The modern workplace depends on an ever-expanding digital jigsaw of solutions necessary to facilitate business operations today.

However, as organisations become increasingly reliant on digital infrastructure, this also expands their attack surface and makes them more vulnerable to cyber-attack.

In response to this risk, organisations are realising that cybersecurity is no longer a nice to have. It is an essential requirement of the digital world.

But, when it comes to understanding what tools are needed to keep secure, many organisations struggle to be strategic with their purchases and deployments.

Over the last few years, the cybersecurity market has exploded with ‘must have’ tools. But, from an end-user perspective, this often results in confusion, causing them to either under or over purchase, potentially leaving gaps or creating lengthy supply chains which are difficult to manage.

So, how can these issues be avoided?

The explosion of the security market

Today, patch cycles are daily, firewalls have gone next generation, and any organisation depending only on AV to protect their environment is on the backfoot.

At the same time, research shows that the average organisation needs to deploy hundreds of products to secure their environments, but when it comes to large enterprises and mission-critical businesses, these controls can run into the thousands.

But this means deciphering what products are needed to remain safe in the digital world is a struggle for many organisations, especially when the industry moves so fast and organisations are continually faced with clever marketing campaigns from savvy security vendors trying to sell their products and services into the latest buying trends.

When organisations don’t know what tools to adopt it can result in an approach that is not strategic and cause vendor sprawl. Vendor sprawl occurs when organisations have too many supply chain vendors onboard, which can hinder security and cause inefficiencies. Tools can overlap and duplicate controls, or tools don’t work together well, or in the worst cases, they work against each other.

For small internal security teams, this often leads to product overload, where security exhausts cyber personnel and over stretches budgets and resources.

So, how can organisations overcome this challenge and be able to make informed security purchases to protect their organisation, while streamlining technology and budgets?

Bolstering Resilience and Reducing Sprawl with MSSPs

Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs) can support these businesses by offering expertise and knowledge on the cybersecurity marketplace, helping organisations make the right choices.

MSSPs already have existing relationships with security vendors, so they understand exactly how security products work and the service they offer, without being enticed by clever marketing promotions.

They can also run assessments on organisations to gain a deep understanding of their architecture and then make recommendations on the products they require to protect their organisation.

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This can be followed up with recommendations on the best of breed vendors, where their services can be offered and managed on a subscription-basis via the MSSP. This means an organisation doesn’t need to purchase the tools themselves. Instead, their requirements can be met via the MSSP and adjusted to the organisation’s needs.

By doing this, organisations can streamline costs, free up internal resources, and the risk of purchasing unnecessary security tools is significantly reduced.

This helps to eliminate the risks of vendor sprawl, reduces costly security overheads, and significantly heightens security.