What About Outsourcing?

Given the complexity of the cybersecurity landscape, many organizations are looking to Managed Security Services Providers (MSSPs) for the talent and expertise to build and manage their security operations.

Outsourcing your security function, or a subset of your security operation, is an attractive option and may be the right answer for your organization. MSSPs offer many benefits, including the knowledge, resources, and tools needed to turn mountains of data into alerts with context that can be acted upon to address incidents.

To be effective, however, your environment needs to be ready before you engage an MSSP. A provider can automate processes for you, for example, but first, the processes and procedures must exist. Choosing to outsource does not mean you can escape doing the hard work of developing processes for hardware and software patching, configuration management, asset management, incident management, disaster recovery, and others.

Outsourcing also doesn’t fully address the human element of security.

Your employees still need to be security-aware and trained to avoid falling for social engineering attacks and to ensure they correctly handle sensitive data.

Compliance is another factor to consider.

While some MSSPs offer specific industry experience, others do not. Regardless, making sure your business complies with industry regulations remains your responsibility.

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