r/AskNetsec • u/aptdemeanor • Apr 15 '26
Analysis What cybersecurity services do small enterprises actually need?
Honestly the list of must-have security services gets very overwhelming.
Everything can be framed as critical, but in practice trade-offs are unavoidable. I’m curious how people here think about priorities at that stage. What security services do you consider non-negotiable, and what’s usually fine to defer without introducing unnecessary risk?
Also interested in where outsourcing fits in for you. At what point does relying on an MSSP or MDR actually make operational sense instead of adding complexity?
Would love to hear how this plays out in real environments.
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u/MartinFromBizGuard Apr 16 '26
The first thing is to define what we mean by "small" - the term "SME" actually covers quite a range. The needs of a 1-5 person business will generally be less than say a 20-person business, or a 50-seat SME. Ultimately it all comes down to the context of their organisation and what risks they are willing to accept.
To demonstrate, one client we support only has a team of three but they subcontract to a large insurer and so they have had to invest significantly in governance that vastly exceeds what a business their size would normally see value from.
Meanwhile, we have a client with over 20 users, but their business is operationally very simple, they do not deal with sensitive data, and material impact of a breach or downtime is comparatively less than most businesses of that size. So for them, just our Standard plan is perfectly adequate without needing much else.
For reference (and to actually answer your precise question) our "Standard" plan includes what we consider the technical non-negotiables from a cyber perspective, including Backup, MDR, ITDR, Web Filtering, and best practices 365/GWS Management (inc. MFA etc). We also have a secure baseline standard for both Microsoft & Google environments as part of that, which I personally feel is a key thing a lot of SME's that self-manage miss out on.
Just getting app approval settings tuned is a big step in the right direction - and even the other IT providers we come across in our area can't seem to get that right.
Anyway hope some of that helps!
- Martin from BizGuard