The outsourcing of cybersecurity services is a widespread practice today. There are multiple reasons why it is convenient to choose to outsource a service; some of them are explained below:
- Specialization And Quality
By outsourcing ICT services, in general, and those related to cybersecurity, in particular, we seek to obtain services of a higher quality than we would be able to offer using our own resources. The increase in quality is mainly due to the fact that the provision of the service involves professionals who are experts in a specific subject and, in turn, the provider has specific and adequate resources to provide the service. This is especially important when it comes to cybersecurity services since it is essential to know the trends of security threats and risks to act accordingly.
- Cost Reduction
One of the most frequent arguments when subcontracting cybersecurity services has to do with cost reduction. As a general rule, it is cheaper to obtain an expert service from third parties than to acquire the necessary resources to provide such service internally. For example, let’s imagine that we are going to strengthen our business through the creation of a portal for online sales, and we are in need of conducting a technical security audit on that portal. In this case, we find it more convenient to outsource this audit than to prepare everything necessary for a member of our organization to carry out the work described.
- Less Impact Due To Obsolescence
Cybersecurity services have a strong and close relationship with technology. In recent times it advances and evolves at a dizzying pace, which makes infrastructure quickly obsolete. By outsourcing cybersecurity services, the impact of obsolescence is greatly reduced. For example, let’s imagine that in the development of our business continuity plan, we choose a high availability solution that requires the existence of a backup Data Processing Center (CPD). For this, it may be advisable to outsource the backup service instead of acquiring the equipment and building a second CPD in our facilities.
- Attention To Business Processes
As a general rule, ICT services are services that support the business processes of the organization but are not in themselves the objective of this. This is equally applicable to cybersecurity services, to which we can consider transversal services. For example, a service for the detection, attention, and response to cyber attacks directed against our corporate website can provide great value to our organization, avoiding interruptions in our online commerce processes. However, although this service is important, our key processes will be of a different nature, such as the manufacture of household appliances, hospitality services, etc. The outsourcing of these services allows an organization to pay more attention to its business processes.
- Flexibility
It is easier to adopt an outsourced service by expanding its reach, functionality, increasing capacity, etc. You reorganize the company itself. For example, imagine that we have an external service for the analysis of the traffic that circulates from our corporate network to the Internet, and, after a merger of companies, we are interested in expanding the scope to include communications of the new infrastructure. Given this situation, it would only be possible to request an extension of the service to the external provider. If instead, we were to carry out the service described with our own resources, we would need to acquire new systems, tools, etc. being more complicated to adapt to the changes of our company.
