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COMMENT
MSS - a cost-effective solution for proactive cyber security?
Sicco Boomsma, Director in ING’s Structured Finance TMT team
The unprecedented wave of cyber attacks around the world in 2016 may have marked a watershed in how organisations address cyber security. Not only do companies from a broad range of sectors recognise they need proactive, always-on solutions, but they also acknowledge that they are ill equipped to deploy and maintain those capabilities themselves.
Until now, organisations have tended to adopt a reactive approach to cyber security, dealing with the consequences of breaches rather than actively working to prevent them. As cyber threats grow in scale, intensity and diversity, and the effects become increasingly traumatic and costly, adopting preventative solutions spanning all IT infrastructure and areas of operations has become a key priority for many businesses. Developing and deploying solutions in-house is one option, but an approach subject to numerous challenges, not least high capital expenditure including investment in research and development and building out the required IT infrastructure. It also poses difficulties, especially for SMEs, such as a possible shortage of internal know-how and the need to recruit skilled staff.
Instead, organisations across a range of sectors are outsourcing their cyber security to providers of managed security services. Managed security services providers (MSSPs) offer a wide range of security services. By outsourcing their critical activities, usually through an annual subscription-based model, enterprises can often achieve cost savings by eliminating the need for a fully staffed on-site IT security department, switching the costs of cyber security to an OPEX rather than CAPEX model.
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Most major MSSPs operate globally, and their focus on monitoring the rapidly evolving threat landscape gives them a distinct advantage over enterprises whose core business functions are unrelated to security and technology. As MSSPs specialise in early threat detection, prevention and protection, enlisting their services allows organisations to focus on their core business activities. Leaving security concerns to the experts frees up time and resources in enterprise IT departments for activities that advance business goals. MSSPs can conduct vulnerability and penetration testing, perform security scans and take care of other routine security management functions.
Within the sector, cloud-enabled cyber security applications enable end-users to maintain an up-to- date suite of technology solutions. Furthermore, these enable organisations to consolidate disparate security technologies into an integrated solution, relying on the external expertise of MSSPs to deploy, monitor and manage the various systems, accelerating deployment times and improving time-to-value on security investments. Such solutions can often be provided via MSSP-managed remote security operations centres.
Specialised MSSPs can also help organisations meet increasingly stringent compliance requirements more efficiently, especially in the banking, FS and insurance industries, as well as other sectors that hold particularly sensitive information such as healthcare and where non-compliance induce penalties and reputational risk.
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