Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs) play a critical role in helping their customers thrive amid rapid change. To stay competitive and profitable, MSSPs must continuously innovate their service offerings and refine their business strategies. In 2025, the most profitable MSSP service offerings will be shaped by emerging 72-hour reporting requirements and the need to address complex technical issues outlined in these reports.
A new technology category, Cloud Incident Response Automation (CIRA), is transforming the industry. Solutions from leading companies like Binalyze make incident response more accessible and efficient, enabling MSSP teams to handle these challenges with greater ease.
By updating their service portfolios for 2025, MSSPs can achieve sustainable revenue growth, enhance customer retention, and establish market leadership. This article delves into how MSSPs can effectively integrate cutting-edge incident response and compliance offerings while balancing profitability and client satisfaction.
SEC Requirements Is Driving New Services and Technology in 2025
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) introduced new regulations aimed at improving and standardizing how public companies disclose cybersecurity risks, strategies, governance practices, and incidents. These rules officially took effect on September 5, 2023. However, the industry has taken time to adapt, with questions raised about the SEC’s ability to enforce these requirements effectively.
By October 2024, the SEC demonstrated its enforcement capability by settling charges with four major technology companies—Avaya Holdings Corp., Check Point Software Technologies Ltd., Mimecast Limited, and Unisys Corporation. These companies were cited for providing materially misleading disclosures related to cybersecurity risks and incidents.
The regulations mandate that companies disclose material cybersecurity incidents within three business days of determining their significance. Additionally, annual reports must detail the organization’s processes for managing cybersecurity risks and the board’s role in overseeing these efforts.
For more specifics, see the SEC’s final rule document: SEC Final Rule Document.
Top MSSP Service Offerings For 2025
Managed Detection and Response (MDR)
MDR is an essential part of modern MSSP service offerings and will be for a long time to come. This service combines real-time monitoring with proactive threat hunting, ensuring robust client protection. This allows MSSPs to detect when threat actors are conducting attacks against their customers and also allows them to proactively look for early signs of compromise or vulnerability. These detections are often where the reporting timers start.
- Pros: High customer demand, scalable revenue.
- Cons: Requires significant investment in tools, training and expertise.
Incident Response & Recovery
Incident Response and Recovery is a critical service that goes beyond detection, focusing on the containment, eradication, and recovery phases of cybersecurity incidents. This service involves deep technical inspections to identify the root cause of a breach, coupled with strategic business decisions to minimize damage and restore operations efficiently. This service allows MSSPs help answer the Big 4 Questions which are generally very difficult to answer with EDRs and SIEMs alone: How did the attacker get in?, Are they still here?, Which Systems are Affected, and Was Any Data Stolen?
- Pros: High customer loyalty and significant revenue potential during incidents; builds long-term trust with clients and increase Lifetime Customer Value.
- Cons: Resource-intensive; requires highly skilled personnel and real-time availability, which can strain operations during peak demand.
Compliance and Risk Management
Compliance and Risk Management services help organizations navigate the complex changes of industry regulations and standards – such as the changes we are experiencing right now. It is often your compliance and risk management team that will work with counsel and send reports to regulators.
MSSPs offering these services also provide assessments, audits, and continuous monitoring to ensure clients remain compliant with frameworks like GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS, or ISO 27001. These services often include policy development, gap analysis, and risk assessments to identify vulnerabilities that could lead to compliance failures.
- Pros: Stable, recurring revenue stream; fosters long-term client relationships by addressing ongoing regulatory changes.
- Cons: Time-intensive due to the need for detailed assessments and custom recommendations; demands expertise in diverse regulatory frameworks.
Innovating MSSP Service Portfolio for 2025
Why Completeness Matters
Having complete service offerings matters for 2025. With new rapid reporting requirements and a combination of both technology consolidations and layoffs, customers are craving consistency. They want a single voice to talk to and they don’t have time to engage a separate third party for incident response engagements. The name of the game will be completeness and a wholistic incident detection and handling capability.
As MSSPs look at expanding their service portfolio, it’s important to think through some core elements of effective innovation.
- Service Scalability
- Offer solutions that grow alongside customer needs. The ability to charge per-endpoint, per-user, or per-use is very important for maintaining margins and predictable financial projections.
- Focus on technologies that are easy to integrate and easy to deploy like SentinelOne, CrowdStrike, and Binalyze AIR
- Customer-Centric Offerings
- Tailor services to customer pain points, such as industry specific regulatory compliance or real-time threat mitigation.
- Remove pain points like complex contracts and surprise renewal dates.
- Increase visibility with QBRs, Customer Success check-ins, and customer portals.
- Efficient Resource Management
- Adopt automation tools to reduce operational overhead while expanding your MSSP service portfolio.
- Tools like HubSpot for managing customers, Zendesk and ServiceNow for managing different types of tickets, and Monday.com for product and process management.
Final Thoughts
2025 is set to be a transformative year for MSSPs that anticipate and adapt to the changes on the horizon. The increasing demand driven by new cybersecurity reporting requirements presents a unique opportunity for forward-thinking providers to stand out. By proactively developing new services—such as robust incident response solutions and vCISO offerings—MSSPs can position themselves as indispensable partners to their clients.
In addition to expanding services, embracing cutting-edge technologies like Binalyze AIR will enable MSSPs to streamline their operations and enhance the quality of their offerings. However, success will depend on more than just adding new tools and services.
Take the time to integrate these additions with your existing portfolio thoughtfully. Ensure seamless alignment with your overall strategy to deliver maximum value to your clients while optimizing your internal processes. In a competitive market, intention and execution will be the key differentiators for those ready to lead.