More Threats Are Emerging
Many modern businesses conduct a significant amount of their operations online. Even those that primarily have brick-and-mortar locations might store confidential customer and company information in digital formats on internal servers or in the cloud. While the internet has helped businesses to grow by taking advantage of an ever-expanding customer base and the ability to hire remote talent, the modern online environment has also resulted in continual cyber risks, including distributed denial-of-service attacks, viruses, malware, cybercrime such as theft of trade secrets and sensitive customer data, and more. For these reasons, most companies recognize the importance of their cybersecurity postures and strive to make their activities over their networks and online more secure.
Some companies have determined that outsourcing cybersecurity services to third-party cybersecurity companies makes more financial sense than building robust internal cybersecurity divisions. Outsourcing some or all of a company’s IT security needs to a third-party provider might help a business by leveraging the provider’s expertise while allowing their in-house IT staff to attend to other tasks. Here are a few of the many different types of services cybersecurity firms provide to clients and how they might benefit your business.
Risk Assessment Services
Most companies understand that their security posture is important but might not understand how to identify and address cyber risks. Depending on their locations and industry, companies might also need to maintain regulatory compliance with important laws such as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and others to protect the confidentiality of their client or patient data.
MSSPs provide value to businesses by proactively identifying cyber risks within an organization by discussing the company’s security management and conducting a risk assessment. Managed security services providers compile risk assessment reports that are easy to read and understand to address specific risks within a company, including:
- Whether and how employees receive security awareness training and its quality
- Whether and how a company identifies, documents, and addresses cybersecurity threats internally
- How and when vulnerability assessments are conducted for IT assets
- The company’s plans for how to address data breaches and other security incidents
- Whether the company’s plans and processes are followed when a cybersecurity incident occurs
- Identification of internal threats for future mitigation
- Existing vulnerabilities in the company’s network
After conducting a thorough risk assessment and compiling a report, the MSSP will then make recommendations about actionable steps the company can take to enhance security and reduce the threat of cyber attacks. Risk assessments can also help key executives down to front-line staff understand the real threats posed by cybercriminals and reduce the company’s overall risks through increased awareness. In addition, companies can use their risk assessments to assess their compliance with key laws and regulations and how they can exceed minimum requirements to become even more secure.
Network Security Monitoring
Network monitoring is critical for companies to ensure all of the components of their networks continue operating efficiently and optimally. This includes monitoring things such as firewalls, routers, servers, and switches to identify faults and performance metrics. With network monitoring, networks, and their components are continuously monitored proactively by the security operations center (SOC) to identify and address issues before they become major problems. By identifying bottlenecks and performance issues early, a managed services provider can help prevent costly downtime and network failures.
Endpoint Security Protection and Monitoring
Since vulnerabilities can arise from the devices, phones, tablets, and computers personnel use to conduct business over the network, endpoint detection and response are critical components of a strong network monitoring program. You need to be able to trust that your organization’s IT infrastructure is protected around the clock, making ongoing surveillance critical even during your company’s off-hours. Additionally, with the increasing reliance on a remote workforce that might be logging into a company’s networks from various mobile devices, there is a real risk that viruses and malware might be introduced to the network from endpoint devices. Most cybersecurity companies offer 24/7 network monitoring as well as endpoint protection, including monitoring, detection, and response, so that companies can focus on their core operations without worry.
Software Monitoring and Log Analysis
Software monitoring and log analysis involve reviewing event logs to identify bugs and other cyber risks and to ensure regulatory compliance. These services can also help organizations review the behavior of end users. An event log captures activity within software applications, operating systems, and devices and automatically documents file requests, transfers, log-ins and log-outs, messages, error reports, and other information specified by system administrators. In addition, the event log activity is timestamped, which helps establish a trail for an audit when a data breach, system failure, or another event occurs.
Log analysis could help organizations ensure regulatory compliance with laws that govern how data should be stored and analyzed. It can also provide multiple benefits for an organization, including the following:
- Enhanced troubleshooting by identifying errors and events within the log quickly and pinpointing issues before they happen
- Improved cybersecurity capabilities to identify and contain potential threats and increase response times
- Better customer experience by improving consistency and security while minimizing downtime
Security companies perform software monitoring and log analysis using security solutions that gather and store data from event logs and provide security professionals with a single access point. The logs are typically searchable so that decisions about security, allocation of resources, and the overall health of the network can be made quickly.
The activities performed by a managed services provider might include the following:
- Installation of log collectors to gather data from multiple sources across the organization’s IT infrastructure
- Aggregation of the data at a single location to simplify the process and increase the speed of the analysis
- Comprehensive analysis conducted by leveraging human resources and log analytics to assess known errors, anomalies, and suspicious activity
- Continual monitoring and the issuance of alerts when attention or intervention is needed
- Reporting of events
Security Advisory Services
Some cybersecurity companies offer security advisory services to help organizations understand the risks involved with data security and systems security. For example, MSSPs can provide advisory services to an organization’s internal IT staff and leadership to identify gaps in the enterprise’s security plans and programs and offer recommendations on how the organization can improve its security posture.
Security advisory services might include the provision of guidance and identification of how an organization’s current security processes deviate from industry-recognized best practices. The MSSP might also recommend a plan for changes the company can make to achieve its security objectives.
Working with your organization, your MSSP can develop both tailored and on-demand security awareness training programs to improve the awareness and education of users about your company’s security policies and their responsibilities and roles to help protect it from cyber threats.
Cybersecurity Solutions
One major benefit of working with managed security services providers that businesses can enjoy is the cybersecurity solutions security companies might offer. Cybersecurity solutions are services and tools that protect companies against cyber attacks that could lead to data breaches, data theft, reputational harm, regulatory violations, downtime, and other serious consequences.
Tools are an essential part of cybersecurity in the modern security environment, with a wide variety of ever-changing threats. As a result, many cybersecurity companies offer robust security solutions for businesses of all sizes, including:
- Next-generation antivirus applications
- Firewall management
- Application security
- Threat intelligence
- Threat detection and prevention
- Endpoint detection and response
- Device control
- SIEM solution
- Malware protection
- Phishing protection
- Incident response
- Internet of Things (IoT) security
- DDoS protection
- Cloud security
- Authentication
- Backup and disaster recovery
- Penetration testing
- Remediation
Organizations can choose tailored solutions to match their needs when they partner with managed security services providers.
Managed Security Services
Managed services an organization outsources might include managed security services that can be conducted in-house or remotely via the cloud. Managed security services providers provide a broad range of services, including security management, establishing infrastructure, threat detection and response, and more. Some companies outsource a portion of their IT security needs to an MSSP, while others fully outsource their information security programs.
Companies might choose to work with managed security services providers for multiple reasons, including the following:
- Not having in-house security resources
- Lack of expertise among their existing IT staff for specific areas of cyber security
- Need to have ongoing security monitoring round-the-clock
- Need for security audits
- Security awareness training
Response to a cyberattack, ransomware attack, or data breach
Need Professional Help?
Cybersecurity management has become increasingly complex as new threats continuously emerge. It can be difficult for in-house IT staff to keep current with challenges as they arise. As a result, organizations might choose to outsource some or all of their IT security needs to third-party providers to leverage their expertise and the services they provide.
If you would like to learn more about cybersecurity services provided by MSSPs and how they might benefit your organization, contact us for more information.
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