What are Managed Security Services?

August 15, 2019

What are managed security services? Well, the short answer would be that they are enterprise-grade data center security solutions for mission-critical applications hosting sensitive data. If that is all you needed, then I’m happy to have helped. If you are not here for the short answer, let’s dig in!

More organizations are turning to managed security services to gain security expertise and lessen the workload of their in-house security staff. A Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP) is an IT provider that offers enterprises cybersecurity monitoring and management. This may include virus and spam blocking, intrusion detection, firewalls, and virtual private network (VPN) management. Your MSSP can also tackle system changes, modifications, and upgrades.

Whether you’re challenged with overcoming skills shortages, fighting new threat adversaries or looking for more efficiency around your IT initiatives, managed security services may be right for your organization. Here’s a deeper look at what managed security services are.

A Definition of Managed Security Services

Third-party providers offer managed security services for the oversight and administration of a company’s security processes. MSSPs offer a wide range of security services, from setting up infrastructure through security management or incident response. Some managed security service providers specialize in certain areas while others offer full outsourcing of an enterprise’s information security program.

Why Choose Managed Security Services

Organizations are typically looking to strengthen their risk mitigation and compliance standards when they engage a provider for managed security services. They will then gain access to experts, processes, and technology that can help to reduce vulnerabilities, eliminate blind spots in your security strategy, and quickly respond to security threats when they occur.

Organizations choose to work with MSSPs for a variety of reasons; often this decision is driven by a lack of in-house resources or expertise for certain areas of security or the need for security monitoring and management outside of normal operating hours. In other cases, organizations will hire managed security service providers to conduct security audits or respond to and investigate incidents.

Norton Security estimates that by 2023, cybercriminals will be stealing a total of 33 billion records a year. According to recent cybersecurity statistics from Juniper Research, half of those breaches are going to occur within the United States. This may be another reason that companies are looking to managed security services providers to strength their security posture.

CPO Magazine reported that almost 60 percent of companies have experienced cyber attacks, such as DDoS attacks, phishing, and social engineering attacks. According to Juniper research, small businesses make up to 13 percent of the entire cybercrime market, yet surprisingly small businesses invest less than $500 in cyber security.

Despite an increasing awareness of the need for proactive security measures, many enterprises continue to put off implementing sound security initiatives until they’ve suffered a loss as a result of a data breach.

Benefits of Managed Security Services

The ability for MSSPs to manage security processes from an off-site location allows enterprises to conduct business as usual with minimal intrusion due to security initiatives, while the MSSP interface maintains a constant line of communication and seamless reporting to the business.

In some cases, working with a managed security service provider will offer cost savings to an organization. For example, acquiring in-house cybersecurity staff can be expensive, so working with an MSSP can present a more cost-effective option. Using an MSSP can also save organizations money on equipment, software tools, and other operational costs.

MSSPs ensure that enterprise IT is always up-to-date with the status of security issues, audits, and maintenance, enabling the organization that is outsourcing these services to focus on security governance rather than administrative tasks.

There are a wide range of security services being offered by MSSPs today, from full outsourcing of security programs to specialized services that focus on a specific component of the enterprise’s security. These specific services may include threat monitoring, data protection, management of network security tools, regulatory compliance, and incident response and forensics.

How will Managed Security Services Improve your Business?

Your IT processes will be actively managed and continually improved
You will experience increased security with decreased risk
Your IT service management will be consistent with globally recognized standards
You will gain access to compliance and security professionals to assist with audit preparedness

Elements of Managed Security Services

Threats are growing more hostile, the number of endpoints needing to be controlled are rising, budgets are tight, and in-house resources devoted to security are at a premium. Different managed security service providers offer different solutions, but there are common themes that each should deliver.

Here are the variety of elements making up managed security services:

Audited, Compliant Services

Your managed security service provider should work collaboratively with your organization to ensure all services align with your security and compliance requirements and are suitable for use under strict regulatory guidelines, such as:

Your organization must be confident that its security partner can hold themselves accountable. That is why selecting a provider that is audited by a third-party against their compliance standards is the smart choice.

If there are any issues or problems, a quality provider will take full responsibility and resolve them with the promise of 100 percent satisfaction.

Access Controls

Access controls ensure that only authorized personnel required to support the environment and network infrastructure are allowed access to your systems. Access control is a way of limiting access to a system or to physical or virtual resources. In computing, access control is a process by which users are granted access and certain privileges to systems, resources or information. Forms of access controls include:

Multi-factor authentication
24/7/365 staffed Network Operations Center
ISO-compliant configuration & inventory management (CMDB)

Access controls authenticate and authorize individuals to access the information they are allowed to see and use. In today’s complex IT environments, access controls should be a mandatory element of your managed security services.

