December 07, 2020
Companies are more and more depending upon services such as Amazon AWS for their computing and storage requirements for websites and applications. Some use online services to get a complete platform with an operating system, servers, middleware, etc, and databases from any third party vendor. The entire environment of as-a-service has subsequently helped companies to meet their IT demands without having to invest in their own infrastructures.
Security threats are growing more day by day and business essentials such as social media, mobility, web applications, and more are posing great risk and causing failures when not properly managed. While the budget is tight and skills are at a premium, SECaaS (Security as a Service) comes into play which sets out as a cost-cutting tool for online business. It combines various security services without actually involving any hardware or a high-end budget.
What is SECaaS?
SECaaS is basically a subcontracting or outsourcing service that helps to meet the security needs of the company by an external company. In other words, an outside company manages the security system. Now with security as a service, as the name suggests, security solutions are no longer implemented one by one in each device where software like virus protection or spam filtering software were installed in each machine or on the network of the workplace and had to keep the software updated or keep using them regularly. Also, this old way of doing things is costly as the upfront cost for hardware and licensing cost of software adds to the budget. Whereas, using security as a service makes things so much easier as one can use the same tools through a web browser and it is also affordable.
Benefits of Security as a Service
Work with the Latest Version of Tools – Cybercriminals are working day and night to create new viruses every day. To tackle the latest versions of such viruses, the anti-virus tools in the system need to be updated regularly. With security as a service, the company’s security system is updated with the latest threats. This means there is no need for troubling the users every time to update their virus protection software, spam filtering software, or keep other software up-to-date so that the latest security patches are in use.
Quick Provisioning – One of the best features of SECaaS is that the users get access to the tools in an instant. Also, it is provided on demand. So one can scale up or down depending upon their needs for the system. The same can be done with speed and agility needs.
Skilled Security Professionals – IT security experts in the service are no doubt more skilled and experienced than anyone in the IT team of any company. This means the security system of the company is under skilled hands.
Simple in-house management – It is not sufficient to only keep the data protected. It is also important to know when a user is requesting access to the protected data together with the reason to access it.
Focus on More Important Things – Using security as a service means not only administering and controlling security processes gets easier but with the skilled experts on board, it allows internal IT team members to focus more on core business competencies rather on updating anti-virus software.
Budget-friendly – Another major benefit is of-course cost efficiency. With security as a service, the company neither pays for any extra hardware requirements, nor any software licensing. Rather, the upfront capital can be replaced with variable operating expenses and even with a discounted rate.
Features and Lookouts
Security as a Service provides a lot of offerings such as continuous monitoring, data loss prevention, disaster recovery, and business continuity, encryption, email security, intrusion management, identity and access management, security assessment, network security, security information, and event management, web security, vulnerability scanning. Features such as centralized security management which protect data and applications on-premise, rapid deployment managed by experts, managed threat detection and response with 24/7 SOC monitoring and quick notifications from security professionals, compliance without complexity, and more visibility into the IT infrastructure that will determine the risks that can be encountered.
Before utilizing the service, it is also important to look for a few things in the service provider such as making sure that the solution has no interoperability issues, has low TCO (Total Cost of Ownership), and the chosen solution should have a reporting mechanism that will allow keeping track of all the security events, attack logs, and all other vital data.
Conclusion
Thus, security as a service transforms the way the company governs its information security and compliance programs. It reduces the requirement of building separate infrastructures, and instead, integrates all the elements into one manageable system. SECaaS is becoming increasingly popular all around the world and the growing need is driven by the shortage of resources such as qualified experts or security tools. Most importantly, the cost-effectiveness of the system encourages more and more investors to invest in it for their enterprises.