The number of publicly reported data compromises increased by 78% last year, with 4,608 data breaches reported in the US affecting over 5 billion records. And with recent breaches at National Public Data, UnitedHealth, AT&T, Ticketmaster, Bank of America, and other major organizations, that number is only going to rise.

As cyber threats continue to escalate, Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs) find themselves navigating an increasingly complex landscape. When half of all businesses report experiencing a breach in the last 12 months, the need for streamlined operations and ironclad data security has never been more critical. 

MSSPs are not only facing more sophisticated attacks but are also grappling with a shortage of skilled cybersecurity professionals, estimated at over 3.4 million professionals. This shortage places immense pressure on existing teams to manage a growing number of clients effectively.

The dual challenge of keeping pace with advanced threats while stretching limited resources creates a pressing need for MSSPs to maximize efficiency across their operations. To remain both competitive and effective, many MSSPs are turning to automation and advanced GRC tools to fill the gaps. By optimizing their GRC processes, MSSPs can ensure that they not only deliver maximum value, but also attract more clients and scale their business efficiently.

In this article, we’ll explore how MSSPs can streamline their GRC processes, the tools that make it possible, and the best practices that help them grow their business in today’s demanding cybersecurity environment.

Risk assessment and management

Risk assessments are foundational to a strong GRC strategy, helping MSSPs identify and prioritize potential vulnerabilities and threats across their clients’ infrastructure. But the sheer volume and complexity of threats makes manually assessing risks time-consuming and inefficient. 48% of organizations still use spreadsheets to track and manage risks, but manual assessments are quickly outdated and prone to error, making it harder to gain a comprehensive and real-time view of vulnerabilities.

MSSPs can implement several key practices to streamline operations, reduce manual workloads, and ensure more effective risk mitigation for their clients.

Automate risk assessments

Manual risk assessments are repetitive and time-consuming. By leveraging automated risk assessment workflows like Secureframe’s Comply AI for Risk, MSSPs can automatically identify and categorize risks, assign risk scores, generate treatment plans, and even create remediation tasks. 

Pairing this with continuous monitoring vs point-in-time assessments enables MSSPs to stay ahead of risks and respond immediately as new vulnerabilities emerge. This shift from static assessments to dynamic risk management allows MSSPs to save time, improve accuracy, and provide clients with timely insights that demonstrate a proactive approach.

Standardize risk reporting

Standardizing risk reporting ensures consistency across all clients and helps streamline the communication of risk data to stakeholders. GRC automation solutions can generate reports with real-time information, allowing MSSPs to quickly visualize risk data, extract historical trends, and demonstrate the value of their mitigation efforts. This not only saves time but also ensures that clients receive timely and accurate insights into their risk posture and how the MSSP’s efforts have reduced risk exposure.

Centralized risk dashboards also allow MSSPs to gain a holistic view of their clients' risk profiles. These dashboards provide real-time updates on risk statuses, making it easier to track progress, detect emerging risks, and generate actionable reports. With a centralized compliance management system, MSSPs can efficiently manage multiple clients from one interface, ensuring nothing is overlooked.

Closely collaborate with clients

Effective communication and collaboration with clients can greatly improve the efficiency of an MSSP’s risk management efforts. MSSPs can gather critical information from clients about their specific vulnerabilities, operational priorities, and compliance requirements. MSSPs can better understand the client’s business goals and risk tolerance, ensuring that their risk management recommendations address each client’s specific risk profile and strategic objectives rather than using a one-size-fits-all approach.

By providing clients with access to dashboards, reports, and real-time updates, MSSPs can establish clear, consistent lines of communication to better understand client needs, build trust, and ensure that all parties are aligned in addressing cybersecurity risks.

Compliance monitoring

Compliance is a non-negotiable aspect of any client relationship, especially in highly regulated industries like government, healthcare, and finance. MSSPs must ensure their clients adhere to industry standards like GDPR, HIPAA, and CMMC 2.0, as non-compliance can result in heavy fines and reputational damage. Strong compliance monitoring not only helps MSSPs retain existing clients but also attracts new ones by offering peace of mind.

Yet the complexity of compliance monitoring, combined with the need to keep track of multiple regulations across different clients, can quickly overwhelm MSSPs. Traditional methods of managing compliance involve manual evidence collection and control mapping which are time-consuming and resource intensive. Let’s examine several ways MSSPs can enhance efficiency in their compliance monitoring and management processes. 

Automate gap analysis 

Manual gap assessments require MSSPs to comb through extensive documentation, audit reports, and security configurations to identify areas where controls or compliance requirements are not met. This process can take days or weeks, especially when dealing with complex infrastructures or multiple compliance frameworks. For MSSPs managing multiple clients, conducting manual gap assessments for each one strains internal resources. As the client base grows, it becomes harder to scale without increasing staff or sacrificing service quality.

