I’m sure you don’t worry about security at your company. You have a full-time Security Officer with a staff of highly trained, long-established engineers focused on keeping your data locked down tight.
After all, security is essential: a 2019 survey of security professionals in 11 countries estimated that cybercrime costs each of their companies $13 million a year—the average cost in the U.S. is more than double, at $27.4 million. And taking the big-picture view, cybersecurity costs all of us an astonishing $600 billion a year.
Of course, we all know the awkward truth about security needs, which is that many companies feel they need to skimp on protection, especially if budgetary woes mean there isn’t enough for a fully staffed in-house team.
How Can Outsourcing your Organization’s Security Operations Help Your Business?
Enter the Managed Security Services Provider (MSSP), an increasingly popular option for companies determined to stay on top of security risks by leveraging others’ expertise. A custom managed IT security service provides you with everything from an initial Security Assessment to a fully implemented plan that is managed for you.
Don’t have time to review the security logs from your firewall? An MSSP does.
Need the assurance that your company is future-proofed, or wondering what you need to do next to get there? An MSSP can help.
Feeling bogged down by the strict PCI or HIPAA compliance standards you have to follow? An MSSP will manage the process for you, stay current on all changes to compliance rules, and even provide guidance for potential changes to the standards in the future.
Make Sure You Have Table-Stakes Security in Place
Companies who lack the security basics run the highest risk of running into trouble, as do those who have let good procedures slide. At a minimum, every company should have basic security measures in place. These include having a correctly configured business-class firewall that is regularly monitored, a WiFi network set up for separate guest and user access (with strong passwords), endpoint protection (antivirus and anti-malware), password requirements for local users, and allowing access to data only by specific users.
Backups are another essential part of security, but they are of little value if they are not secure. Companies without locked-down backups run the risk of being at the mercy of extortion attempts if a hacker threatens to erase or reveal sensitive data. By using an MSSP that can take care of offsite backups, companies are buying themselves an extra level of protection.
Obtain Best-in-Class Knowledge in a Very Expensive Labor Market
Let’s face it: with unemployment at all-time lows, and IT workers even harder than usual to place, it can be difficult for even the most desirable companies to fill all the positions they need—the unemployment rate for those working in cybersecurity is essentially zero. Companies that need to fill IT roles with especially challenging responsibilities or locations are likely to have to scramble even more to keep themselves adequately staffed.
With an MSSP, the knowledge you need is available, from a place with lots of perspective and experience to offer. Whether it’s scaling up security to match a company’s expansion or evading problems when moving into a new area, MSSPs have a lot to offer companies concerned about staying up-to-date.
Meet Information Security Compliance Standards
If your company must meet HIPAA, PCI or other compliance standards, you will need to do more than the basics. In almost all compliance cases, businesses are required to have a written Security Plan that includes items like naming a local Compliance Officer, how a breach will be reported should one occur, password policies, and access procedures. Just getting started down this path can be overwhelming for a company lacking in specialized resources.
An MSSP is a perfect fit for this scenario. They know the kinds of plans to put in place, and they know the right questions to ask to make sure you are compliant and remain so.
Keep Remote Workers Safe and Secure
It’s a rare company that has no remote workers at all, or that isn’t likely to have some in the future. In fact, once a single user configures email on his or her smartphone, you have a remote user. The majority of workers check their email at home, and 60 percent of them check it even when they are on vacation.
Hackers are all too able to take advantage of any access points that aren’t sufficiently locked down. A managed IT security service provider keeps access secure while not making it too difficult for legitimate users to navigate.
Tap a Managed Network Security Service Team to Do the Research for You
Unless you relish the idea of reading pages and pages of rules and regulations and consider hours of online research of the most recent Internet attack variances fascinating (maybe that’s just us), why not tap into a team that does? Hackers aren’t content to just keep using the same methods, and that means that those working to fight them can’t stand still either.
The days of just loading antivirus on workstations and servers and plugging in some kind of firewall and hoping no one will spend time hacking your particular business are over. Bad guys’ tools are too inexpensive, the reach too great, and the risk too small to deter them. It costs them next to nothing to look for weak leaks that could lead to potentially big payoffs.
An MSSP will help you understand the risks of new exploits, and to help you understand what software can and cannot do to fend off attacks. It can also help you optimize your company’s overall level of risk.
MSSPs work hard to keep themselves agile and to stay on top of the newest trends in digital transformation as well as security.
Upgrading Your Security with an MSSP
In the future, companies are likely to continue to struggle to find in-house cybersecurity talent. But they still need to keep their intellectual property, user data, and reputations intact and safe. MSSPs represent an essential way to bridge that knowledge gap.
Making sure your company has excellent network security services is critical, but the constantly changing, highly technical nature of the field makes that difficult. Cybersecurity is simply not a place where you can “fake it till you make it.” The consequences of not having enterprise-level expertise are just too great.
Your company is worth best-in-class security. Contact us today for a network security consultation and more information about what an MSSP can do for you.
Register for our IT/Network newsletter today!