In Privacy-First Era, MSSPs Can Push the Data Protection Envelope

Data security risks are everywhere — this was true before the pandemic and even more true today. Organizations with big SaaS dependency are sending more sensitive data to public clouds rather than enterprise data centers. Steve Roos, Vice President of Technology and Security at Chicago-based Telecom Brokerage Inc. (TBI), discusses how Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs) and pure-play technology vendors can assuage widespread data security concerns with a single pane of glass-like solution vs. standalone tools that increase complexity. 

The dramatic shift in the number of remote employees and businesses embracing work from home models has spurred a major focus around cybersecurity and data protection. Removal of the office perimeter combined with the propensity for human errors and lax security measures has led to greater opportunity for cybercriminals to infiltrate networks and steal valuable data. 

This has led to more demand for MSSPs and pure-play vendors focused on cybersecurity and data protection. 

Is there a single solution that will cover it all? Or are businesses better off with unique solutions for both? To help determine what’s best, let’s explore both sides of the fence.  Anytime you are talking about security, you must identify the risk and potential loss involved – what is the dollar value of data being publicly or privately exposed?  Once you understand the fiscal cost of loss or exposure, you can then formulate your mechanisms for safeguarding. Some forget, and this is important to keep in mind, the measures you put into place to protect data offer only a higher level of deterrence.

There is no guarantee that the data still will not be lost or stolen, but it means due diligence to protect the data at level commencement with the risk. A single solution instead of multiple solutions is advisable when you are comfortable with the level of protection offered and it makes more sense to limit the number of solutions that you support. If you need all available protection to keep your data safe, you will more than likely be willing to forgo the administrative overhead of supporting multiple solutions to ensure you are getting optimum protection.

Learn More: Caution! Ransomware Crisis Is Not Going Away. Here’s How to Act on It

Security Solutions Have a Short Shelf Life

Consider what security measures you’ve had in place and where you are going with security, specific to MSSPs and data protection. Not surprisingly, Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs)  differ greatly in the depth and complexity of the solutions that they provide. Some want to be the end-all, be-all security provider and others tend to play to specific security technologies or security needs. Case in point, it was not that long ago when we were offered separate solutions for firewall, intrusion detection, intrusion prevention, and content filtering. 

Now, you would be hard-pressed to find a modern-day firewall that did not have all these features either standard or as a licensing feature. Why were they separate? Each security solution at the time of inception were standalone and each required specialized knowledge to configure and deploy. As these security solutions matured, it was evident that economies of scale could be had by these security technologies working together as one. 

The interaction between security technologies enables detection at near real-time speed. When these technologies are converged onto a single platform, management and maintenance are greatly simplified. Security appliances are showing to have a shorter life span than in previous years, driven by the rate at which technology is evolving. 

Business needs dictate the refresh rate of solutions, based on risk to the organization and demand for adequate solutions; the typical timeline is roughly 3-4 years, with some organizations requiring faster or most cutting edge technologies, leading to a 2-3 year window.  

As new appliances come into play, there will need to be new capabilitiesOpens a new window developed in order to converge into a single platform.

Learn More: Encrypted Traffic Is a Backdoor for Malware — Defend Your Networks Now

MSSPs: It’s Time to Shine 

MSSPs to the rescue! They can offer standalone solutions that are converged into a single management portal. What does this mean to the end customer? Get all the unique industry solutions that the business needs all wrapped together nicely in one management portal, plus the added security of additional eyes to watch over and grow the company’s security posture.

In conclusion, there will always be a need for pure-play security providers to address short-term, targeted needs, but you can bet that in short order, that technology will be incorporated into the next round of next-gen security solutions. MSSPs will always be clamoring to quickly bring those standalone solutions into a single pane of glass to ease the management pain until their hardware friends finish including new technology as an add-on feature. Companies needing to go pure-play will typically be driven by urgent need and modern technology. The only constant in cybersecurity is change!

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