4 benefits of outsourcing your cybersecurity needs
Every business today needs to take its cybersecurity seriously. It isn’t just big multinational corporations that find themselves on the receiving end of cyber-attacks; businesses of all types and sizes are being targeted. Where attackers successfully find their way into your systems and steal your sensitive customer or corporate data, the damage to your business’s reputation can be severe. It only takes one successful attack to deter some people from ever using your business again.
Unless you are completely confident in your ability to manage your own cybersecurity using your in-house staff and infrastructure, you should outsource your IT security needs to an external business with a proven track record of managing cybersecurity for other businesses and organisations. There are numerous benefits to outsourcing your cybersecurity; every business should understand why cybersecurity is a prime target for outsourcing arrangements.
1. Take advantage of trained specialists
Training your in-house staff to manage cybersecurity is a time-consuming and expensive process. Equally, hiring someone who already has training and experience working as a cybersecurity professional as a full-time member of your team will cost more than many SMEs can afford. Outsourcing enables you to take advantage of people with the skills and training required to manage corporate cybersecurity but without the financial burden of bringing them in-house.
Another drawback to training your own staff to manage your cybersecurity is that once you’ve invested the necessary time and money in developing their skills, there’s nothing to stop them from moving on to another business. If this happens, you’re faced with the unenviable choice of starting the process all over again with someone else or replacing them with a new employee who can replicate their abilities. In either case, there will be a gap between their departure and your new cybersecurity expert beginning their work.
When you engage an outside business to manage your IT security, they take on the burden of training and investing in staff, making them a much more realistic and affordable option for most businesses.
2. Round the clock support
Cybercriminals don’t stick to regular office hours and can attack your business from anywhere in the world. As a result, protecting your business from cybersecurity threats is a 24/7 job; you always need to be able to respond to threats as they arise. The slower you react to attacks, the more damage attackers will cause to your network.
Monitoring and managing the network for even a small business is a significant commitment and requires a specialist touch. Most cybersecurity experts recommend having multiple personnel watching over an organisation’s network. Outsourcing cybersecurity is the most cost-effective way of ensuring that your network has the oversight necessary to keep it safe from cyberattacks.
3. Bridge the skills gap
You can teach your staff to spot and defend against many common cyber attack vectors. For example, a significant portion of the cyberattacks directed against businesses are phishing attacks. Phishing attacks involve tricking workers into willingly handing over their passwords and other credentials, which attackers can then use to access corporate networks. Even a little bit of education can go a long way to blunting these attacks and significantly reducing their chances of success.
But while education can be a powerful counter to many of the most common forms of cyberattacks, determined attackers will turn to more advanced methods that are much more difficult to head off without proper training and preparation. Your IT staff will have a better base of knowledge to work with and will be better equipped to identify and counter cybersecurity threats, but unless they have been trained in cybersecurity specifically, their skills and knowledge will only take them so far.
The skills gap between their existing IT staff and a robust cybersecurity team’s requirements presents a dilemma for SMEs. Hiring workers with relevant qualifications, knowledge, and experience to oversee cybersecurity is a difficult and expensive proposition. According to a study by Capgemini, 70% of UK organisations surveyed reported high demand for cybersecurity skills within their organisation, but only 40% were confident they had those skills among their staff.
Instead of wrestling with the high costs of hiring people with those skills and bringing them in-house, outsourcing enables businesses to bridge the gap between the skills they possess and the skills they need reliably and cost-effectively.
4. Protect yourself from the latest threats
It isn’t just your reputation that can suffer in the aftermath of a cyber attack. For example, ransomware attacks have the potential to devastate businesses, especially if they haven’t taken pre-emptive measures like regularly backing up their data. Even with all the advances made in data backup and data recovery, a successful ransomware attack will still have significant financial ramifications for a business.
When outsourcing your cybersecurity to an external business, you know that you’re gaining access to a team of staff who are up to date with all the latest threats and how to counter them. You don’t have to worry about continually updating your staff’s knowledge and understanding of the most prominent threats; someone else takes care of this for you.
Large corporations can easily afford to maintain their own cybersecurity teams, but this is a big ask for SMEs. Outsourcing enables businesses of every size and type to enjoy the benefits of a robust cybersecurity infrastructure at an affordable price. It’s no good waiting until after a cyber attack before investing in a cybersecurity team. Outsourcing your security to a professional business like ours enables you to get ahead of the game and ensures you have defences in place if a cybercriminal does decide to target your business.
