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What Enterprise C-level Executive Customers Want From MSSPs

Colorful portal or vortex with a spiral pattern. Man stands in front of it undecided. Maybe it is a time machine.

A CIOs or CISOs job is never easy, but it’s more difficult now because cyberattacks are more frequent and more complex than ever before. Cybersecurity is a top priority for enterprises, and fundamentally, C-level executives are responsible for managing the risk of security breaches at cost points the business can afford. When there’s a serious attack, those executives can lose their jobs.

Reducing risk means spending more money on tools and hiring more analysts to run them, but CISOs never have enough budget. Also, really smart security analysts are expensive and very hard to find. In this environment, CxOs try to find a balance between spending and risk – they’re always looking for an acceptable level of risk given the resources available.

For an MSSP, the key to a CIOs heart (and wallet), in particular, is stressing that you reduce risk for a cost that is less than what they're spending now.

Here are some key messages to bring to the table:

  • You reduce risk. You have the latest, most comprehensive security tools to find and stop the latest attacks.
  • You save money. You handle key workloads for less than the CISO is spending on them now.
  • You expand the in-house security team. Your own people have the skills and tools to jump into action as needed, without hiring hassles or costs.
  • You improve analyst morale. By taking on some of the IT security workload, your team makes life easier for the CxO’s own analysts.
  • You increase security agility. As a service provider, you can deliver specific services on demand, and the CxO can add or delete services as business conditions dictate.

MSSPs can best prepare to stand behind these messages if their own SOCs are highly effective, highly cost-effective (and profitable), and easily integrated with a prospective enterprise’s own security tools and practices. Make sure you can deliver on these benefits with a SOC platform that can ingest telemetry from any popular security tool, so you gain a complete view of the entire security environment, and you don’t force enterprise customers to abandon their existing tool investments.

You’ll also want automatic event correlation, analysis and response mechanisms so your analysts are far more efficient and productive than the CxO's. In addition, the platform’s ease of use should reduce training time and enable you to use less expensive, lower skilled analysts. And finally, if the platform can quickly integrate with an enterprise’s own security tools, you’ll be able to jump in and provide comprehensive services within hours.

To learn more how Stellar Cyber's Open XDR platform can help you reduce risk and cost for your CxO clients, contact us today!


Guest blog courtesy of Stellar Cyber. Read more Stellar Cyber guest blogs hereRegularly contributed guest blogs are part of MSSP Alert’s sponsorship program.