Increasingly, businesses are turning to managed service providers (MSPs) to deliver cost-effective, high-performance business applications and to manage services to deploy, run and maintain them. As these applications grow more complex and spread across heterogeneous physical and cloud environments, so does the attack surface and the critical demand for securing these assets and applications while ensuring compliance with increasing regulations.
Organizations must now comply with ever-increasing and strict data security legislation, regardless of the industry they’re in. Managed service providers must evolve from the role of a simple technology provider to that of an advisor helping clients navigate the complex challenges of security-specific compliance.
Technology Requirements
MSPs have a clear opportunity to deliver value-added services by offering security with compliance, however, they must also have a clear understanding of the technology requirements needed to deliver on this promise. Identifying a technology partner capable of providing security and compliance in one solution is the first step in building this offering. As MSPs research partner capabilities, they must consider the value of providers that consistently score top marks in third-party security tests. They must also consider a security provider that offers RMM/PSA integrations and extensive APIs that can help streamline IT flows and operations. Such capabilities enable MSPs to better manage and integrate with their clients’ existing services. Moreover, deploying a solution that offers automatic prevention and detection, as well as response layers in a single platform, means MSPs can reduce costs for their clients by not stacking separate solutions from multiple vendors. A single platform also simplifies the delivery of detailed security incident reports to clients that can ultimately be used to help build an improved cyber resilience plan.
The Value of Reporting
Now that organizations are required by law to assess cyber-security risks and provide reports on how they can be addressed, MSPs must adopt security modules that can support the demand for compliance-as-a-service. When deploying protection to customers, MSPs can choose modules from a single console, such as content control, web filtering, firewall, device control, anti-exploit, behavioral-based detection, and full disk encryption that ensures a one-stop shop for compliance reporting.
With detailed reports, MSPs can remove security blind spots and ultimately help drive intelligent resource and budget planning in line with customer objectives. Besides detailed threat reports that include a complete track record, starting from the initial attack vector to the moment the threat was blocked, having the ability to identify non-compliant devices is also mandatory.
Policy compliance reports for devices that have been added within the infrastructure but have failed to comply with defined security compliance policies, such as jailbroken devices or security clients that are not installed as Device Administrators, can help strengthen the overall security posture and reduce the attack surface. Moreover, by adding mandatory data backup services for all customers while bundling encryption, MSPs can build credibility and demonstrate expertise in business compliance for HIPAA, GDPR, and other regulations.
Finally, MSPs looking to showcase their capabilities regarding compliance should highlight vendor partnerships that are already fully compliant and leverage native encryption mechanisms enabled by Windows (BitLocker) and Mac (FileVault) to ensure compatibility and performance.
Organizations working with MSPs rely on them for experienced counsel with regards to deploying best of breed security technologies. As such, MSPs must be prepared to articulate not just the security capabilities that can minimize risks, but also how those capabilities are designed to support performance, compliance, and ease of management. Understanding the value of compliance for organizations opens opportunities for MSPs, especially when focusing on highly regulated industries. 
