What Should Financial Companies Look for in a Managed Cybersecurity Services Partner?
Companies in the financial sector, including banks, financial advisors, private equity firms, etc., face an increasingly complex cybersecurity landscape. Threats are evolving daily. Regulatory requirements are becoming more stringent. And one more thing: financial organizations are increasingly targeted. According to the Identity Theft Resource Organization, the financial sector was the most targeted industry, with 387 data breach notifications (out of a total of 1,732) in the first half of 2025.
For many financial companies, a specialization strategy makes the most sense: partnering with a managed cybersecurity services provider (MSSP) that specializes in maintaining robust security postures so that the financial organization is free to focus on core business operations. However, selecting the right cybersecurity partner requires careful evaluation of multiple critical factors specific to the financial services industry.
Industry-Specific Expertise and Compliance Knowledge
When evaluating managed cybersecurity providers for your company, prioritize partners with deep expertise in financial services regulations. Your chosen partner should demonstrate comprehensive understanding of compliance frameworks including SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley), GLBA (Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act), PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard), and emerging regulations like DORA (Digital Operational Resilience Act) in Europe.
Compliance/industry-specific questions to ask potential MSSP partners:
How do you ensure compliance with financial regulations (GLBA, SOX, PCI DSS, FFIEC guidelines)?
Can you demonstrate that you have a nuanced understanding of financial data protection requirements, cross-border data transfer restrictions, and the specific threat landscape targeting financial institutions?
What experience does your team have assisting organizations understand and plan for business continuity requirements, regulatory reporting obligations, and the financial industry's low tolerance for operational disruptions?
24/7 Security Operations Center (SOC) Capabilities and Incident Response
Financial institutions cannot afford security blind spots, making round-the-clock monitoring essential. Evaluate potential partners based on their Security Operations Center capabilities, including staffing models, geographic distribution, and escalation procedures. Your MSSP should maintain follow-the-sun operations with skilled analysts available at all hours, not just automated systems. In any breach, minutes matter, so understanding how your partner detects and responds to threats, as well as how your internal team will need to respond and assist, is crucial.
SOC and incident response questions to ask potential MSSP partners:
What are your threat detection capabilities? Do they include advanced analytics, machine learning-powered anomaly detection, and/or threat intelligence integration?
Can you correlate events across multiple security tools and environments?
What are your incident response times, escalation matrices, and communication protocols during security events?
Technology Stack and Integration Capabilities
Modern financial institutions rely on complex, hybrid IT environments combining on-premises systems, cloud services, and legacy applications. Your managed cybersecurity partner must demonstrate expertise across diverse technology stacks and show proven ability to integrate with existing security tools without creating operational friction. Additionally, seek a partner with an agile solution stack, one that allows you to scale or move to new or improved solutions in a particular category, rather than being married to any one solution if you want to work with that MSSP.
Technology stack and integration questions to ask potential MSSP partners:
Explain your experience with financial industry-standard technologies including core banking systems, trading platforms, and regulatory reporting systems.
What solutions do you recommend for comprehensive coverage including endpoint detection and response (EDR), network security monitoring, cloud security posture management (CSPM), and identity and access management (IAM)?
What are your capabilities for integrating with our existing security investments?
Risk Management and Threat Intelligence
Managed cybersecurity for financial institutions requires sophisticated risk management capabilities. Your MSSP partner should offer comprehensive risk assessment services, including vulnerability management, penetration testing, and continuous risk monitoring. They should also prioritize risks based on business impact and regulatory requirements specific to financial services, and they should be your number one source for threat intelligence. A strong threat intelligence partner is crucial for staying ahead of the evolving threats targeting organizations in the financial sector.
Risk management and threat intelligence questions to ask potential MSSP partners:
What are your threat intelligence sources and analysis capabilities?
How do you provide actionable insights specific to my organization's unique risk profile?
Explain your team’s experience with financial sector-specific threats, including advanced persistent threats (APTs), insider risks, and supply chain vulnerabilities.
Regulatory Reporting and Documentation Capabilities
Financial institutions face extensive regulatory reporting requirements for cybersecurity incidents and risk management activities, which can be cumbersome and a drag on resources if the proper tools are not applied. Your managed cybersecurity partner should provide comprehensive documentation and reporting capabilities that support regulatory compliance. This includes automated report generation, audit trail maintenance, and assistance with regulatory examinations.
Regulatory reporting and documentation questions to ask potential MSSP partners:
What tools does your firm use to log and document all activities in a way that will meet financial industry standards for evidence preservation and chain of custody?
Explain the support you offer clients during regulatory examinations, including your processes for providing documentation quickly and accurately.
How regular is your reporting and what does it include (e.g., security metrics, key performance indicators, and risk posture changes)?
Data Protection Considerations
Data protection is at the heart of all cybersecurity measures, but for companies in the financial sector, which handle highly sensitive customer data requiring strict protection measures, it is mission critical. Given the increasing number and sophistication of attacks, particularly as bad actors employ AI, the likelihood of a cyber incident in your organization is high. Preventing attacks, therefore, is not the primary goal. Instead, you need a partner who understands how to build a multi-layered cybersecurity posture. This approach, also called “defense in depth,” ensures that when the top layer receives an attack, your critical data remains protected beneath several more layers and is adequately segmented so that lateral movement isn’t possible.
Data protection questions to ask potential MSSP partners:
What encryption standards do you use for data at rest and in transit?
How do you segregate client data, and what controls prevent cross-contamination?
What are your recommendations for data retention and secure deletion policies and what are your procedures for implementing such policies?
How do you implement least-privilege access and regular access reviews?
What network segmentation and zero-trust capabilities do you offer?
Long-term Partnership Potential
Financial sector organizations who select an MSSP partner with long-term potential reap a variety of benefits. A long-term partner develops an intimate understanding of your specific business processes, risk profile, and regulatory environment. They learn your unique vulnerabilities, compliance requirements, and operational nuances that generic providers simply cannot match. This institutional knowledge becomes invaluable for tailoring security strategies and responding effectively to threats.
Long-term partners also accumulate historical data about your organization's threat landscape, attack patterns, and security incidents. This longitudinal view enables them to identify subtle trends, predict emerging risks, and implement proactive defenses that short-term providers cannot deliver.
Selecting the best MSSP for your organization’s long-term success won’t necessarily be an easy task, but the process will be well worth your effort and will benefit more than just your company. When a company within the financial sector experiences a major breach, the ripple effects throughout the economy and culture are massive. The right MSSP partner can help you guard against that and protect your organization’s resilience at the same time. We’d be happy to answer all the questions in this post, if you’re on the search for your MSSP partner! Give us a call.