Cybersecurity channel chiefs and MSSPs look to the future
The cybersecurity labor market is suffering a severe workforce shortage. By 2019, the demand for talent is estimated to be about 6 million jobs, with a projected shortfall of at least 1.5 million skilled workers, according to Symantec’s CEO Michael Brown.
In July 2015, the U.S. State of Cybercrime report from PwC, CSO, the CERT divisi
The cybersecurity market is rife with conferences that feature keynote speakers, industry experts, vendor demos, training sessions, hack-a-thons and professional networking.
Some of the best events are centered on a narrowly defined topic, an industry vertical, or a niche technology. And with CyberTechnologyXchange (CTX), we have a new venue focused on the burgeoning managed security service providers (MSSP) space.
There will be no convention center or expo hall at the inaugural CTX in the summer of 2018. Rather, everything will take place behind closed doors — in private one-on-one meetings between vendors and MSSPs.
Vetting new products and technology platforms is a big chore for MSSPs. Cutting through the market hype to zero in on the most promising solutions in emerging categories is a time-consuming process.
CTX is a business matchmaker for vendor channel chiefs and MSSP executives. The idea is to cut down the time it takes to find and vet each other and elevate discussions up to the C-suite on both sides.
“Strategic partnership is about understanding and trust, but even more, it’s about mutual benefit,” says Greg Geisler, CEO of VerticalXchange, parent company of CTX.
VerticalXchange has already proved out the model in the physical security space with its popular SecurityXchange event, a “solution broker” in a market that is converging with cybersecurity around internet-based video surveillance and other technologies.
Why focus on MSSPs?
The cyber economic market fundamentals led Geisler and CTX to lock on MSSPs as a focal point. A severe workforce shortage has fueled a fast growing market for managed security services. And the cybersecurity skills gap is expected to grow to 3.5 million unfilled positions by 2021, reports CRN in a recent story.
Organizations that outsource to MSSPs tap into a talent pool that might otherwise elude them, according to the MSSP Alert, a specialty media focused on managed security services.
Cyber crime damages are predicted to cost the world $6 trillion by 2021, up from $3 trillion in 2015. As a result, global cybersecurity spending is expected to exceed $1 trillion cumulatively over the next five years.
The MSSP sector is the fastest-growing services segment (in cybersecurity), with a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 13.2%, according to a story in Digital Forensics Magazine earlier this year.
Channel chiefs and MSSPs will sit down with each other at CTX and discuss how they can exploit a huge market opportunity together.
VeritcalXchange is placing a big bet on the new event, renting out a block of 2,000-sq.-ft. condos at The Lodges at Deer Valley, a resort in Park City, Utah. The suites will be used for the one-on-one meetings and for housing the attendees.
on of the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University and U.S. Secret Service showed that 79 percent of the 500 U.S. executives, security experts and others in both the public and private sector say they detected a security incident over the past 12 months. Raytheon and the National Cybersecurity Alliance found in their 2015 study Securing our Future: Closing the Cyber Talent Gap that education is not keeping up with the growing demand — of the nearly 4,000 young people, aged 18-26 surveyed, 67 percent of men and 77 percent of women said no guidance counselor, secondary education teacher or career counselor mentioned the possibility of cybersecurity as a career
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This doesn’t bode well for companies looking to secure themselves and their customers data and information now and in the future. But there’s another option — a managed security services provider (MSSP) can cost-effectively and safely secure physical hardware, networks, data and information. It’s a viable option for many businesses that can’t find or can’t afford to keep cybersecurity talent on the payroll, says David Barton, CISO at Forcepoint.
“With the worldwide shortage of qualified IT security candidates, using a reputable MSSP to help augment internal teams is a very good approach. Most MSSPs employ highly qualified and skilled talent who are able to manage and protect their customers’ data,” Barton says.
An MSSP can cover all the security bases for a company: Firewalls, intrusion detection and intrusion prevention solutions, security event and incident management, managed vulnerability and identity management solutions — even first-level incident response. It can be difficult, especially in such a severe talent shortage, for companies to find talent to secure each vulnerable area, much less all three.
The issues of compatibility and integration are also front of mind for IT leaders, because with so many devices and tools, complexity quickly becomes an issue. That’s one of the biggest problems an MSSP can help solve, says Mark Stevens, senior vice president of global services at Digital Guardian.
Source: https://www.csoonline.com/article/3048715/how-mssps-can-address-the-cybersecurity-talent-gap.html
