Quick Summary
- Managed IT services give your business ongoing access to IT expertise and support without building a full in-house team.
- Cyber security works best when it’s part of everyday IT management, not an optional add-on.
- A proactive managed service covers 24/7 monitoring, patching, endpoint and network protection, access management, backups and rapid incident response.
- Regular security assessments and the Essential Eight framework help find gaps and decide which improvements to make first.
- Your IT provider often has privileged access to your systems, so look for independently verified credentials such as SMB1001 or ISO 27001.
- Not every provider offers the same level of security, so ask how it’s built into service delivery, from the service desk through to projects and strategy.
Cyber security isn’t something that should be bolted onto your IT environment once everything else is in place. Nor should it be limited to antivirus software, an annual security review or a checklist that gets revisited once a year.
It needs to be part of the everyday decisions you make about your business technology.
This is one of the biggest benefits of managed IT services. With the right provider, cyber security becomes part of how your technology is managed, maintained and developed, rather than an optional extra.
What are managed IT services?
Managed IT services give businesses ongoing access to IT expertise and support without needing to build an equivalent team in-house.
Depending on your business, this can cover everything from your service desk, Microsoft 365 and cloud environment to networks, devices, backups, projects and technology planning.
Importantly, it should also include cyber security.
At Lanter, we see cyber security as part of managed IT, not something that sits alongside it. It should be built into the day-to-day management of your technology and every change you make.
The link between managed IT and cyber security
Consider a business with top-rated endpoint protection on every computer. That sounds secure. But is its email environment properly protected? Has its new website been configured securely? What about access to business systems, a new application being developed or a cloud environment being migrated?
Protecting one part of your technology doesn’t necessarily protect the whole business.
A strong managed IT provider considers security across your entire technology environment and, importantly, across its own team.
Your service desk should be able to recognise a potential security risk. Your account manager should ask the right security questions when discussing a new application. And the project team migrating your systems should understand how to configure the new environment securely.
Cyber security cannot sit solely with one security specialist. It needs to be embedded across the organisation supporting your IT.
How managed IT services enhance your cyber security
A managed service also changes IT support from reactive to proactive.
Instead of waiting for something to go wrong, your provider can continuously look for issues that could expose your business to unnecessary risk. This includes:
- 24/7 monitoring and threat detection
Identifying suspicious activity and potential threats before they become larger incidents. - Proactive patching and vulnerability management
Keeping operating systems, applications and devices updated as vulnerabilities emerge. - Endpoint and network protection
Protecting computers, servers and networks while monitoring the broader environment around them. - Access management and multi-factor authentication
Controlling who can access systems and reducing the risk created by compromised credentials. - Data backup and disaster recovery
Maintaining secure backups and having a tested plan for restoring systems and data following an incident. - Rapid incident response
Giving your business access to people who understand your environment and can respond quickly when something isn’t right.
The real advantage is that these measures don’t operate in isolation. They form part of the ongoing management of your technology.
Security audits, risk assessments and the Essential Eight
Cyber security risks change as your business changes. New employees, applications, devices, cloud services and working arrangements can all introduce vulnerabilities.
Regular cyber security assessments help identify those gaps and determine where improvements should be prioritised.
For Australian businesses, the Australian Signals Directorate’s Essential Eight provides a useful framework for strengthening cyber security. A managed IT provider can assess your current maturity, identify gaps and progressively implement controls appropriate to your organisation.
This is more useful than simply completing an annual review and assuming the job is done.
Compliance and regulatory support
Businesses are also facing increasing expectations around how they protect information and manage cyber risk.
Your managed IT provider can help you understand the technology controls needed to support your compliance obligations and ensure security is considered as systems and processes change.
But there is another side to this relationship that’s easy to overlook and that is your IT provider itself.
An IT partner may have more privileged access to your systems and data than almost anyone else in your organisation. You therefore need confidence that its own systems, people and processes follow strong security practices.
Look for independently verifiable cyber security credentials such as SMB1001 or ISO 27001. They provide an additional level of assurance that your provider is applying security best practice to its own operations.
Security awareness training for your team
Technology is only part of your cyber security. Phishing emails, compromised credentials and simple human mistakes can bypass even strong technical controls. Regular security awareness training helps employees recognise suspicious activity and understand what to do when something doesn’t look right.
When training is combined with managed security controls and ongoing IT support, employees also have somewhere to turn when they’re unsure.
The business benefits of outsourcing your cyber security
For many small and growing businesses, maintaining the breadth of cyber security expertise required today isn’t realistic in-house.
Managed IT services provide access to a broader team while bringing security into everyday IT operations. Instead of engaging someone intermittently when a problem occurs, you have people who understand your environment and are looking after it continuously.
Access to expertise without the in-house cost
Building an internal team with the same breadth of IT and cyber security expertise can be costly, particularly for a smaller business. A managed service gives you access to people with different skills and experience as you need them, without having to employ every specialist in-house.
Where managed IT alone is not enough
Not every managed IT provider delivers the same level of cyber security.
Simply outsourcing your IT doesn’t automatically make your business secure. If your provider treats cyber security as an optional add-on, focuses only on endpoint protection or relies on one specialist to oversee security across every client, important risks can still be missed.
Ask how security is incorporated into everyday service delivery, from the service desk and account management through to projects, cloud migrations and technology strategy.
How to choose the right managed IT and security provider
Look beyond a list of security products and ask how the provider monitors your environment, manages vulnerabilities, controls privileged access and responds to incidents. Find out how its broader team is trained to identify security risks and whether its own security practices are independently verified.
Most importantly, ask whether cyber security is included as a fundamental part of its managed IT service or something you need to purchase separately.
Strengthen your cyber security with Lanter
At Lanter, cyber security is built into the way we deliver managed IT services.
Our approach brings together ongoing IT management, cyber security expertise, monitoring and practical risk management to help protect your business. This means cyber security isn’t reviewed once a year and forgotten. It forms part of how your technology is managed every day.
FAQs
Do managed IT services include cyber security? It depends on the provider. Some build security into managed IT, while others sell it as an add-on, so ask what’s included.
How do managed IT services improve cyber security? They make IT support proactive. Your provider monitors your systems, patches vulnerabilities, manages access and responds quickly to incidents.
What is the Essential Eight? It’s a cyber security framework from the Australian Signals Directorate. A managed IT provider can assess your maturity against it and implement the right controls.
Is antivirus software enough to protect my business? No. Your email, website, cloud services, applications and user access also need protecting, along with regular staff training.
Why does my IT provider’s own security matter? Your provider often has privileged access to your systems and data. Credentials such as SMB1001 or ISO 27001 show it follows strong security practices.
Is outsourcing cyber security cost-effective for small businesses? For many, yes. You get access to a broad team of specialists without the cost of employing them in-house.
What should I ask when choosing a managed IT and security provider? Ask how it monitors your environment, manages vulnerabilities and responds to incidents, and whether security is included as standard or costs extra.