Johannesburg, 31 May 2018
The importance of security is such that businesses generally feel it needs to be an in-house operation, and yet the possibility exists of obtaining a better level of security by outsourcing it to a specialist.
According to Boland Lithebe, managing executive at CyberTech, there is a distinct lack of security skills in the current marketplace, and it is further suggested that by 2022, the gap between available skills and those that are required will be massive.
"Even with such an understanding, the current institutions and training organisations that help to develop these skills will not be able to produce enough to meet demand, meaning that the need for information security specialists is going to increase exponentially as we move forward," he says.
The skills challenge is just one of several reasons why enterprises should consider the concept of cyber security as a service, he continues, adding that in today's economy, most businesses need to focus on their core services and seldom have the additional budget required to build and maintain the requisite security capabilities internally. Worse, he says, because of the demand for security skills, retention of such employees is as difficult as skilling them up in the first place.
"By choosing a cyber security as a service option, the enterprise is able to partner with a service provider that has invested significant funds into both skills training and into the resources required to keep up with the changing security landscape. The latter is particularly critical, as security threats continue to evolve rapidly, so partnering with a player whose sole focus is security is a good way to stay a step ahead of the bad guys," says Lithebe.
He explains that cyber security as a service operates in a similar manner to other cloud models, except that this is a solution that requires constant monitoring. By aligning with an expert provider, he adds, companies can rest assured that someone is watching over their security at all times.
"The beauty of the 'as a service' model is that it frees your organisation up to focus on its core business, while purchasing security in the same way one might buy water: when you turn on the tap, you expect it to be there, but you don't need an intimate knowledge of how the infrastructure behind it operates."
"Some of the tangible benefits that can be obtained as a service include threat intelligence, vulnerability management, database monitoring from a security point of view, firewall and anti-virus management and data protection. The latter is vital, since we live in a world where legislation around this is only getting stricter, meaning that the principle of data protection is also increasing in complexity."
A few of the key benefits that a cyber security as a service solution provides, continues Lithebe, are the cost savings and predictability (since you are paying a fixed fee) such an approach offers, not to mention the fact that when it comes to licensing, the business can leave all the complexities of this up to the service provider.
"Most notably, digital transformation is the buzzword on everybody's lips, and information security is a key enabler of such digitisation. There can be no doubt that no organisation will be successful in undertaking a digital transformation journey without a proper information security strategy."
"Moreover, doing it yourself will ultimately end up exposing your business to a multitude of threat vectors. Therefore, if your organisation is undertaking a digital transformation agenda, it is imperative you view cyber-security as an enabler of this, and thus ensure you have the best security experts backing you up, and the easiest way to achieve this is through a cyber security as a service offering," he concludes.
Share