Tools of the Security Trade

Top 3 MSSP Technologies to Secure Your Organization

The number of security threats targeting enterprises continue to multiply at an exponential rate, making it difficult—if not impossible—for small to medium-sized businesses (SMB) to stay ahead of the curve. For this reason, more and more businesses and organizations are seeking outside help from Managed Security Services Providers (MSSP).

Market data show that 82 percent of IT professionals have either already teamed up or plan to collaborate with an MSSP in the near future. A more recent report projects that the Managed Security Services Market will eventually exceed $47 billion in revenue by 2023.

MSSPs allow organizations to free up valuable resources by managing their security infrastructure, which can include handling such items as firewalls, VPNs, spam/antivirus systems and intrusion detection tools. When choosing an MSSP, it is critical to select one that employs the latest tools and technologies to keep your infrastructure and data safe, including these essential MSSP technologies.

Security Information & Event Management

Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) provides MSSPs with the ability to monitor and manage security incidents in real time as they occur. In addition to managing security incidents, SIEM alerts security personnel when intrusions take place on networks, systems or individual connected devices.

An additional benefit of SIEM monitoring and management of security incidents is the generations of copious data that enterprises can then leverage to make correlations, identify future malicious activity and generate immediate and actionable alerts for a company. This increases overall security efficiency by improving reporting processes across an organization.

Threat Intelligence

One of the efficiencies of SIEM is the ability to pair it with threat intelligence (TI) feeds. Threat intelligence feeds operate in the background behind proprietary systems, databases and algorithms. The information they provide allows security analysts to perform scans at scale for advanced persistent threats from a dynamic, robust and updated database of malicious code. TI also allows analysts to identify trends between seemingly unrelated security events to provide prevention and detection before a serious security incident occurs.

When a security incident does occur, TI will help an MSSP quickly identify, respond, contain and remediate the threat. Threat intelligence feeds allow one to stay on top of a dynamic threat landscape where cyber attackers often evolve at a much faster rate than the targeted companies defending against their attacks.

Advanced Security Analytics and Machine Learning

We have already discussed how MSSP technologies like SIEM can generate a trove of useful data that can enhance an organization’s security posture. One way that security services experts are leveraging this data to enhance threat intelligence feeds, automation processes, and SIEM monitoring and alerts is through advanced security analytics. Security analytics sequences behavior patterns together to create triggers for security events. When a certain behavior triggers a security event, an analyst decides if the incident is safe or a threat to be blocked.

Security analytics is evolving further by incorporating security machine learning, an emerging field that uses security event data sets to improve an MSSP’s capabilities. Security machine learning provides a managed security services firm with the ability to identify and detect zero-day and polymorphic malware before it hits the client’s environment. With the proliferation of ransomware and malware, security machine learning provides MSSPs with a powerful weapon to assist organizations lacking the resources to combat these threats on their own.

Finding an MSSP with the tools to face these and other threats is the first step to securing your business or organizations. Valeo Networks offers a wide range of MSSP service packages we can tailor to the needs of an SMB or other organizations, bringing to bear the power of these security technologies and others. Contact us to schedule a complimentary Cybersecurity Risk Readiness Evaluation.