10 Questions to Ask When Comparing Managed Security Service Providers

So, you are looking at managed security service providers for your company. What do you need to ask them to ensure that they are the right choice for you? Finding the right cybersecurity provider is essential to your business staying safe from cyber attacks and maintaining compliance. Beyond asking them about their company culture, what services they provide and asking for references, you’ll need to ask cybersecurity-related questions. Keep reading for our top 10 questions to ask. 

1. What Experience Do You Have In My Industry? 

Cybersecurity needs vary widely across industries. Some businesses need to be compliant with regulations such as HIPAA and some companies just want to protect the sensitive information they hold onto. You must work with a managed security services provider who has experience in your industry. They will know the unique needs of your industry and be able to better protect you than a company with little to no experience in your specific industry. 

2. What Type of Background Checks Do Your Employees Have?

A managed security service provider may not tell you every detail of their profiles, but it’s still important to ask about the background checks done on employees. Especially if your organization requires compliance regulations to be met by PCI DSS, GDPR, HIPAA or other regulators. 

3. How Often Do You Submit Your Organization for a Third-Party Audit?

Managed security service providers often submit themselves to a third party to audit their processes. The third-party audit is to ensure that their processes meet cybersecurity industry standards. This is especially important if you work in a regulated industry. The better their processes meet or exceed standards, the more likely they are to meet compliance requirements.

4. What Are Their Business Continuity / Disaster Recovery Plans?

Disasters can happen anywhere and to any business, managed security service providers are no exception. If your business is headquartered in the same area as they are, they will need to first get their business back up and running before they can help you get yours back on track. Make sure they have comprehensive business continuity and disaster recovery plans of their own in place. 

5. What Strategies Do You Use to Prevent Data Loss?

While data loss does happen in data breaches it can also happen outside of that. If your data doesn’t have enough physical storage even power failures can cause data to be lost. The managed security service provider you partner with should have a laid-out procedure to help prevent any issues. Ask them if you can see the documented procedures.

6. What Are Your Risk Management Strategies?

Every company in any industry has risks associated with them. A great managed security service provider will conduct risk, vulnerability and infrastructure assessments on your organization. This helps create your risk management and managed detection (MDR) response plans. It also allows your cybersecurity company to understand the solutions you’ll need to keep your company safe. 

7. How Do You Ensure Compliance?

If you are in a regulated industry, you know how difficult it can be to ensure that you are meeting compliance standards. A managed security service provider can make the compliance process much smoother. It’s important to ask the strategies they use to ensure compliance, what compliance regulations they have experience with and how they keep up to date with new laws or requirements. 

8. Do You Use Automation Techniques?

Automation allows their security team to focus on the bigger issues at hand, it also makes identifying issues come up much quicker. It also helps reduce human error if easy, repetitive tasks are taken over by automation. 

9. When Do You Conduct Remote Testing?

Your managed security service provider needs to ensure that the solutions they set up for you are working. To do this they should be conducting regular vulnerability, simulated attacks and penetration testing. Each one of these tests may happen at different intervals, so ask when you can expect them to be done and if they will interrupt your daily operations. 

10. How Do You Stay Up-To-Date On Cyber Security Trends?

Cyber threats and how to defend against them are constantly evolving. To defend against them, your managed security service provider will need to know about them. There are many different ways they can stay up-to-date on this information, the important thing to take away from this question is if they have a procedure for staying up-to-date and how they update their staff.

Finding the Right Managed Security Service Provider

Every organization has different things they require from their cybersecurity partner. From maintaining compliance to just keeping their business safe from cyber threats. If you are on the hunt for your cybersecurity partner, book a meeting with us today to see how G6 IT can protect your business.