A major “shift in the threat landscape” is seeing companies across Ireland become more open to the idea of managed security services (MSS). That’s according to Don Smith, director of technology with Dell SecureWorks, who said that while such managed solutions are “by no means a new phenomenon” the company is now seeing much more interest in the concept “over the last 12 months” in particular.
“In order to respond to an increasing number of new threats, MSS providers are constantly developing new ways to identify malicious activities in the customer environment. With this improved visibility we are able to act more efficiently to combat problems as they arise,” said Smith.
Managing director with Threatscape, Dermot Williams agreed that the past six to 12 months have seen a “growing recognition on the part of clients” that a “full MSS solution” will “go far deeper into a client’s security requirements” than established, widely available security services “whereby your email and web traffic passes through their servers in order to strip out spam, malware and other unwanted content”.
Continued Williams, “Managing the process of securing (and patching) network endpoints, managing and monitoring perimeter security elements such as firewalls and intrusion detection and preventions, as well as responding to breach attempts or assisting with mitigating the after-effects of an intrusion – this is where having the resources and expertise of an MSS provider can really benefit an organisation.”
“The past months have seen a growing recognition on the part of clients that a full MSS solution will go far deeper into a client’s security requirements than established, widely available security services whereby your email and web traffic passes through their servers in order to strip out spam, malware and other unwanted content,” Dermot Williams Threatscape
Actively manage
Karen O’Connor of Datapac said that an increasing number of companies are reassessing understand “the needs and risks to their business” as they decide whether to base security infrastructure “on premise or cloud”. The Datapac service delivery general manager added that in the case of MSS, “being able to actively manage that solution for the customer through a team of highly certified and experienced security specialists regardless of the platform” is swaying many towards the idea.
“We’ve seen a huge increase in the range of [managed] services that customers are asking for us to provide and the depth they require from those services,” commented Tadhg Cashman, infrastructure services director with Logicalis Ireland.
“Customers are asking us not only to provide a point solution but are asking us to be their trusted security advisor, so we advise on the most cost effective ways of mitigating the cyber security risks to their business and in many cases to be their security incident response team,” added Cashman.
Renaissance director Michael Conway said that many companies will likely use a “gradual” process when moving towards MSS. Added Conway, “You have to think ‘what do the customers want to pay for’, and at the minute you’re looking at your endpoint, traditional antivirus, antimalware and encryption. Then you’re looking at firewall, unified threat management et cetera. You’re seeing more drive from the end users asking for these to be taken out of their internal resources.”
Conway said that while for the moment some businesses are “reticent” to let security responsibilities go outside their office’s four walls, this decision is often based on the make-up of “their staff and their skillsets”. This, he added, can leave a company short-changed in the long term.
“If the staff member assigned to this area that is away for maternity leave, or any type of leave, if they leave the company or at any point could potentially be unavailable, you have to think ‘let’s just build out our security infrastructure’.” Then, said Conway, “as they become more and more comfortable with it, they can take advantage of what a managed approach provides.” The big decision, he added is to “decide to put proper security in place in the first instance”.
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