service beyond what you currently have at a lower cost. An MSSP spreads the fixed costs of investments in technology over a broad customer base – and as a customer, you benefit directly from these savings. Security is the MSSP’s core business and it can leverage the same economies of scale, leverage, and competitive advantage that your use in your own business’ area.
In addition to being cost effective, another advantage an MSSP can bring to the table is cost stability – your business will know exactly what you’ll pay for security, month over month. Many businesses without an MSSP have wild swings in their cost for security – very low when there are no attacks or incidences and then rising to 2x, 5x, or even more in months where attacks or recovery are needed. An MSSP provides stability by having one fixed cost per month for your security services.
Cybercrime is evolving at an incredible pace, with even the largest businesses discovering vulnerable points in their security systems. Without proper protection, tracking these threats would take excessive time and energy, not to mention manpower and salaries for qualified in-house security specialists.
Today’s threat landscape poses a real and present risk to your business’ sensitive data, profitability, and reputation. Security is an ongoing activity that requires a clear understanding of how users, customers, and applications access data and how devices are configured
MSSPs provide benefits like superior protection, advanced technology, and dedicated expertise in security and compliance to businesses. MSSPs will use well tested, proven and integrated technology for protecting your organization from today’s advanced attacks.
An MSSP will focus on monitoring your network, scanning for vulnerabilities and ensuring your compliance status while your personnel focuses on the tasks of running your business.
Some studies have suggested that more than half of small businesses go bankrupt after a security breach. Don’t let it be yours.