Managed Security Programs: Specialized vs. Generic

by Ian Felder on Thursday June 28, 2018

Considering a Managed Service Program for Data Loss Prevention? Learn the difference between legacy MSSP and Digital Guardian's MSP, and determine which tasks need to be managed in-house and which tasks need to be outsourced.

Many organizations struggle to find qualified security professionals to protect their sensitive data from increasing threats, and the security talent shortage is not going away anytime soon. Taking time and resources to manage the infrastructure rather than focus on core security tasks and business processes can lead to inefficiencies. Even for organizations with a mature and fully staffed security team, it is incredibly difficult to keep up with complex and sophisticated attacks.

These types of organizations are hiring managed security service providers (MSSP) to either manage specific security initiatives, or in some cases, their entire security program. However, many providers now offer some form of managed service, and the choices are quite extensive. How do you know which is right for you and what exactly you should be looking for in a solution? After all, you're entrusting your organization’s most sensitive data to a third-party provider.

First, you need to understand your organizational needs. Is it an increase in coverage, or are you looking to solve a specific security challenge, like endpoint detection and response (EDR)? You may also need to consider the specific security solutions that are must haves in today’s advanced threat environment. Here is where due diligence is critical to the selection process. With so many vendors offering managed solutions, it is easiest to bucket them by their capabilities. According to Forrester Research, categorizing services as either Basic or Advanced can offer a better understanding of vendors' specific managed service competencies.

Basic: Capabilities include the set of traditional managed and monitored services. These are the legacy MSSP vendors with services such as managed next-generation firewall, intrusion detection/prevention systems, and log aggregation and analysis.
Advanced: Capabilities require more specialized skills to deliver value. These skills include new and innovative services, such as endpoint detection and response (EDR), behavioral analysis, and threat hunting.

Your choice should focus on services that overcome your existing security gaps, then deciding the best provider to deliver them – not the other way around.

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MSP Vendor Evaluation Toolkit

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How Digital Guardian Can Help

Digital Guardian’s Managed Security Program (MSP) provides customers with all of the benefits of Digital Guardian’s data protection platform for regulatory compliance, data loss prevention (DLP), advanced threat protection (ATP), endpoint detection and response (EDR), incident response and forensics, network analysis and visibility, security analytics, threat hunting, and threat intelligence, all without the overhead and direct costs of operating the solution in-house.

You tell us what your security and compliance objectives are and we will configure the technology to meet your needs. Our DLP and cyber security experts are constantly reviewing your event intelligence to detect and investigate anomalous behavior. You receive real time alerts whenever a threat is discovered, and we instantly implement the proper controls to mitigate the risk. Our 24/7 support ensures any security incident is immediately addressed.

With Digital Guardian’s Managed Security Program, you receive:

FULLY MANAGED DATA PROTECTION INFRASTRUCTURE: DG professional services deploys, hosts and manages customers’ data protection infrastructure for them, and provide 24/7 support to operationalize data classification; policy rules, alerts & controls; event forensics; risk analytics, et al.
INSTANT ACCESS TO SECURITY EXPERTS: The DG MSP team has 10+ years of experience implementing mission-critical data security, risk, incident response and compliance programs for Global 2000 companies and government agencies
IMMEDIATE RISK AWARENESS AND MITIGATION: Customers receive instant alerts and escalations of insider/outsider threats and noncompliant activities. Customers can also access live and configurable reporting dashboards to gain real-time insights into sensitive data location, usage and threats
FAST TIME-TO-VALUE: DG MSP can be deployed and operating in full production mode in 90 days or less using our proven methodologies that help customers achieve actionable results fast
LOW TOTAL COST: DG MSP customers require no upfront investments in technology, staff or training

Evaluation Toolkit

This evaluation scorecard was developed for organizations that are considering a Managed Service Program for Data Loss Prevention solution. It was created to help you determine what tasks you'd like to keep in-house (manage yourself) versus what you'd like to outsource (vendor managed), by identifying the problems that your MSP solution needs to solve and communicate these requirements to potential vendors. When used in a request for proposal this tool will ensure that you have the right information required to support your decision.

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Chris Brook

Chris Brook is the editor of Digital Guardian’s Data Insider blog. He is a cybersecurity writer with nearly 15 years of experience reporting and writing about information security, attending infosec conferences like Black Hat and RSA, and interviewing hackers and security researchers. Prior to joining Digital Guardian–acquired by Fortra in 2021–he helped launch Threatpost, an independent news site that was a leading source of information about IT and business security for hundreds of thousands of professionals worldwide.