Unlocking Growth Potential: Managed Security Services for Partners

In an era when digitalization is the norm across industries, the importance of robust cybersecurity measures cannot be underestimated. As businesses increasingly rely on technology to drive innovation, efficiency, and competitive advantage, they are simultaneously exposed to multiple cyber threats.

The combination of a complex threat landscape, a shortage of skilled security personnel, and the need to reduce CapEx (capital expenditures) is fueling increased customer demand for managed security services. According to Robin Ody, principal analyst and MSP, MSSP and channels specialist for the research firm Canalys, Cybersecurity Managed Services are expected to grow 15% in 2024 to reach a total market value of $80.9 billion. This trend is expected to continue, representing a great opportunity for partners to become Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs).

MSSP: An emerging partner category

Managed Security Service Providers are organizations that are laser focused on delivering security services for customers. Today a lot of them are small or startup organizations, although larger partner businesses are also creating teams to focus purely on security solutions. All are creating and deploying innovative solutions designed to protect people, data, products, and processes.

The threat landscape has gone global, so it poses an ever-present challenge. MSSPs can help customers scale their internal security teams to drive better security outcomes.

At the same time, MSSPs running their own security operations centers can face significant challenges, from core capabilities for managing an increasing number of alerts, to a shortage of skilled security professionals, to the highly manual and "tribal knowledge" investigation and response approach. MSSPs are generally constantly looking at opportunities to increase customer satisfaction while providing advanced security operations capability.

There are many cyber security technologies available that MSSPs can use to create customer solutions while protecting their environments. Major cloud vendors provide cyber security products of their own, while dozens of third-party businesses deliver a broad base of specialized security products.

Common security tools

Generally speaking, the products available to MSSPs fall into these categories:

• Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) platforms to collect and analyze security data to provide incident response, threat detection, and compliance reporting capabilities.
• Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR), is a management approach that integrates security tools, processes, and technologies to streamline threat detection, analysis, and response.
• Endpoint security solutions for advanced threat detection, real-time monitoring, and response capabilities on endpoints.
• Threat intelligence services to provide early warning capabilities based on knowledge and insights gained from analyzing information about cyber threats and actors.
• Network Security Solutions such as firewalls and Intrusion Detection and Protection systems that serve as the first line of defense against external threats.
• Identity and Access Management (IAM) solutions to help customers manage user identities, access rights, and credentials across their IT systems and applications.
• Data Loss Prevention (DLP) solutions that use encryption, monitoring, policy enforcement, and other methods to help customers protect sensitive information from loss, corruption, misuse, or unauthorized access.
• Vulnerability Management tools to identify and prioritize security vulnerabilities in customers' IT infrastructure.
• Reporting and analytics tools to aggregate, correlate, and analyze security data from multiple sources, to identify trends, anomalies, and potential security incidents, and to support regulatory compliance.

Building a successful MSSP strategy relies on a clear understanding of the partner's expertise, resources, internal processes, and infrastructure.

To effectively deliver managed security services, partners need to conduct a careful evaluation to assess their current business model and how it will affect their market success. They will need to understand how to organize internal talent for specific roles, how to pivot to service creation at scale, how to validate their underlying technology platforms, and ultimately how to drive value creation through exponential innovation.

As a leading consulting firm partnering closely with top cloud technology companies, ISSI is uniquely positioned to guide you through your MSSP partner transformation journey. Let us help you unlock the full potential of this opportunity. Contact us today to begin your transformation.

For more information, contact us at: sales@issi-inc.com