Automated gap assessment tools can integrate with cloud services to quickly identify missing compliance requirements and flag areas that require attention, allowing MSSPs to slash the time spent on manual checks. 

Secureframe offers a free gap assessment tool specifically designed for Service Partners to use in facilitating the sales cycle. By enabling near-instantaneous gap identification, MSSPs can attract new clients by showcasing their efficiency and expertise. With hundreds of deep integrations, MSSPs can gather relevant data and insights from the client’s systems and generate a detailed gap assessment report that pinpoints specific security and compliance gaps and actionable recommendations for improvement. 

Third-party risk management

As organizations increasingly rely on third-parties, MSSPs must ensure that their clients' vendors maintain strong security and compliance standards. Failure to properly manage third-party risks can lead to costly breaches, financial losses, and non-compliance penalties.

Yet MSSPs struggle with a lack of visibility into their clients’ vendor security postures. With large numbers of third-party vendors to assess, it’s difficult to monitor them all manually, and gaps in risk oversight can go unnoticed until a breach occurs.

Improving efficiency around TPRM is crucial for MSSPs that deal with a large network of vendors and partners, each with its own security risks. By streamlining this process, MSSPs can reduce the risk of third-party security incidents, ensure compliance, and maintain trust with their clients.

Continuously monitor vendor security and compliance

One-time vendor assessments are not sufficient for capturing ongoing risks. MSSPs should adopt continuous monitoring tools that provide real-time updates on a vendor’s security posture. 

These tools ensure that MSSPs are aware of any changes in their vendors' risk profiles, allowing them to respond more quickly to new threats.

GRC tools like Secureframe consolidate vendor information into a centralized dashboard that includes vendor profiles, vendor risk assessments, document attachments, and vendor history logs. MSSPs can also use this dashboard to evaluate a vendor’s risk based on the data and environments they access, and all relevant documents including compliance reports and policies, can be attached to the vendor’s profile for easy access. The ability to set up recurring reviews based on risk level allows MSSPs to take a systematic, proactive approach to managing vendor risk for their clients.

Standardize vendor risk scoring

Inconsistent risk scoring across vendors can lead to misjudgments about the severity of potential risks. MSSPs should use standardized risk scoring methodologies, either built into automated TPRM tools or developed internally, to ensure that all vendors are evaluated on the same scale.

Standardization ensures that all vendors are assessed consistently, reducing the chances of over- or underestimating risks. It also simplifies the process of comparing vendors and identifying those that pose the highest risk, allowing MSSPs to prioritize their TPRM efforts more effectively.

Standardize vendor risk assessments

Developing a clear and comprehensive framework for assessing vendor risk helps streamline the TPRM process. Establishing a standardized security questionnaire along with defined compliance requirements and risk scoring guidelines makes the vendor evaluation process faster, more consistent, and easier to scale for your clients. MSSPs can also use automated platforms to assess security questionnaire responses, track vendor compliance, and evaluate vendor risk without extensive manual effort.

Policy management

Well-defined policies guide organizational behavior, reduce security risks, and ensure compliance with industry regulations. For MSSPs, maintaining up-to-date policies is also key to avoiding compliance violations and maintaining client trust.

Many MSSPs still rely on manual processes to update and distribute policies, which can lead to outdated or inconsistent policies across clients. Additionally, tracking employee acknowledgment of policies can be cumbersome and prone to oversight. Efficient policy management ensures that policies are up-to-date, accessible, and consistently enforced.

Streamline policy creation and updates

Creating and updating policies manually can be time-consuming, especially when managing policies for multiple clients across industries and regulatory frameworks. MSSPs can simplify policy creation and updates using GRC platforms that offer auditor-approved templates for various regulatory requirements like HIPAA, GDPR, and SOC 2, allowing MSSPs to generate policies tailored to each client’s needs without starting from scratch.

Automate policy distribution and acknowledgment 

Distributing policies manually and tracking employee or client acknowledgments can be labor-intensive. GRC solutions can automatically send policies to relevant stakeholders and prompt them to acknowledge receipt, with reminders for those who have not yet complied. This eliminates busywork while ensuring policies reach the right people and are properly implemented. 

Implement regular updates and version control

Policies need to be reviewed and updated regularly to stay relevant and aligned with evolving threats, regulations, and business needs. Instead of relying on manual reminders or calendar alerts, MSSPs can automate the policy review process using compliance management tools. These platforms allow users to set automated review cycles, prompting the appropriate team members when policies are due for review or revision. 

Automated review cycles ensure that policies are always current and compliant with the latest standards. This reduces the risk of outdated policies causing compliance issues and saves time that would otherwise be spent manually tracking review deadlines. These tools also typically include built-in version control that automatically tracks changes made to policies, including who made the changes and when they were implemented, for clean audit trails. 

Security awareness training and personnel management

Employees are often the weakest link in any cybersecurity strategy, which makes regular security awareness training a necessity. MSSPs must ensure that both their internal teams and clients’ employees are up-to-date on the latest security threats and best practices. Effective training programs not only reduce human error but also ensure that everyone understands the importance of adhering to security protocols and their role in data security.

