With the rise in cyberattacks continuing to accelerate, and the complexity of those attacks increasing, managed services providers (MSPs) and managed security services providers (MSSPs) can potentially provide much-needed support for embattled IT departments. However, service providers face the same shortage of security specialists driving their clients to outsource.
One possible solution is to invest in Extended Detection and Response (XDR) solutions, including bundled security operations center (SOC) services. These can help MSPs and MSSPs offer more advanced security solutions to a broader array of clients without investing in acquiring and training new staff.
Increasing need for managed security
The frequency and cost of attacks are increasing rapidly. Cybercrime costs are expected to grow from $8 trillion in 2023 to $10.5 trillion in 2025, according to Cybersecurity Ventures. The Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) for 2022 found an almost 13 percent rise in ransomware last year (as much as the previous five years combined) and that ransomware was involved in 25 percent of all breaches. The FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center received over 800,000 complaints in 2022, with losses exceeding $10.3 billion (a 49 percent increase in financial losses).
Both smaller companies and even MSPs are increasingly targets of these attacks, and companies are under increasing pressure to improve their security posture. In March 2023, the Biden Administration announced a new national cybersecurity strategy that emphasizes the need for technology providers to take on more of the security burden and puts an increased focus on protecting critical infrastructure.
In addition, the U.S. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is rolling out an early warning program specific to ransomware that can help alert firms to potential attacks and offer mitigation strategies.
However, this focus on improving cybersecurity will still rely on companies with limited resources being able to identify, prevent and mitigate these attacks. This is where an XDR solution can help MSPs step up to this challenge.
The value of XDR for MSPs
The XDR approach allows MSPs to offer cybersecurity-as-a-service without making a big investment in creating a scalable security operations center (SOC). In addition, all security tools and information can be managed and monitored with XDR in a single, central platform.
XDR solutions like Barracuda XDR collect and automatically correlate data across email, endpoint, server, cloud, and network security layers, making threat detection faster and easier via automated analysis. An XDR helps MSPs improve their detection and response metrics while improving accuracy and reducing the total cost of ownership for the MSP/MSSP. XDR offers MSPs a single view of threat vectors across the entire client base, with access to a 24/7 SOC.
Absent an XDR solution, MSPs might find themselves trying to cobble together different security solutions to protect against a much wider threat vector for both on-premises and cloud-based systems. XDR offers a single solution with 24/7 support that protects against various threats (which can be nearly impossible for a single MSP to do individually).
XDR goes beyond endpoint security to encompass securing the network, cloud services, email, and other infrastructure components and can analyze data from these areas centrally. As a result, XDR eliminates the need to manually investigate and correlate information across multiple tools, reducing response times.
XDR provides MSPs and their clients with the following:
- Proactive threat detection and automated alert analysis, which reduces alert fatigue and helps team members focus on legitimate threats.
- Response recommendations based on established security policies across the infrastructure.
- Automation that helps reduce the burden on internal staff while improving threat response metrics.
With XDR, MSPs can better support customers in an increasingly fraught security environment while also streamlining their own internal operations.
