What to look for in a Cybersecurity Partner

According to Interpolโ€™s African Cyberthreat Assessment Report, 90% of African businesses operate without the necessary cybersecurity protocols. The report highlighted South Africa as the highest targeted for ransomware attacks in Africa and ranked third in the world for most cybercrime victims. This has led to a mentality shift by organisations to take their cybersecurity operations more seriously and CISOs making sure the right processes are in place to derive total value. However, what exactly should organisations look for when choosing a cybersecurity partner?

Resources, Time, and Skills allocation

There is a global skills shortage within the cybersecurity industry, and highly skilled individuals have become a niche. For an organisation to establish its cybersecurity capability, it would need to invest considerable time and finances to get it up and running, notwithstanding the staff retention when people leave as highly skilled individuals are sought after. With a cybersecurity partner, an organisation would not have to worry about its cybersecurity onboarding process or resource management and can focus on what cybersecurity service they need or want. A cybersecurity partner should also identify risks and areas where they can elevate maturity; at the end of the day, many organisations may have a cybersecurity strategy but not the skills or time to implement it efficiently and effectively.

Product and Service Variety

Whether an organisation is choosing MSS or MDR packages, cybersecurity partners provide different options and vendors to choose from. There might be certain key areas that an organisation needs to prioritise, and utilising a cybersecurity partner can help them fast-track those projects or initiatives. This variety provides organisations options to customise the way itโ€™s protected with the choice of adding or reducing services or products where or when needed, almost personalising their approach to cybersecurity.

Scalability and Growth

This serves both ways; whether an organisation is downscaling or upscaling, a cybersecurity partner can adjust its services to an organisation accordingly. This means organisations can remain protected without worrying about losing or investing in more people and technology. A cybersecurity partner will seek to become an extension of their client’s team and therefore be able to cater to their required strategies and growth ambitions.

The threat, Detect and Respond.

Almost all organisations want a rapid threat detection and response capability and leveraging your cybersecurity partner is a faster path to provide that capability to the business. A cybersecurity partner would have expert knowledge of existing major threats and trends in the landscape and therefore have proactive capabilities that an in-house approach may be unable to keep up with.

Passion and Culture

Passion and culture are essential components that get overlooked, especially when outsourcing services or products. Incorporating a cybersecurity partner into an organisationโ€™s environment requires trust because they are responsible for protecting an organisationโ€™s ecosystem. A cybersecurity partner should naturally always seek to innovate and evolve out of a passion for what they do. It becomes a bi-product of them striving to better protect their clients rather than simply providing a service.

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