Can a Managed Security Service Provider Help You?

A managed security service provider, or MSSP, is an entity—usually an organization consisting of many cybersecurity experts—that provides a variety of services designed to protect organizations against cyber threats. However, many companies question whether an MSSP can help them, or if they would be better off hiring an internal cybersecurity expert (or team) to act as a security service provider.

So, can a managed security service provider help your organization? The short answer is “Yes!” But, how does a managed security service help your organization?

How MSSPs Help with Threat Management and Incident Response

Threat management is a crucial task for any modern organization. Being able to respond quickly and effectively to cybersecurity breaches can mean the difference between a mildly annoying breach that takes a little time to investigate and becoming the next “Big Data Breach at…” headline in your industry.

Managed security service providers help you improve your threat management and incident response by:

• Improving Your Response Time to Security Incidents. An MSSP can help improve your company’s response time during cybersecurity incidents by setting up automated security response tools and by providing dedicated cybersecurity experts around the clock who can immediately respond to incidents.
  
  
• Providing Threat Intelligence. Some managed security services offer access to carefully-cultivated threat intelligence feeds that keep your organization apprised of the latest cybersecurity threats. This helps improve threat management by raising cybersecurity awareness in your organization.
  
  
• Creating Incident Response Plans. If a cyber attack occurs, do the people in your organization know what to do? MSSPs can help create incident response plans that provide everyone with clearly-defined roles and responsibilities in case of a security incident—helping to improve overall security throughout your organization.

Using a managed security service provider like Compuquip can help your organization streamline its threat management and incident response, saving time and resources compared to handling such tasks using internal resources alone.

MSSPs Provide Expert Support for Your Cybersecurity Devices

Managing a wide array of network security tools is a challenge for any organization—especially when the organization is trying to incorporate new security devices. There are challenges in picking the right tool for the job as well as ensuring the security tool doesn’t interfere with other cybersecurity measures or business processes.

Experienced security service providers with a large team of cybersecurity experts—like Compuquip—frequently have extensive knowledge of different network security devices and how they work. This lets them better anticipate how they’ll perform and provide support. This is because, as dedicated security service providers, they work with a wide variety of companies that use different cybersecurity tools.

With an internally-hired cybersecurity expert, you’re limited to that one person’s direct knowledge of security devices.

Managed Security Service Providers Simplify Cybersecurity Data Management

Security information and event management (SIEM) solutions collect an enormous amount of data to present to the user. Trying to manually manage the sheer amount of raw data SIEM software can generate is a full-time job—especially if the person parsing the data doesn’t have extensive experience in managing SIEM solutions.

Managed security service providers have extensive experience in managing SIEM data and configuring these solutions so that only the most important information is presented to the user. This helps your organization sort through the “noise” so it can respond effectively to its biggest security challenges.

In fact, an MSSP can tackle the bulk of the SIEM management tasks while training up a member of your organization to take over if you need to set up an internal SIEM management team.

MSSPs Can Uncover Security Vulnerabilities Before Attackers Use Them

Using a series of penetration tests, managed security service experts can uncover critical security gaps in your network—ideally before an attacker can leverage the gap for their own gain.

By uncovering security gaps and managing vulnerabilities, managed security service providers can help protect a business against previously-unknown threats. However, the protection against new cyber threats extends beyond pen tests.

A managed security service company will work with many clients in other industries. By working with other companies and learning from the attacks they face, MSSPs can craft countermeasures to these attack methods—countermeasures that your organization will benefit from.

Compuquip has decades of experience helping companies manage their cybersecurity strategies. Reach out to our team today to learn more about how we can help you safeguard your organization against modern-day cyber threats now!