In today's world, cybersecurity is an ever-growing concern for businesses. With the rising threat of cyber threats and data breaches, it can be difficult for companies to keep up with the latest security technologies and stay ahead of the curve.
Managed security services providers (MSSPs) provide comprehensive security solutions to clients. They offer various services, from monitoring and threat intelligence to incident response. MSSPs are ideal for businesses looking for an all-in-one security solution tailored to their specific needs. MSSPs offer a wide range of services to help protect businesses from cyber threats. Here are some initiatives that MSSPs should consider when looking to help customers in 2023.
Making Zero Trust attainable
As the global landscape continues to test our resiliency, staying focused on a security-first mindset is critical. Organizations must consider the most significant risks and take a proactive approach to address cyber risk concerns. This means assessing the current state of their cybersecurity, understanding their attack surface, and rethinking their security strategy with a zero trust model.
By taking a risk-based approach to vulnerability management, implementing cloud security measures, and developing third-party risk management solutions, organizations can ensure they are prepared to adapt to the ever-changing digital landscape and remain resilient in the face of cyber threats.
The traditional perimeter as we know it is no longer viable due to the shift to remote and hybrid working. To keep our networks secure, zero trust architecture is essential. Zero trust reduces the risk of security breaches by authenticating and authorizing every person and system before granting access.
Nowadays, the security industry is figuring out how to apply zero trust practically. Established companies are using the term zero trust in their product portfolios to capitalize on the opportunity. Ultimately, zero trust will become more prominent with measurable results.
Risk-Based Vulnerability Management
Managing vulnerabilities inside your environment are challenging. New attack vectors for threat actors to breach your network are identified daily. Organizationally, the attack surface is constantly changing due to IT device and platform lifecycle issues, changing operational priorities, and the adoption of emerging technologies.
With every change comes the risk that a new flaw or configuration issue will provide a threat actor with the final link in their attack chain, resulting in an impact on your users, operations and customers.
Your network is expanding in the traditional sense and with the ever-increasing role of endpoints, devices and the Internet of Things. Each year you see the amount of data multiply exponentially, the threat of attacks become more sophisticated, and the challenge of minimizing risk and optimizing operations grow more challenging. It can feel like a never-ending battle, yet identifying, prioritizing, and managing vulnerabilities through remediation is not only possible, it can be simple.
Vulnerability management is an established function of information security, but with technology configurations constantly evolving and cloud and container infrastructure expanding, the complexities of vulnerability management persist. Today's best vulnerability management platforms have been designed with visibility, remediation automation and improved vulnerability prioritization.
Vulnerability and patch management are essential for any organization, as is the need for risk reduction. With the right risk reduction strategy, organizations can improve their cyber resilience and reduce their risk.
To help ensure that organizations keep their IT infrastructure up to date and secure, they should focus on strengthening the fundamentals of vulnerability and patch management, risk reduction and managed extended detection and response (MXDR). By implementing these strategies, organizations can reduce risk and improve security posture.
Security Mesh, Zero Trust and SASE (Secure Access Service Edge)
These are three technology trends converging to allow organizations to consolidate and optimize their zero trust initiatives. Security Mesh provides a cloud-based fabric that enables organizations to connect to users, applications, and data in a secure and unified fashion. Zero trust is a security model that eliminates the concept of trust assumptions based on internal network boundaries.
SASE is a cloud-delivered service that combines network and security functions, including secure access, cloud security and network security, into a single integrated solution. These technologies can be used together to reduce complexity and help organizations to implement their zero trust strategies quickly and effectively. By consolidating and optimizing zero trust initiatives, organizations can gain the security, agility and scalability needed to accelerate their digital transformation.
The biggest challenge for SASE adoption is the split decision between networking and security components. While the two technologies have their strengths and weaknesses, their integration is the most critical factor for successful SASE deployments.
Enterprises need to evaluate both solutions' performance, scalability, scalability, reliability and cost to determine which is best suited for their needs. Additionally, at the same time, they need to consider the synergies between both solutions to make sure that the combination of them will yield the best results. The primary benefit of SASE is the integration of networking and security services, which simplifies the provisioning and maintenance of both solutions.
Additionally, the service provider can offer more tailored solutions to its customers, allowing them to customize their SASE deployments to meet their specific needs. This makes the solution more attractive to enterprises and increases the likelihood of adoption.
Ultimately, the split decision between networking and security components is a challenge that SASE must overcome to remain relevant in the future. Enterprises need to weigh both solutions' pros and cons and ensure they invest in the right technologies. By doing so, they can ensure that they get the most out of their SASE deployments and guarantee that their solutions remain up to date and secure.
Cyber Resilience
As MSSPs look to offer a cyber resilience service that leverages expertise to enhance protection, detection and response capabilities while driving an organization's ability to recover in the event of a malicious attack rapidly. MSSPs can help shift an organization's model from reactive to proactive, helping the team prepare for potential cyberattacks by implementing a resilience model.
This end-to-end service capability helps reduces risk holistically and supports an organization's ability to identify, protect, detect, respond, and recover from malicious activity. Cyber resilience service is a customized strategy to enhance your current people, processes and technology based on comprehensive strategic and tactical evaluations across an enterprise.
Author Bindu Sundaresan is a director for AT&T Cybersecurity. Read more AT&T Cybersecurity blogs here. Regularly contributed guest blogs are part of MSSP Alert’s sponsorship program.
