10 Reasons for SMBs to Consider a Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP)
Traditional defenses can’t guarantee bullet-proof cybersecurity for SMBs. By turning to managed security services, small businesses can leverage sophisticated technology that packs data science and threat intelligence to fight growing threats.
Today’s computing environment is very different from when everything was new and shiny. For starters, not everyone had a computer or internet connection. Heck, the biggest computing company at that time stated that the whole world would not need more than five computers. Yet, as I sit here, I can see three computers in my vision alone, and I know another four are on the shelf behind me. Secondly, everyone worked on a trust system and, naturally, trusted each other. Cybercrime had not even been thought of, let alone invented.
Of course, as technology improved and became widespread, it caught the eyes of the criminals who are on a lookout for an easy buck. People say criminals are dumb, yet when it comes to technology, they always seem to be at least a half step in front of the good guys. This puts those who are not as or don’t have the time to be technology savvy at a huge disadvantage.
Now the greatest risk lies with the most common types of business in the world — the small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs). These businesses have more important things to concentrate on than building and maintaining their own IT infrastructure and as they generally have a small budget they may be unwilling to spend it on what most consider as being a money sink instead of being a money source.
With the internet being as good as it is nowadays, almost everything is being offered as a service on the cloud. For businesses that do not have the capability to provide their own infrastructure, these services can be a godsend.
What is much overlooked, however, is security and in these times is the new business mandate and SMBs should be looking at SaaS —not Software-as-a-Service, but Security-as-a-Service. In other words, a Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP).
Top 10 Reasons Why SMBs Should Tap MSSPs:
1. Cost: As mentioned earlier, implementing your own IT department can be a bit of a money sink. It can be potentially expensive and requires a sizable upfront payment for the equipment and ongoing payments for the staff and equipment upgrades. Besides, having a trained staff that is security conscious and has technical know-how can drain resources. Hence, having a third party MSSP who can look after that side of things is easier on the pocket.
2. Security expertise: The security landscape changes all the time as new technology comes out and zero-day security exploits are found in programs and operating systems (OS). Having a company dedicated to security looking after yours means that they will be able to react to any new security holes as soon as they are found.
3. Monitoring: SMBs are, by definition, not large enough to be running 24/7. Given the average working day, there are sixteen hours of free time that cybercriminals can do their will. In terms of security that is an eternity. An MSSP can provide the full 24/7 coverage and will know when a breach happens as soon as it happens. Even before a breach happens, they can monitor the network for Advanced Persistent Threats (APT), which are the hardest to find and the most dangerous of all.
4. Focus: SMBs, like people, generally focus on one thing only, the product they are providing. If they have to divide their focus on extra things like security, it takes away resources from their core business. By using the services of an MSSP, the SMBs can focus on their core product and let the MSSP do what it does best, focus on its core business, the security of the SMB.
5. Efficiency: While I can make a cabinet or service a car, I am neither a woodworker nor a mechanic. As I don’t do these things every day all day, I will never be as efficient as someone who does. And the same goes for security. Sure, an SMB can build its own security solution, but they will never achieve the efficiency or in-depth defense an MSSP can provide. An MSSP can provide faster remediation efforts and more advanced machine learning-based threat detection technology for much less than an SMB could possibly provide.
6. Accountability: Hiring an MSSP is a win-win situation for businesses. Here’s why — it is the MSSP’s reputation on the line, and in the security landscape, reputation is what makes or breaks a security company. Not only that, the MSSP will also be legally liable for damages and they certainly wouldn’t want that. On the other hand, with an in-house solution, there is no way of verifying that the employee is doing their job properly. The employee could very well be surfing Facebook all day and the SMB would be none the wiser, until there is a breach.
7. Compliance: In the security world, the laws and standards are changing almost every other day. Logs have to be kept and timestamped. And what should be monitored and not monitored changes. To achieve a specific security rating, such as FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standards), organizations must use specific versions of the software. It is too much for a single employee to keep up with the evolving standards. MSSPs specialize in keeping their solutions compliant with the laws of the region where the business is conducted.
8. Expansion: While using an MSSP, an SMB has more resources to focus on its core product. The end result of that is, hopefully, achieving the goal of expanding the business. When a business expands, so does the infrastructure needed to maintain the business.
9. Hardware technology: The average life of computing hardware in any business setting is around five years. It doesn’t matter that the actual hardware itself is capable of running for twenty years or so. The rate at which technology changes, makes the hardware obsolete and security-wise, this could be dangerous. Developers design software updates to run on the latest hardware. If your hardware is not up-to-date, you can’t update your software either. This makes you a target for cyber criminals. An MSSP keeps its hardware up to date to provide the best security, so the SMB doesn’t have to.
10. Mitigation: By now, you are all aware, it is never a question of if a security breach happens, it is a matter of when a security breach happens. No matter how much security business has in place, breaches can still occur. So part of any security service must be in knowing what to do when a breach happens. This means you must analyze the breach, identify how the breach happened and determine what damage has been done. Then repairing the damage from clean backups.
The Takeaways
In today’s high-risk environment, SMBs have become easy targets of cyberattacks. Responding and recovering from these attacks can take longer than expected. As cybersecurity becomes a critical business mandate, SMBs are increasingly turning to MSSPs. Small businesses can better equip themselves against sophisticated cyberattacks. In addition, the return on investment is much greater than when implementing best-in-class security solutions in-house.
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