Nearly half of companies plan to outsource their security opening the way for managed security service providers (MSSPs) according to research from service management software provider SolarWinds .
SolarWinds is a managed service provider (MSP) so the results are not entirely unexpected, but the results come from a survey with 401 UK and US enterprises in a report called ‘The Path to MSSP’.
From its findings, 60 percent of respondents are currently managing all or part of their security internally but of those, 82 percent are likely to outsource in the next year.
Out of those likely to outsource, 42 percent cited cost and 40 percent performance as the main drivers for this decision. Those who are likely to outsource also make up 49 percent of all the respondents and the report highlights how MSSPs can take advantage of this opportunity.
The difference between MSSPs and managed service providers (MSPs) is that the former meet various criteria in four categories: infrastructure, risk and vulnerability management, data security and identity and access management. The majority of businesses in the report preferred a security specialist to an MSP, with 70 percent agreeing that it would give them ‘more trust in their security capabilities’.
Tim Brown, vice president of security architecture at SolarWinds MSP, said that daily reports of security issues were forcing businesses to examine their protection measures.
“This creates nervousness amongst enterprises and SMEs and greater scrutiny of the IT security measures in place. Where there is market turbulence, there is also opportunity, and the good news for IT service providers is that this has resulted in almost half of all businesses planning to outsource their security needs to specialists”, he said.
“However, IT service providers need to remember that more opportunity inherently means more competition. Providers need to be able to prove their knowledge, capabilities, and available resources to take full advantage.”
