Quick Guide: The 5 Essential MSSP Technologies

Managed Security Services (MSS) create significant business opportunity for organizations of all types. These security services enable accelerate time to security value and help solve the various security challenges presented in today's security environment.

Here are the essential technologies that any MSSP must have to be successful.

The managed security technology that brings everything together is the SIEM. The SIEM enables the security provider to monitor and manage security incidents.

The SIEM also helps the security analysts in identifying unauthorized access to any of your systems, networks, devices, or data.

This can generate a generous amount of data and in some instances, and entire data lake of security events that can then be used to make correlations, identify malicious activity, and generate immediate and actionable alerts for your company. The SIEM is best paired with threat intelligence feeds so that the MSSP can then compare your environment against the feeds generated by its sources.

Threat Intelligence feeds are built behind proprietary systems, databases, and algorithms that will take your SIEM monitoring to the next level.

The TI capabilities of an MSSP allow security analysts to perform analysis at scale for advanced persisten threats from a dynamic, robust, and updated database of malicious code. TI is available for other systems, too: EPP, IPS, DLP, etc.

TI feeds will also allow your MSSP's security analysts to identify trends between seemingly unrelated security events to prevent and detect before a serious security incident occurs.

In the event a security incident does occur, an MSSP using TI will dramatically reduce the time to identify, response, contain, and remediate. TI feeds allow you to stay ahead of the curve in a threat landscape where cyber attackers are innovating faster than organizations are defending against them.

Ticketing and personalized customer portals are a must-have managed security technology. The ticketing system provides security managers and analysts the ability to log and fix security issues quickly.

SOC analysts use this ticketing system to communicate with your team, track the hours it takes to resolve a security fix, and prioritize the most important tasks at hand for your security operations.

From the perspective of your personalized portal, an MSSP should provide you with real-time and integrated access to your security operational health and hygiene, improve transparency between your environment and the occurring incidents, and reduce the time it takes for you to pull reporting and analytics on security events.

Due to their leveraged model supporting many different customers, it becomes incredibly important for the MSSP to have automation built into their security and SIEM monitoring activities. 

One security analyst may be monitoring security events for 10 to 30 unique customers or more. The analyst needs to automate case management, data aggregation, and reporting for each client so that they are not fatigued with security alerts.

Automating security tasks eliminates one of the biggest challenges in security — human error. By adding security automation and orchestration to the MSS offering, security analysts can also speed up alert management and incident response.

This translates to increased productivity, lower operating costs, improved reporting, and consistent customer service.

The very best MSS experts are using advanced security analytics and heuristics to amplify their threat intelligence feeds, for both automation, and for SIEM monitoring and alerts. Security heuristics is a powerful method of sequencing behavior patterns together to create triggers on a security event.

Once a security event is triggered based on behavior, the security analyst decides whether the security incident is safe or should be blocked. 

Security machine learning is also an emerging area where the very best MSSPs are using security event data sets. Security machine learning enables MSS firms and provides the ability ot identify and detect zero-day and polymorphic malware before it hits the client's environment.

With ransomware and malware on the rise, security machine learning is another that iwll be an asset to any organization without the resources needed to protect itself from changing security threats.

Finally, while it can't be said that security experts are integratl for an MSS, they play an integral part in running the SOC for an MSSP. These security analysts and managers should have the utmost knowledge level and expertise within the industry as it relates to cybersecurity prevention, detection, and response, as well as remaining knowledgeable on the latest global threats.

Accredited security experts that hold ISO27000 and 200000, SOC I and SOC II, PCI QSA, and ASV certifications are all equally important.

Having a partner that understands all facets of your security posture, from network, applications, and physical infrastructure, will bolster your security strategy and protect you in the future. If you're looking for an MSSP, fill out our speak to an expert form, and we'll be here to support your needs

 

 

 

 

Disclaimer: This post was originally published in 2023 and republished on June 18, 2025. Some details may have changed since the original publication; please explore our latest resources or contact our Cipher experts for the most current information.