What is a Managed Security Service Provider?
It’s probably safe to say that you wouldn’t leave your car unlocked, or the windows in your house wide open, to let just anybody into your personal spaces where they can access all of your belongings. You would undoubtedly use the standard security tools provided and potentially seek expert advice on how to add in extra measures to make you feel safe and keep your assets and valuables secure from harm, damage, and theft.
A Managed Security Services provider (MSSP) does pretty much the same, just for your business. They work with you to protect, detect and react to any security incidents across your systems, staff, data and critical assets.
Think of MSSPs as the security guards of your IT networks and infrastructure – standing guard, checking access rights, keeping an eye on what goes on, looking out for suspicious activity, responding quickly to any incidents, ensuring damage limitation, shoring up any security gaps.
What does an MSSP provide?
A good MSSP will provide a full spectrum of support – a mix of cyber-consultancy and managed cyber-security services. They will analyse your risks to advise you what your business needs, and then work with you to implement and, if required, manage those cyber security solutions:
- Specialised security analysts whose key purpose is the security of your systems, staff, data, and critical assets.
- Work with you to ensure your business is cyber-compliant.
- Provide 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 evaluate 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 undertake incident response planning on your behalf, so you are ready to act on any security breach however large.
What Solutions does an MSSP use?
Every company is different, each with unique cyber-cyber security needs, and so a one size solution certainly does not fit all organisations. That’s why we recommend you search out a vendor neutral MSSP who will be concerned with what’s best for your business. A vendor agnostic MSSP will assess the full marketplace and tailor the solution to your needs, rather than leading blindly with a fixed, target-driven product. And what’s more, they will also have the skills and experience to integrate solutions from multiple product providers and the infrastructure that you have in place already.
Do I really need an 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.
Not every company has the resources to manage cyber security in house. Having in-house security expertise can be expensive, and not every security expert is an expert in all fields of cybersecurity.
As cybersecurity is a core responsibility for all organisations of all sizes, many companies recognise the need to allocate resources for their IT security and hire the right experts to protect them.
By appointing an MSSP you can benefit from the expertise of an entire team, and gain value for money. What’s more, cyber crime isn’t a mon-fri 9-5 activity, to stay alert and to be able to respond quickly to suspicious events, your business needs round-the-clock cyber-protection 365 days of the year.
With the growing IT needs of organisations, both large and small, coupled with the increasing complexity of the cyber security landscape, many organisations recognise MSSPs are required for businesses to operate efficiently, safely and securely.
Want to know more?
Infosec Partners is a managed security services innovator and astute partner with a full-spectrum security capability. We provide a range of flexible Managed Security Services.
GET YOUR FREE CYBER SECURITY CONSULTATION
Please leave a few contact details and one of our trusted cyber security consultants will get back to you.
Or call us to speak with someone immediately:
