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tools are far more effective when they are managed and monitored by dedicated, trained and
specialized security services professionals offered by MSSPs. These professionals are better
able to determine the validity and true priority of every security threat and vulnerability. They
focus on security response efforts so your organization's in-house staff can concentrate on
other vital IT issues. MSSP’s also provide an enhanced level of support for products developed
by the MSSP, as well as trusted third-party provider products monitored by the MSSP.

MSSPs also offer organizations service level agreements (SLA) for the service standards they
provide, including availability, response and escalation service level expectations. This can be
very difficult and costly to replicate in-house because staff may be limited to monitoring during
the day. Even organizations that implement on-call services after hours don’t have the full
protection that 24-hour MSSP services offer. With an MSSP, you can increase your security
without increasing your security staff.

Improved Decision Making at all Levels

Knowledge is power, especially where security is concerned. “Knowing what I don’t know” is a
common phrase these days with IT personnel and executives. An experienced MSSP can help
you with know what you don’t know by focusing on threats and incidents that impact your entire
business, not just your perimeter, 24 hours a day. They can also align the priorities of these
threats. That way the MSSP can alert your organization about events that deserve your
immediate attention, while they continue to investigate lower-priority risks.

Experienced MSSPs will also provide you with comprehensive reporting on the performance of
your threat management service so you can make more effective risk-based decisions at every
level. Executives get a top-down view of your organization’s security risk exposure and how it
affects your business objectives and critical information assets. IT Security Managers receive an
operational view of the status of security incidents and current security posture so they can plan
security operations and execute day-to-day activities efficiently. Network and IT Analysts will
have access to information that helps them identify and correlate threat events, prioritize and
respond to incidents, manage vulnerabilities, and support security operations.

Operational Security without the Capital Investment

In order to provide the same level of 24-hour monitoring service as an MSSP, you need to
consider costs that include the hardware and software, future upgrades and replacements, a
minimum of four security analysts that require initial and ongoing training, and the supporting
infrastructure to accommodate all of them. Yet, in most cases, these costs are considerably
more expensive than most budgets will allow. In contrast, MSSPs use a utility/shared services
model that enables operational costs to be spread over multiple clients. That means your cost-
per-client for the MSSP’s services is less than what you would pay to develop and maintain an
in-house program.

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