It seems like we’re constantly hearing about another big data breach that exposed the records of millions of people. Hundreds of millions of people have had their sensitive information stolen thanks to hacking, and even just weak enterprise security.
Organizations need to determine the best ways to keep their information safe from danger. Having the right security measures in place is the best and only way to do so successfully. So, here are some differences between in-house and managed IT security services worth considering.
Accessing IT Experts
There’s often a notion that you want to be able to walk down the hall and be able to engage with the people critical to your business. This is an argument used against remote workforces, outsourcing, or using third-party services as opposed to in-house.
While there are benefits to being able to talk face-to-face with those critical to your business’s core functionality, there are some drawbacks as well. When all IT and critical services are in-house, it can create an echo chamber. This can lead to lapses of judgment or overlooking critical issues that are dismissed due to internal opinions. Additionally, having the same sets of eyes looking at the same things day-in and day-out can result in missing errors.
Even though managed IT security services aren’t housed within your headquarters, they’re always there when you need to ask them questions. And often, their removal from what’s happening in-house can help them find problems before the IT department even knows about them.
Response Time
There’s a commonly held belief that outsourcing or hiring managed services will lead to a delay in service times. It’s reasonable for executives to be concerned that they might not get the response times they need when working with a third-party organization. But this really isn’t the tale of managed security services.
As already mentioned, it’s often the case that the security provider is actually the one letting the organization know that there’s a problem, not the other way around. Having that external oversight can be extremely valuable in keeping data as safe as possible. Furthermore, managed security services typically prioritize customer tickets based on urgency. This means critical issues are going to take precedence over those that can be handled without time pressure.
Cost to Deploy and Manage
All businesses should be concerned about keeping costs as reasonable as possible. The expense of services might make some organizations wary of hiring outside managed security services. However, when you work with the right provider, the services are well worth it — especially when you compare them to the ongoing cost of hiring additional full-time IT team members.
There are a few things to consider here. First, every organization needs to have people working in IT no matter what. But outsourcing some aspects of cybersecurity management can actually free up these specialists to work on more high-level, strategic projects.
When it comes to costs, few things are more expensive than dealing with a data breach. The average cost of a breach in 2019 is about $3.92 million. Some larger enterprises have reported spending tens of millions on recovery. The bottom line is that it’s much less expensive, and far better for your organization, to avoid data breaches altogether.
Vulnerabilities in the Network
Some individuals might be under the impression that working with a third-party security service will create additional vulnerabilities. After all, it’s more people and devices butting up against your organization’s sensitive network.
The reality is that hiring managed security services isn’t going to bring on a host of new vulnerabilities. For one thing, these are the literal security experts and know exactly how to avoid those issues. Further, they’re likely going to identify numerous current vulnerabilities in your network, and then provide solutions to remedy them.
While there are apparent pros and cons to both in-house and managed IT security services, the benefits for hiring out are clearly there. It’s becoming increasingly clear that enterprises need all the help they can get to protect themselves from digital threats today.
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