Why Your Security Practice Must Include Incident Response Services

Even if you didn’t realize that managing cybersecurity threat risk is a major concern for our customers, the market potential should tell you something:  according to Gartner, worldwide spending on information security products and services will reach $81.6 billion in 2016.  Clearly, organizations are seeking to prepare themselves for this IT challenge by investing in technology.

It’s said that being prepared is half the battle.  And, for those of you with Cisco Security technology in your portfolio, you are more than halfway there in terms of helping your client base: our portfolio is the most comprehensive on the market.

But, even with the best security technology available, we need to be prepared to help our customers with the other half of the battle:  responding to incidents once they occur. According to Cisco’s 2016 Annual Security Report, only 51% of survey respondents strongly believe they can detect security weaknesses before they become full-blown incidents.  Only 45% are confident in their ability to determine the scope of a network compromise, and to remediate the damage.

Sean Mason, Director of Cisco Services Incident Response Services, wrote a recent blog on the topic of threat management.  He wrote: “The reality is most organizations today do not have mature threat management practices in place:  response to incidents is handled on a case-by-base basis, and often in direct response to a breach.  There is little strategic planning, lack of consistent processes, and perhaps more importantly a lack of continuous monitoring and response.  This works for basic use cases, like addressing common malware and supporting compliance, but isn’t sufficient for more complex cases like ransomware or a megabreach, and it certainly isn’t going to be sufficient if the organization is moving toward a digital business model.”

So, in addition to providing your customers the best security technology available to combat cyber threats, you must also include professional services to help your clients with threat management.  To help you improve your position as a trusted partner to your customer, you can easily offer an Incident Response Retainer as part of your security services practice.

Cisco’s incident responders are a highly specialized team within Cisco Security Advisory Services. This team provides the expertise to assess and design an incident response approach that reduces cost, and mitigates risk. By synthesizing best practices and using effective industry frameworks, Incident Response Services provide include a comprehensive range of capabilities that help organizations achieve a stronger security posture.

Readiness, combined with an Incident Response Retainer, allows organizations to not only understand their response capabilities better, but provides quick access to necessary expertise. This service provides pre-positioned access to incident responders without having to deal with cumbersome purchasing processes, which can delay response.

By adding Incident Response as part of your Cisco portfolio, you will:

Increase cross-architectural product and services sales

Help customers be more fully prepared to manage threats by working with them to develop a robust security framework

Ensure your customer is protected by a team with access the latest intelligence feeds

Address customer security pain points and remain relevant with your customer

Address the security skills gap

Learn more about Cisco Incident Response services:  watch this Power Hour recorded session titled “Grow Your Security Practice, Expand Opportunities with Incident Response Services, and Boost Profitability with New Incentives” and contact your Cisco partner account manager today for more information.