Many organizations struggle with making security training engaging and relevant. One-off training sessions are often forgotten, and manual tracking of training completion can be challenging. By improving the efficiency of these processes, MSSPs can reduce human error, enhance security, and deliver better outcomes for their clients.

Automate security awareness training and reminders

Manually delivering and tracking security awareness training can be time-consuming, particularly for MSSPs managing multiple clients. GRC solutions that integrate security awareness training within the platform allow MSSPs to automate training delivery, track employee progress, and schedule periodic training sessions.

Automation ensures that training is delivered consistently across all clients and that employees receive regular updates on new threats. Tracking completion rates in real time also helps MSSPs ensure that no employees are left behind in the training process, enhancing overall security awareness for their clients.

Use role-based training modules

Not all employees face the same security risks. To improve efficiency, MSSPs can implement role-based training modules that cater to the specific needs of different job functions. For instance, employees handling sensitive data may need more in-depth training on data protection, while front-line staff might focus on phishing awareness.

Tailoring training to specific roles ensures that each employee receives relevant content, reducing the likelihood of disengagement and improving the overall effectiveness of the training. This targeted approach saves time by avoiding one-size-fits-all training sessions that may not be applicable or engaging to all employees.

Conduct simulated attacks

Phishing remains one of the most common attack vectors, accounting for 44% of all social engineering incidents. MSSPs can improve the efficiency of phishing awareness training by conducting regular simulated phishing attacks through security training platforms that allow MSSPs to send realistic phishing emails to employees and track their responses.

Simulated phishing attacks provide a practical, real-world test of employees' ability to identify and avoid phishing attempts. The results offer valuable insights into which employees or departments may need additional training, allowing MSSPs to target their efforts more effectively.

Regular security audits and assessments

Regular security audits are essential for identifying vulnerabilities and ensuring that all security controls are functioning properly. For MSSPs, these audits also serve as proof to clients that their systems are secure and compliant. Regular assessments can help identify gaps in security, allowing for proactive remediation before an incident occurs.

Conducting thorough audits manually is resource-intensive, often requiring coordination across different teams. Additionally, the complexity of modern IT infrastructures can make it difficult to ensure that all areas are adequately assessed. Let’s examine some key practices MSSPs can implement to improve efficiency in their ongoing security audit and assessment processes. 

Integrate vulnerability scanning into GRC tools

Vulnerability scanning is a critical component of security assessments, but manually identifying and analyzing vulnerabilities is tedious. Using a GRC platform that incorporates vulnerability scans can continuously monitor for vulnerabilities across client environments. 

Automation reduces the time spent on manual scans and ensures that vulnerabilities are identified in real-time. MSSPs can schedule regular scans and receive alerts when new vulnerabilities are detected, improving the speed and accuracy of security assessments.

Implement continuous monitoring over point-in-time assessments

Traditional audits are typically conducted periodically, which can leave security gaps unidentified and unaddressed between audits. MSSPs can implement continuous monitoring tools to assess and improve clients’ security posture in real time.

Continuous monitoring allows MSSPs to detect security issues as they happen rather than waiting for periodic assessments. This proactive approach leads to faster identification and resolution of security gaps, improving the overall security posture of both MSSPs and their clients.

Automate remediation and documentation workflows

Managing the various tasks involved in a security audit—such as evidence collection, documentation, and tracking remediation efforts—can be challenging without proper tools. MSSPs can use compliance management platforms to automate audit workflows including risk assessments, remediation tasks, evidence collection, and control monitoring in a single platform.

Workflow automation ensures that audit tasks are completed on time, reduces the chances of missing critical steps, and minimizes the manual effort involved in tracking audit progress. It also improves collaboration among teams, making the audit process more efficient.

Optimize GRC efficiency with Secureframe automation 

67% of small businesses admit their organizations do not have the skills in-house to properly address security issues — presenting a massive opportunity for MSSPs with the right offerings to act as a trusted cybersecurity partner. As businesses increasingly look to MSSPs to handle their security and compliance needs, it's essential that MSSPs themselves maintain streamlined GRC processes to not only reduce manual work and improve operational efficiency, but also enhance security and compliance outcomes for their clients. 

By reducing the manual effort involved in managing security and compliance processes, MSSPs can lower their overall operational costs. Automation helps streamline workflows and ensures that compliance tasks are completed faster and with fewer personnel resources. This cost savings can either be passed on to clients as competitive pricing or reinvested in improving the MSSP’s service offerings, both of which contribute to better client outcomes.

By partnering with Secureframe, MSSPs can more easily deliver security programs as an ongoing service. Access a multi-tenant management console, comprehensive framework support, a free gap assessment tool, and more on a monthly, usage-based basis. Learn more about our leading Service Partner program to get started and connect with our team.