Top 5 Cybersecurity Projects to Leverage an MSSP

Cybersecurity defense is complex. With the ever-growing list of responsibilities, it is understandable to be overwhelmed with the in-house management of every project. Turning to an IT outsourcing service like an experienced managed security service provider (MSSP) is a sensible option. The MSSP becomes an extension of the internal team and takes on the essential, tactical and time-consuming tasks.

This blog explores how a managed security service provider can help find the right set of tools, implement them quickly and manage daily by covering:

• Benefits of partnering with an MSSP
• 5 security projects to outsource including NextGen SIEM (XDR) and NextGen Firewall

Why partner with managed security service provider (MSSP)?

The benefits of partnering with a managed security service provider (MSSP) are relatively simple:

1. Maximize productivity

Expand your team with expert security analysts that will help implement, monitor and manage your cybersecurity defense strategy. Without the resource drain of daily management, in-house teams can better focus on strategic company initiatives.

2. Improve your security posture

The MSSP team takes the lead on the implementing and then manages the necessary mix of security tools and incident playbooks. Having a dedicated team wih normalized and correlated data across tool sets creates a more efficient and effective security program.

Overall, IT outsourcing services will relieve your team of the projects below and allow them to focus on more strategic initiatives without jeopardizing security.

Top 5 Cybersecurity Projects to leverage an MSSP.

Now that we’ve covered the benefits of working with a MSSP, let’s look at the top five projects to outsource. Many security tools and projects require dedicated and specialized skills to monitor, manage and respond effectively making these the best suited to handoff to a dedicated team.

1. Implementation and management of a NextGen SIEM (XDR) Platform

It is not secret that SIEMs are difficult to implement and expensive to maintain.  As a more comprehensive approach than a tradition SIEM, a NextGen XDR platform is the most efficient and accurate solution for event management and response. It offers full visibility by normalizing and correlating alerts and logs from all systems across your entire network. Once configured, quick and accurate automated responses that utilizes integrations between existing security tools increases the ROI of existing security tools.

While the capabilities and insights of this next generation platform are unmatched, there is still the collection, review and analysis of alerts. We all know how time-consuming it is to weed through false positives and proactively investigate relevant incidents. And since the flow of intelligence is never-ending, let dedicated analysts review and analyze suspicious alerts and then engage your team on the high priority ones.  Take it one step further by moving from reactive to proactive with a comprehensive threat-hunting library.

2. Vulnerability Management

We have all seen “Hacker exploits known vulnerability” in breach investigations. A proper vulnerability program minimizes risk across the entire attack surface. However, the challenge lies with knowing which vulnerabilities to address first and how to go about remediating. Sure, a vulnerability scanner provides powerful insight. It’s the true risk of the CVE based on the relevance to the organization and the impact of the potential remediation that is extremely time consuming. So how can you take that off your teams’ plate?

Partnering with an MSSP to execute a risk-based vulnerability management program helps identify vulnerabilities with the highest risk profile and focus remediation where it is needed most.

3. NextGen Firewall

What’s the key for NextGen firewall success? Proper management by knowledgeable resources. Just like most security tools, we can’t just “set it and forget it”. The logs need to be analyzed, policies reviewed, and changes made to continuously protect the organization from inbound and outbound threats.

Firewalls, and especially NextGen firewalls, are undeniable staples in any security stack. Having an MSSP provide the dedicated resources for continuous monitoring, management and remediation means that your team can sleep well at night.

4. Endpoint Protection

Entering 2021, protecting mobile devices continues to be critical as work from home continues and many devices have not touched the physical network in almost a year! Rather than tackling internally, an outside service provider can help you migrate to a new approach, implement a solution and provide better coverage beyond the physical walls.

A properly managed endpoint security program gives teams the ability to prevent malicious behavior, detect anomalous activity, alert on incidents and measure device compliance in real-time regardless of where they are located. This proactive approach allows for appropriate and rapid response against known and unknown malware. An MSSP helps to configure, deploy, monitor and maintain both the endpoint security platform and the endpoints.

5. User Behavior Analytics

Users are random, yet predictable. User behavior analytics (UBA) utilizes this principle to detect activities outside the norm. Just like your college statistic professor, UBA looks for the actions that are outside the bell curve, those outliers beyond a standard deviation. UBA insights provide full visibility of users’ behavior and activities over time. Whether actions identified are systematic, such as downloading 10TB of data. Or random, like accessing your file server at 2am for the first time in 1 year. Either way, UBA detects actions that indicate a level of risk and stops that action (if in-line) or alerts security professionals to investigate further.

Powerful insight, right? But like other security tools, to truly understand the risk, the alert needs context by correlating information from multiple sources. This research helps reduce false positives and pinpoint significant security risks requiring addition investigation.

Overall, utilizing a managed security service provider and its team of security advisors, enhances an organization’s on-going security program. As the threat landscape and security tools continue to evolve, while the IT skill shortage gap grows, outsourcing key projects is a smart solution to managing security. Gain real results and confidence in security with an experienced team with a proven IT outsourcing service. Explore the next generation of Brite’s managed security service, BriteProtect.