WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MANAGED IT SERVICES AND MANAGED SECURITY SERVICES?

A Managed Service Provider (MSP) proactively ensures your organization’s IT systems are operational and performing at optimum levels. This would include activities such as:

  • Systems monitoring
  • Patching
  • Software upgrades
  • Data management
  • System backups
  • Disaster recovery and business continuity planning and testing
  • Inventory management
  • Active Directory management
  • Email management
  • Remote help desk support
  • On-site technical support

A Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP) offers security as a service, ensuring your people and systems are safe, secure and compliant. These services would include services and activities such as:

  • Managed firewall configuration and management
  • Anti-virus/anti-malware installation, monitoring, detection, and remediation
  • Vulnerability testing and intrusion testing
  • Dark web scanning
  • Email spam filtering and protection
  • Security monitoring, alerting, remediation, and reporting
  • Creating secure remote connections to your network
  • Encryption services
  • Federal/state/local compliance requirements and reporting
  • And a host of other services based on the particular needs or requirements of specific industries

Most companies need one or both of these specialized services. And, not all MSPs or MSSPs offer to provide both services. At Blue Bay Technology, we believe you should only have to call one help desk and work with one group of people when you have an issue. It can get frustrating when there are multiple companies performing different and diverse functions within your IT infrastructure. Too many times confusion can occur, and “stuff” gets missed, mostly due to lack of communication or one or the other company being protective about what they do and how they do it. We do not want this to happen in your environment so we offer both sets of services to our clients.

Condensed version from an excerpt from Blue Bay Technology’s White Paper – What is “Managed Security Services” and Why Does Your Business Need It?