Load Balancing & Web Application Firewalling

Load balancing optimizes the distribution of workloads to maximize throughput, minimize response time, and avoid overloading any computing resource. Web application firewalling identifies application-specific exploits missed by traditional firewalling techniques. Some features of load balancing and web application firewalling include:

Industry-leading Citrix NetScaler
Quickly scalable & virtualized Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
End user desktop & app delivery over encrypted SSL sessions

Load balancing is the process of distributing network traffic across multiple servers. This ensures no single server bears too much demand. By spreading the work evenly, load balancing improves application responsiveness. It also increases availability of applications and websites for users.

A Web Application Firewall (WAF) is a security firewall technology that protects web applications from HTTP and web application-based security flaws.

Next Generation Firewalling

Network firewalls are your first line of defense against security threats, improving your ability to control traffic, applications, and users. Talented engineers will work with you to define firewall rules and policies that permit or deny network traffic based on security, compliance, and business needs. LightEdge’s next generation firewalling includes:

Industry-leading Fortinet firewalling
Integrated IDS/IPS, AV/malware & URL filtering
High performance, data center-oriented architecture
Physical & virtual, redundant options
FIPS 140-2 compliant IPSEC & SSL VPNs
Token-based & MFA authentication options

Gartner defines next generation firewalling as a “deep-packet inspection firewall that moves beyond port/protocol inspection and blocking to add application-level inspection, intrusion prevention, and bringing intelligence from outside the firewall.” NGFWs typically feature advanced functions including:

Application awareness
Integrated intrusion prevention systems (IPS)
Identity awareness — user and group control
Bridged and routed modes
The ability to use external intelligence sources

Security Information & Event Management (SIEM)

Security information and event management (SIEM) platforms collect and analyze data from multiple sources to provide actionable insights so you can mitigate risks and speed up your incident response. Features of LightEdge’s Security information and event management platform powered by QRadar include:

24/7/365 network security and proactive alerts on emerging threats
Recommend security policy changes for optimization of staff resources
Increased visibility with a centralized IT operations and monitoring platform
Integration with LightEdge’s Colocation, Cloud, and managed hosting environments
Reporting and data archival that meets compliance standards
Proven solutions that are developed & backed by IBM security labs

Security information and event management (SIEM) software gives enterprise security professionals both insight into and a track record of the activities within their IT environment. SIEM technology has been in existence for more than a decade, initially evolving from the log management discipline.

Today, SIEM software collects and aggregates log data generated throughout your organization’s technology infrastructure, from host systems and applications to network and security devices such as firewalls and antivirus filters.

24/7/365 Expert Support

LightEdge’s solutions are backed by one of the strongest service guarantees in the industry. Our support team is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week – no exceptions. Our technical support starts with direct access to technicians in LightEdge’s Network Operations Center (NOC) via a toll-free number for emergencies.

The NOC experts also handle all formal monitoring, logging, and event management to ensure that pertinent information is recognized, identified, recorded, and processed in a timely manner. This level of support is included with every LightEdge service and is designed to accommodate the unique needs of each customer.

File Integrity Monitoring

File integrity monitoring solution monitors changes to registry settings, folders and files in real-time to alert for unauthorized or suspicious changes. The centralized dashboard offers visibility into if and when there’s a change, who performed the action, and what can be done to restore the files if a modification was unauthorized.

File integrity monitoring is an internal control or process that performs the act of validating the integrity of operating system and application software files using a verification method between the current file state and a known, good baseline.

Malware Protection

Malware protection is critical in keeping systems, applications, and data secure from today’s ever-changing threats. Our advanced anti-virus and anti-malware solution detects and removes malware, viruses, spyware and Trojans in real-time to safeguard your infrastructure and data from malicious activity.

Look No Further for a Managed Security Services Provider

As a top-tier colocation services provider, we provide a high level of availability and reliability through secure, certified data centers and dedicated staff onsite. Our customized and scalable services give you the control, whether you need a colocation rack, cage, or custom suite now or in the future.

LightEdge’s highly trained compliance and security experts take the guesswork out of keeping your business protected. Trust our expertise to ensure you are covered through our security and compliance services, including risk management, information security, audit preparedness, and support.

With geographically dispersed facilities across all of the US power grids, our data centers are the heart of our operation and yours. We have a wide range of colocation and disaster recovery solutions delivering advanced shared infrastructure designed to enable operational and financial efficiency, reducing the burden on your IT staff.

Our LightEdge facilities are more advanced than traditional data centers. We have created true Hybrid Solution Centers designed to offer a complete portfolio of high speed, secure, redundant, local cloud services and managed gateways to public clouds through our hardened facilities.

Customers turn to LightEdge to reduce risk of non-compliance, scale security, and for the predictably and cost-effectiveness. LightEdge provides customers with an extended team of experienced engineers and helps to focus resources on agility and differentiation. Are you curious how your current provider stacks up? Our security experts will provide a free security assessment to see how you measure up against the latest compliance and security standards. No risk, no commitment. Contact us today to get your free security assessment.