Unfortunately, long gone are the days when IT professionals could rely on firewalls to protect their network. Equally unfortunate, as we’ve all heard over and over – and indeed we have said repeatedly – professionals and laymen alike all know that “it’s no longer a matter of ‘if’ but ‘when’ you will get hacked/breached”.

Establishing a good security posture, by implementing strong protocols, training your people to avoid responding to phishing and other potentially malware-laden emails, licensing excellent cyber security software solutions, and gaining better visibility into your cloud environments , network(s) and endpoints, is a great first step.

And here comes another ‘unfortunately’… Unfortunately, that’s not enough today.

Today, truly effective security operations require reducing not only the ability for bad actors to access your network or cloud, but reducing the time it takes to detect and remediate the things that get through.

This requires having advanced detection technologies in place to identify potential threat vectors. On average, most organisations receive hundreds to thousands of event alerts each day, but… they simply don’t have the resources (manpower or budget) to investigate and remediate all the alarms that get triggered by the escalating cybercrime onslaught.

Various reports published by IT leaders such as Cisco, IBM, Ingram Micro, McAfee and others since January 2021, suggest that because over 60% of North American firms can no longer respond to all alarms, front-line IT staff are ignoring certain alarms, or changing settings to reduce the alarms they receive.

Obviously, this practice puts networks, operations/businesses, proprietary data, personal info records and reputations at risk. If CEOs and CFOs knew the extent of this practice, few of them would sleep well.

At the same time, to truly protect your organisation, you need to be capturing and assessing User Behaviour Analytics and analysing Detection and Response histories, and looking at packet capture (PCAP) from cloud to endpoint. To get it right requires continuous monitoring and assessment by cyber security specialists – ones who are up to date in the most recent threat vectors and remediation approaches –  so that you can fine-tune and improve your processes.

If you’re not in the cyber security business, then you may want to consider having an expert third-party manage this for you.

10 Reasons for Engaging Outside Experts to Manage Your Cybersecurity 

The key reasons why public sector organisations, NFPs and private firms in just about every industry, from local SMBs to multi-national enterprise monoliths, are making the strategic decision to engage outside experts to manage their cybersecurity:

To save costs.

Although this is not the most important reason, it is often a major consideration – and in this instance, the savings can be considerable.

Managed Security Services Providers (MSSPs) and MDRs (Manage Detection and Response firms) have multiple clients, so the costs of their technology investments are spread over a broad base, which means you only pay a fraction of the cost it would take for you to have similar technologies in-house. Ditto their team of experts.

This already saves you money, but when you factor in potential loss of revenue and reputation from missing a key threat vector, the value of such services seems even higher.

To avoid unexpected costs.

By engaging an MSSP, you have a fixed monthly amount and can budget more easily. You also avoid the additional internal costs of dealing with a massive, targeted attack – something that increased by 29% in 2020.‍

To be able to keep up – and ensure that nothing is being overlooked.

Alarm fatigue is real. It may also be putting your firm at risk.

According to The Cloud Security Alliance, this practice even extends to personnel hired to protect your network. The company reports: “Over 31% of IT security specialists don’t respond to security alerts, due to the high number of false positives.”

To have the most advanced attack vector detection technologies working for them.

MDRs deploy multiple state-of-the-art detection technologies, and are rarely bound to a single manufacturer or provider. These tools include advanced analytics engines, behaviour-based detection software, credential theft and escalation detection, machine learning and anomaly detection algorithms, among others.

Some of the best ones also have proprietary forensic analysis tools that are used in conjunction with current best-in-class solutions.

Most companies can’t afford the range of protection provided by MDRs, or to invest in the constant updates required to keep the technologies used as up-to-date as the ones deployed by cyber criminals.

To have top cyber security specialists helping to safeguard their systems.

MSSPs employ experts with extensive experience accurately monitoring, investigating and accurately identifying attacks, analysing malware and ransomware, and detecting intrusions of all kind. These professionals do nothing but eat, sleep and breathe security and, as consummate threat hunters, are always honing their craft. Always. As a result, most develop an almost a sixth sense when it comes to detecting anomalies in the system.

They are also highly capable when it comes to quickly responding and remediating, so your risk exposure is minimized.‍

To ensure rapid containment and remediation.

MSSPs are also experts at containing and responding to threats detected. Depending on your terms of engagement, they may also remediate the problem on your behalf. At very least, they will quickly alert your IT team to the threats that must be handled, so appropriate, rapid action can be taken.

To expand their IT Security Response Capability

Companies that already have solid security personnel in place, often add a third-party resource to ensure they stay on top of things. Why? Most internal resources rely on signatures and rule-based detection. As a result, they frequently miss the more advanced threats – and these days, the level of sophistication has increased to the point where firms are subject to such attacks hourly, if not more frequently.

The Managed Security Service Provider typically works very closely with organisations’ security teams. You can expect your MDR/MSSP to request remote access to your current security stack, to look at network logs and/or endpoint telemetry and other data sets, so they can learn your environment and work effectively.

The MSSP may also provide technology to be deployed across your network, including cloud, edge and endpoints, to give them better visibility. Most MDR services are designed to integrate with clients’ networks, so they can be plugged into your current systems easily, and without disruption to your workflow. Your IT team will likely also have access to this dashboard.

To enable their IT Teams to Focus on Supporting the Business.

Organisations need their IT departments to focus on the core business, creating and deploying applications that will give them a competitive advantage, determining how to leverage Big Data, Ai, ML and other tools, and “simply” ensuring that all stakeholders have seamless access to a robustness network that is available 24/7.

In most instances, these people are fully dedicated to the day-to-day operations and simply cannot deal with escalating cybersecurity demands effectively, on top of an already full schedule.

To be protected 24/7/365.

To get the level of coverage provided by MDRs and MSSPs, you would have to have a team of senior InfoSec specialists working around the clock.

Scalability.

That one word pretty much says it all.

These top 10 reasons are consistent with studies being conducted by experts around the world. For example, according to The Forrester Wave™: Managed Detection And Response, Q1 2021, published on March 24, 2021, clients want “specific benefits from their MDR vendors: 1) better detection than the customer could achieve on their own; 2) rapid investigation to provide context as input into decision-making; and 3) expertise available to make faster, more accurate decisions on which response actions to choose”.

Some providers suggest that an MDR will outperform an MSSP, but we believe you need an MSSP that will manage the day-to-day, help you train your employees, proactively assess improvements needed to your network and has strong MDR capabilities.

This requires a sophisticated, knowledgeable team. Cloud Managed Networks partners with ISA because it has the depth of expertise necessary to protect our clients – something we take very, very seriously.

To hear from Jasper De Man, Director of Strategic Alliances at ISA Cybersecurity Inc., talk about the importance of building a proactive security strategy before you find yourself under attack, please watch this short video.

To discuss how we can help you implement the network and cloud security system/approach that’s best for your situation, please contact us at [email protected] or (416) 429-0796 or 1.877.238.9944 (Toll Free).