Today, Microsoft announced the launch of a new managed service category called Microsoft Security Experts. The service provides organizations with support from external security experts who can conduct tasks like threat hunting and managed detection and response. 

For organizations, the service enables on-site security teams to extend their capabilities with support from off-site Microsoft experts. The experts will investigate the environment for security incidents and hand over contextual alert information alongside remediation instructions to determine how they can respond. 

This means overburdened security teams can access extra support so they can more effectively manage their security, compliance, identity and privacy strategies.  

Keeping up with a fast-paced threat landscape 

With cyber attacks on the rise, today’s security teams are under pressure to do more with less, a challenge which is enhanced by the fact that 62% of security teams are understaffed. 

“Today’s threat landscape is incredibly fast-paced. New campaigns surface all the time and the amount of damage that they can cause is not always immediately apparent,” said Rob Lefferts, corporate vice president for Microsoft 365 security. 

“Security operations centers (SOCs), must be equipped with tools and expert insight to identify and resolve potentially high-impact threats before attackers set up persistence mechanisms, steal data, or deploy ransomware.” 

Lefferts says that Microsoft is releasing three new managed service services that will augment the capabilities of security teams. 

The first Microsoft Defender Experts for Hunting will be available later this summer for organizations with a robust SOC and will help proactively hunt for threats. The second is Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR, an extended managed detection and response service that’s going into private preview this fall. 

The third is Microsoft Security Services for Enterprise, a managed service package built for large enterprises that combines proactive threat hunting and managed XDR with support from dedicated Microsoft security experts. 

A look at the MSS market 

The launch of these new managed security services comes at a time when the global MSS market is expected to grow from $22.8 billion in 2021 and to $43.7 billion in 2026 as more organizations seek to meet the demands of more complex government regulations and mitigate the rise in security threats. 

However, the tech giant is competing against a range of other providers offering managed security services. 

One of the organization’s main competitors is IBM, which recently announced raising $16.7 billion in revenue and offers a fully managed security service with 24/7 threat management, managed detection and response, cloud security and endpoint security. 

Another competitor is Secureworks, a market leader in the space which offers a managed XDR solution called Taegis ManagedXDR, with threat hunting and incident response support. Secureworks recently announced it had raised $165 million in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR).

The main differentiator between these existing solutions and Microsoft, is its vast product ecosystem and the access to dedicated Microsoft security specialists, supported by the organization’s training programs and threat intelligence.