Managed Security Services with Ensec and Exeon

Due to complex and distributed IT processes, rising personnel costs and an increasing need for IT security solutions, more and more companies are opting for Managed Security Services (MSS). In this case, an IT service provider takes over the setup and operation of a suitable, individually adapted security architecture consisting of individual IT security services. However, there are significant differences between the individual Managed Security Service Providers (MSSP). To better understand what distinguishes the MSS offering of our successful partner Ensec, we asked its CTO Rolf Scheurer for an interview.

What are the advantages of MSS?

Short answer: a clear SLA on the service at defined costs. In reality, the MSS market is confusing and not all offers can be compared, so it is not easy to distinguish the real benefits from supposed advantages. Basically, most companies opt for an MSS offering in order to have access to well-trained IT specialists and to replace their existing, often outdated, IT infrastructure with modern software and hardware. These two points alone can lead to a significant increase and optimization of IT security, which is why the MSS market continues to expand. Furthermore, customers want to concentrate their limited human resources on the further development of their core processes as well as their information systems.

What is special about ensec's MSS offering?

What distinguishes the Ensec MSS is the excellent know-how of the employees. This combined with clear contact persons and short decision-making and escalation paths is the guarantee that both service set-up and takeover as well as incident management work. In addition, Ensec works with a wide range of partners to continuously monitor and review the customer's security level. For example, automated analysis of log entries reveals vulnerabilities in the system and points out unusual or suspicious events and anomalies in the network. Here, too, know-how and customer proximity are central and distinguish us.

On the basis of what criteria does Ensec select its MSS stack?

Since every company and every IT infrastructure is different, we implement a tailor-made MSS solution for each customer and use synergy effects to be able to design our MSS efficiently. Through discussions with specialists and IT managers, we define specific technical criteria and competencies in order to then develop a list of suitable security solutions. In order to offer our customers the most advanced and efficient IT security services, we work with strong and renowned partners whose security solutions undergo an extensive selection process. This close partnership results in both optimal service architectures and faster, and therefore better, incident management.

How has Exeon proven itself as part of this MSS stack?

For over two years, we have relied on Exeon's Network Detection & Response (NDR) solution for our threat monitoring service. Through AI-driven security analytics of log data, the software solution detects anomalies in network activity, enabling it to detect vulnerabilities or cyber threats in significantly reduced timeframes. Our customers especially appreciate that Exeon's NDR solution does not require traffic mirroring, is completely hardware-free, unaffected by encryption and compatible with numerous network vendors. Due to the excellent cooperation with the Exeon team and the positive feedback from our customers, we are pleased to continue to offer ExeonTrace as part of our MSS offering.