By R2 Unified Technologies
Security touches every aspect of a business.
If you're an executive, you know it's critical to manage your risk.
And if you're a security professional, you know you need to partner with the best to make sure that you're covering everything you're accountable for.
That's where a Managed Security Services Provider (MSSP) comes in.
An MSSP is a third-party organization that offers security-as-a-service. They monitor and manage the security of all your organization's devices and systems. They will typically manage your firewall and virtual private network and also provide intrusion detection, vulnerability scanning, and antiviral services from a high-availability security operation center (SOC). They provide 24/7 services, reducing the security experts your business needs to hire, train, and retain for a strong security posture.
Organizations will commonly rely on both a Managed Service Provider (MSP) and an MSSP.
Here's why.
MSSP Benefits vs. Typical In-house Support
There are 3 excellent reasons why more organizations than ever are now turning to MSSPs:
- You can have all the best security tools in the world but if they're not configured properly — or if no one is watching them — they are nearly useless.
- One security product will never cover all your organization's requirements. You need multiple products and someone with the skills, knowledge, and training to manage them all.
- An MSSP takes the heavy lifting off your day-to-day while providing better, more reliable solutions.
Let's look at the challenges in more detail.
The Disadvantages of Managing Your Own Security Operations
Organizations typically face several difficulties when trying to handle security in-house.
1. High upfront costs and complexity
It's usually cost-prohibitive for businesses to acquire all the tools that an MSSP can deploy on your behalf. Software minimum purchases and the number of tools you need to secure your environment could easily exceed your monthly investment in a fully managed MSSP.
2. Lengthy time of deployment
Building an in-house Security Operations Center (SOC) from the ground up comes with a major time investment as well as a significant learning curve. You won't get your configuration settings optimized overnight (and you'll be at risk in the meantime.)
3. Limited knowledge of security
To truly combat today’s threats, your team must be deeply versed in security vulnerability detection and protection. This is without a doubt at least a full-time job.
4. Lack of round-the-clock monitoring
If your staff is not 24/7, you are left vulnerable more than you are protected in a given month. Early detection and swift investigation are critical to fending off attackers and responding to threats.
5. Logs go into a black hole
Most organizations only see what's happening now. Monitoring your log history is time-consuming but essential in helping you to become proactive rather than reactive when it comes to identifying growing threats.
6. Tools deployed but not configured correctly
Misconfigured software is a huge risk for organizations. According to IBM X-Force 2018, employee error led to an astounding 424% increase in misconfigured cloud infrastructure for businesses. It goes without saying that misconfigured software will not protect you and breaches can be costly.
What's the solution? Partnering with an MSSP can resolve many of these challenges.
The Advantages of an MSSP Managed Security Services Provider
Here are a few examples of the kinds of end-to-end security an MSSP can provide for your organization:
Continuous activity monitoring
Including 24/7 monitoring of events, logs, suspicious activity, and alerts.
Continuous network monitoring
Essential for fighting a cyberattack, we'll determine your baseline normal activity which allows us to spot suspicious activity immediately.
Threat detection and triage
Rapidly assess threats and determine the severity and appropriate responses.
Vulnerability assessments
Get visibility into the risks that may exist in your systems, applications, and networks.
Security advisement
Expert guidance on all your security needs.
Artificial Intelligence with a human element
AI doesn't always know the whole story, but it gets much closer when combined with decades of professional security expertise.
Compliance
Ensure your company is adhering to any compliance rules your organization has put in place.
Threat intelligence and event monitoring
Don't just respond, get ahead of the game to anticipate and identify attacks.
The R2 expert security advantage
When you partner with R2, your organization stands to benefit in some important ways.
First, R2 makes security our #1 priority in everything we do. We don’t believe security professionals need to be decent network, cloud and data center engineers. Instead, we believe every one of those engineers needs to be a security professional. And we built our practice around it.
Next, we've assembled a security team of the most talented and experienced engineers we could find for our emergency response unit. They are the best at what they do, and hopefully, you'll never have to meet them. But if you do, they'll be ready.
And R2 doesn't just handle your security.
Since we are also an MSP, when you partner with us you really get the best of both worlds. We understand infrastructure, so when R2 partners with you, we know yours inside and out. We never lose sight of the overall effects of security on your business operations, infrastructure, and users. We can help you to rapidly recover your infrastructure in the event of a compromise while at the same time balancing management and security needs.
We also help you satisfy compliance requirements, with
1. Vulnerability management
Vulnerability management is the process of identifying, categorizing, prioritizing, and resolving vulnerabilities in operating systems, enterprise applications (whether in the cloud or on-premises), browsers, and end-user applications.
2. Security awareness training
Security is not just an "IT thing." The best-intended measures will fail if your employees are not empowered to be your strongest security stewards. R2’s security awareness training educates your team on how to identify, respond to, and limit potential security risk.
3. Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
Security information and event management (SEIM) provides real-time analysis of security alerts generated by applications and network hardware.
Additional End-to-End Security Offerings
- Firewalls
- Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems (IDS/IPS)
- Virtual Private Networks (VPN)
- Anti-virus/malware
- Email filtering
- Content filtering
- Dark web monitoring
- Incident response
Partner with R2 for all your security needs
When you choose R2 as your MSSP, you not only get 24/7/365 security, you also get the benefit of our deep infrastructure expertise in a one-stop-shop.
Enjoy proactive prevention and rapid resolution — and sleep better at night knowing that your organization’s security is in expert hands.
Why look anywhere else?
If you'd like to learn more, call R2 at 561-515-6800 for your free consultation.
