Who Do You Trust?
Do you know your MSP from your MSSP?
When sourcing business IT security support, you will realise that there lies a difference between the main services available. It can be difficult to understand those differences, especially between MSPs and MSSPs, and to know how they can both support your business. In this blog post we compare MSP vs MSSP.
MSP vs MSSP
A managed service provider (MSP) and managed security services provider (MSSP) might sound similar but are two entirely different propositions. Whilst both services offer professional help with the IT needs of your organisation, their focus is entirely different, you could even say they are like chalk and cheese.
While there may be small crossover of functions between these two types of outsourced services, the fact remains that it’s highly likely that you will need to invest resources and budget for each.
Managed Service Provider (MSP)
A managed service provider (MSP) operate in the world of IT network management, offering a range of services to provide you with easy access to your IT infrastructure:
- IT professionals who work to ensure your system is in good operational health
- focus on maintaining your IT operations
- work to keep your IT infrastructure up to date
- ensure that your IT systems are up and running
- aim to keep systems available for your users
- troubleshoot and fixes any problems and performance issues for your staff
- offer help desk and technical support to your users
- look after data storage and back-up
- provide only a basic level of security support
With cyber crime on the rise, a basic level of security is no longer enough to deal with the type of cyber threats and challenges being faced. The bare minimum is no longer sufficient to keep your systems, staff, data and critical assets safe.
Managed Security
Service Provider (MSSP)
The results of a GOV.co.uk survey released in March 2020 reported that cyber security breaches are becoming more frequent, and that 46% of UK businesses and charities reported a cyber-attack during the year, with 33% claiming that they experienced a cyber breach in 2020 at least once a week. And it’s not just big businesses being targeted, small businesses are at risk too.
Cybersecurity is now a core responsibility for all businesses, and companies need to allocate resources for their IT security and hire the right experts to protect them.
This is where Managed Security Service Providers (MSSP) come into play.
MSSP’s provide a much higher level of security than MSPs
- Specialised security analysts whose key purpose is the security of your systems, staff, data, and critical assets.
- Expertise to analyse your business for security risks and propose bespoke plans to counter them
- Implement and manage a range of security tools to prevent attacks, such as firewalls, email security, endpoint detection and network access control
- Test the security awareness of your staff, and evaluates your network security infrastructure’s ability to reflect attacks
- Undertake cyber security monitoring, scanning for new threats and vulnerabilities to detect any security incidents
- Develop, and can undertake on your behalf, incident response planning, so you are ready to act on any security breach however large
With the growing IT needs of organisations, both large and small, coupled with the increasing complexity of the cyber security landscape, many organisations recognise that both service providers are required for businesses to operate efficiently, safely and securely.
Here at Infosec Partners we have over 15 years MSSP experience of implementing mission-critical data security, risk, and compliance programs. Whether you’re looking for 24×7 complete managed security or an on-call expert advisor, we offer a range of managed security services designed to protect your business, detect threats and react to cyber incidents on your behalf.
