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Does the reality live up to the promises, though? Or could you rely on your own internal resources to deliver equally secure systems at lower cost, all under much tighter personal control? Or would an MSP bring far better operational, financial and strategic efficiencies across the enterprise?

COHESIVE STRATEGY
Some of the biggest problems in implementing security in organisations can be addressed by having a cohesive strategy, argues says Espion senior consultant Ross Spelman. "Organisations need to have all the bases covered by utilising the most current security tools and technologies, supported by expert security professionals. In order to be truly secure, organisations need to be in a position where they can address all known potential threats and vulnerabilities, in addition to up-to-date attack patterns, advanced intruder tools and techniques, and implement best security practices.

"Operating a 24X-7X-365 Security Operations Center (SOC) is often the answer to meeting these concerns. However, all the associated headaches in setting up a SOC may prove too costly or resource intensive to implement, not to mention the difficulty in trying to find, train and retain highly-skilled, sought-after IT security personnel. Every organisation needs to first evaluate its own risk tolerance before considering implementing its own SOC or utilising an outsourced managed security service provider SOC," Spelman comments.

DEDICATED TEAM
Having a dedicated internal security team or SOC may not be cost-effective or aligned with an organisations risk profile, and this makes a managed service solution attractive, as a highly-qualified security team are at the disposal of an organisation to investigate and assist with any security event detected, he adds. The core benefit is that organisations are able to take advantage of the security expertise that managed service provider has acquired by working with multiple clients across a variety of industries.

"The risks to outsourcing security are broadly the same as many types of outsourcing. Hidden charges, for example, can pose significant risk to an organisation with a security function outsourced, as anything not covered in the contract will be the basis for additional charges."

A good example of this is outsourced (cloud) DDoS mitigation services, says Spelman, whereby the organisation is unsure of its allowable quota or allowable duration of a volumetric attack. "In this instance, an organisation may be charged exorbitant fees as a result of an attack which is not within the agreed 'bracket' of protection or, worse, the MSSP terminates the service on exceeding the agreed attack threshold, causing downtime for the organisation and possibly irreparable damage to the underlying systems and reputation of the organisation," he advises.

RISK VERSUS REWARD
The risks are not always the same when considering what security function or service to outsource to a managed security service provider, but often the risk-to-reward ratio is worth it. "For instance, due to the level of skill required around administering and supporting security technologies - such as firewall management, network security solutions, vulnerability scanning tools, anti-malware, host-based security and database security management - these are all considered appropriate candidates for outsourcing to a MSSP.

"However, for organisations that process or store sensitive data under any kind of regulation mandate (industry, geolocation or otherwise), outsourcing IT security may be complex, problematic or even illegal. This can be due to the limitations enforced by the service level agreements and audit controls that the MSSP provide and, in fact, also the level of assurance that an organisation is given," he adds.

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