In-House vs. Outsourced Cybersecurity operations Center Capabilities

Cybersecurity Operations Centres have become an essential element in detecting threats. Here you can find out if you want to create or outsource these functions internally.

The term Outsource cybersecurity operations is simple: in companies, operations refer to everything a company does to fulfill its mission. However, to do this, the business must also protect the resources necessary to achieve its goals, and this is where cyber security comes into play.

Online information and resources must be protected, and cyber security operations are the organizational processes necessary to protect the entire company, and especially its information resources, from cyber security threats.

Outsourced Cybersecurity operations have one overarching goal: to protect company information, websites, databases, business processes, and communications. It does this by monitoring what is happening on and off the network to identify activities that may represent malicious activities or threats.

Many networks have grown in response to emerging technologies and changing requirements, so cybersecurity no longer has a uniform master plan. The Internet disrupted everything and forced companies to urgently improve their security measures and bring them together under one roof. The volume of alerts generated by Intrusion Detection / Prevention Systems (IDSes / IPSes), firewalls and other systems forced companies to take a closer look at their security infrastructure. The companies not only feared that a lack of trained personnel would cause the warnings not to be analyzed, but also feared that the large number of warnings was simply too large to be diagnosed in time. Companies were afraid of what they did not know from a threat monitoring perspective.

Outsourcing operations versus internal cybersecurity operations

There are two possible approaches for these organizations to create an operational role for cybersecurity: outsourcing or internal construction.

By outsourcing cybersecurity operations, security analysis capabilities can be provided while a company is building its own in-house cybersecurity operations center.

Outsourcing the cybersecurity feature is a sensible way to monitor network alerts. Basically, outsourcing cybersecurity operations involves entering into a contract with a managed security service provider to analyze network alerts for possible malicious behavior. The MSSP rejects those who are not malicious and informs those who can actually be harmful.

Outsourcing pros

• Trained staff. The MSSP has personnel available, which saves the organization time and costs of hiring and training the people necessary for the analysis.
• The MSSP also has the facilities and tools to get the job done. This saves more time and upfront costs of building an internal operations center for cyber security.
• Smart Analysis By outsourcing cyber security operations, security analysis capabilities can be provided while a company is building its own in-house cyber security operations center.

Disadvantages and outsourcing questions to the MSSP

• How much analysis will the MSSP provide? Outsourcing the cybersecurity function generally does not provide functions that involve multi-level alert analysis or incident response service. Instead, many outsourced cybersecurity operations only offer the equivalent of analyzing level 1 cybersecurity operations.
• The MSSP can only analyze a subset of the warning logs generated by an organization. Warnings from applications, such as databases and web applications, may be outside your area of ​​expertise. If the MSSP is also a provider of tools or hardware, you may only be able to analyze the records of your own products.
• What happens to warnings that the MSSP cannot erase? Who will analyze these possible threats in detail? An organization still needs some internal parsing features to process the fewest warnings that the MSSP cannot easily eliminate and therefore return to the customer.

For some companies, a complete and permanent outsourcing of cybersecurity operations is a desirable option. This is a sensible approach, especially for government organizations, where the acquisition, training, and management of people and facilities, as well as cost prediction, is preferably done under a service contract rather than internally. Government organizations may also have significant cyber security compliance obligations when it is appropriate to delegate government mandates to a contractor.

In-House Cybersecurity Operations Center

Building an internal cybersecurity operations center provides the ultimate control over cybersecurity operations and the best way to obtain the services a business needs. Building an internal cybersecurity operations center can also lay the foundation for building future comprehensive cybersecurity services, including vulnerability management, incident response services, external and internal threat management services, and threat detection. .

Compared to outsourcing the cyber security feature, creating internal features has the following advantages and disadvantages.

In-House pros

• Adaptation of operations to requirements. Design security operations and monitoring functions that best meet the needs of the business.
• Establishment of a uniform security strategy. An in-house cybersecurity operations center can provide the foundation for a comprehensive security, threat, and incident response function.

Disadvantage

• Planning and implementation. The time required to set up an internal cybersecurity operations center can easily be one year and is likely to be longer.
• Appropriate staff. Hiring employees with the right skills, training and experience, or developing and training existing in-house employees can be time consuming and expensive.

As with many cybersecurity decisions, the right approach for many companies is to strike the right balance between internal management of cybersecurity operations and outsourcing to an MSSP.

A sensible option, especially for companies intending to develop an internal cybersecurity role, is to take advantage of the speed of outsourcing as the company develops its own cybersecurity operations. Outsourcing can provide at least some of the cybersecurity services needed today, and the company can use the trained and experienced staff of an MSSP to create the services it wants to provide.