Does anyone know of companies that offer out-secured support for hosting companies? Thanks.

Acrolive.com has come to my attention lately, I can't comment on them though.

Greetings:

There are a number of companies that offer outsourced security support ranging from notification service of available patches for operating systems and applications deployed to outright installation of security patches and system hardening.

There are also firms that will provide firewall management, IDS monitoring, etc.

If you do a search in the forums, you will probably find those companies that offer these services.

When deciding on a service provider for security, I would recommend finding out what type of written service level agreements they provide for your benefit.

How long does it take from patch release to notification or installation?

Are only the necessary patches installed?

What happens if a patch goes bad? Do you have to pay them to fix the problem they caused?

What happens if they don't notify you within the SLA time frame or install during the install time frame?

How long have they been in business?

Can they work with multiple operating systems and a wide variety of applications?

Are they willing to sign whatever paperwork you, the customer, deem necessary to give you the confidence level they will not try to steal your customers or otherwise misrepresent themselves or your company to your customers?

Are they good enough that an on-line bank would hire them? Have they worked with banks or other financial institutions before (yes, I know hosting companies do not equal banks, but if one secures financial institutions then the rest should be easier)?

Are they a one person shop or do they have a staff (if you have a security problem, the last thing you want to hear is that the only expert is on vacation for two weeks starting yesterday)?

Can they scale with your needs (for example one time projects to ongoing care to being able to handle SAS70 audits without a flinch)?

That should be a start to identifying a long term partner to your success.

Thank you.