High Costs
One of the biggest problems with SECaaS is the high upfront costs required for integration and migration. Businesses must invest significant funds upfront to migrate their systems and data to the cloud-based SECaaS platform. This involves purchasing new infrastructure, reconfiguring networks, migrating data, and integrating the new systems and applications with the SECaaS provider’s architecture.
According to research from SonicWall, the upfront cost of hardware, software licenses, and integration services can be prohibitively expensive for many small and medium businesses looking to adopt SECaaS. Large enterprises may need to spend millions upfront to properly migrate and integrate their complex legacy security systems with a SECaaS provider like SonicWall.
Integration Difficulties
One of the biggest challenges with SECaaS is integrating the solution with complex legacy systems and infrastructure. Many organizations have years or even decades of IT systems and networks built up over time. Transitioning these legacy environments to integrate smoothly with modern SECaaS offerings can be extremely difficult and require significant custom development work.
SECaaS platforms often provide APIs and other mechanisms to enable integration. However, if an organization has outdated systems and software that lack APIs or have incompatible APIs, getting a SECaaS solution to work with them can become an obstacle. There are also cases where SECaaS providers may not have connectors or integration capabilities for certain specialized legacy platforms.
The integration challenges slow down deployment, drive up costs, and potentially reduce the effectiveness of the SECaaS protections. Organizations must carefully evaluate their infrastructure and plan appropriate integration projects to avoid major compatibility issues when bringing in a SECaaS solution.
Lack of Customization
One of the problems with SECaaS is the potential lack of customization options (BlueVoyant). SECaaS tools can be rigid and inflexible, making it difficult to tailor them to the unique needs of your organization. Since SECaaS solutions are multi-tenant, providers often limit customization to maintain standardization across all customers. This one-size-fits-all approach means you may not get the specialized security capabilities you require.
Without custom controls and settings, it can be challenging to integrate SECaaS tools into your existing workflows and security infrastructure (Sophos). The lack of customization also restricts your ability to respond to new threats or changes in your environment. As a result, adopting SECaaS could create security gaps and reduce visibility into your network.
Organizations with complex IT landscapes or advanced security needs benefit the most from highly customizable solutions. Relying on rigid, pre-packaged SECaaS tools could limit your security program’s effectiveness.
Dependence on Provider
One of the major risks with SECaaS is becoming overly dependent on the service provider. Unlike managing security in-house, with SECaaS the vendor controls the software, infrastructure, and support. This dependence can create problems if the provider experiences outages, fails to provide timely updates, or goes out of business.
Relying too heavily on the vendor for security protections and updates leaves customers vulnerable. As reported by Cloud Security Alliance, “Since services operate at a distance from the customer, they often provide less visibility or data compared to running one’s own solution.”
If the SECaaS provider experiences a breach, customers’ data and systems may also be impacted. Per CSO Online, “So, if they are hacked, your company may be at risk too. That’s why it’s critical to conduct thorough due diligence on potential providers.”
Customers have little control or recourse if the vendor mishandles the service. Overall, becoming too dependent on SECaaS places your security in another company’s hands.
Compliance Risks
One of the major downsides of SECaaS is the risk of failing to meet regulatory compliance requirements when relying on a third-party provider. While the SECaaS vendor handles security, they may not fully understand or meet all the compliance needs for your specific industry and region (1). For example, companies in healthcare or finance have strict regulations like HIPAA and PCI DSS that require careful control and logging of access. However, with SECaaS there is less visibility into the provider’s operations, so ensuring compliance can be challenging. If the vendor’s systems fail to capture required audit logs or meet security protocols, the business is ultimately responsible for any penalties or sanctions. Before adopting SECaaS, organizations should thoroughly vet providers to ensure they can adapt the service for full compliance needs. The risks of non-compliance may outweigh the benefits of outsourcing security.
Data Security Concerns
One of the main problems with SECaaS is having organizational data outside of the organization’s direct control. With SECaaS, data is stored and managed within the infrastructure of the third-party provider (see https://www.forcepoint.com/cyber-edu/security-as-a-service-secaas). While providers implement security measures, the organization is ultimately reliant on the provider to properly secure sensitive data. If the provider’s systems are breached, the organization’s data could be exposed or compromised. Organizations have to trust that the provider will keep data secure according to industry and government regulations, such as HIPAA and GDPR, which can create compliance risks if mishandled.
Hidden Costs
One of the common issues with SECaaS is the potential for unexpected or hidden costs on top of the base subscription price. Many providers initially quote an attractive low price, but then charge extra fees for setup, support, customization, implementations, maintenance, training, and add-ons (Source). These additional expenses can drastically increase the overall cost, making it more expensive than originally budgeted.
SECaaS vendors typically have complex pricing models with multiple tiers of service, optional features and bolt-ons, overage fees, and vague terminology around what is included in the base price versus what costs extra. It’s important for customers to fully understand the pricing details to avoid surprise add-on costs down the road. There may also be fees for customization and integration work to get the service properly implemented and aligned with the organization’s specific needs and environment.
Ongoing support and maintenance is another area primed for hidden fees. Many providers charge extra for technical support beyond a limited included amount. There can also be recurring fees for version updates, patches, upgrades and maintenance. Customers should clarify all included services versus potential extras to properly estimate long-term costs.
Lack of Visibility
When using SECaaS, organizations often have reduced visibility into their own security infrastructure and operations. With on-premises security, IT teams have total control and visibility over devices, policies, logs, etc. But with cloud-based security, much of that is obscured within the provider’s systems (Zscaler). This lack of internal visibility can make it difficult to fully understand potential vulnerabilities, monitor threat detection, tune policies, and troubleshoot issues.
Without comprehensive visibility, there may be blind spots that leave the organization open to security gaps and protection deficiencies (Crowdstrike). SECaaS providers offer dashboards and analytics, but these tools may not provide the same level of granular insight that security teams are used to having. There is also a risk of the provider themselves having limited visibility, depending on their monitoring capabilities.
Vendor Lock-in
One of the major problems with SECaaS is the risk of vendor lock-in, which makes it difficult for organizations to switch providers. Once a company commits to a particular SECaaS solution and integrates it into their infrastructure and workflows, it can be extremely challenging to migrate to another platform (DigitalGuardian). The time and costs involved with extracting data and reconfiguring systems often makes switching providers prohibitive.
This effectively locks the organization into their current SECaaS vendor. The lack of portability gives the provider greater leverage in contract negotiations and support terms. Organizations can feel “stuck” with a vendor that provides subpar service, inflexible pricing, or outdated features. Without the threat of losing customers, SECaaS providers have little incentive to be responsive or innovative. Vendor lock-in significantly reduces the bargaining power and agility of SECaaS customers (BlueVoyant).
Performance Issues
One downside of SECaaS is the potential for performance issues stemming from network latency. Since security services are delivered over the public internet from the cloud provider’s data center, network delays can impact security performance and responsiveness.
Downtime presents another performance risk with SECaaS. If the provider’s systems go offline or become unavailable, your organization’s security capabilities could be severely degraded until connectivity is restored. This lack of control over uptime and latency makes some organizations hesitant to hand off security operations to an outside vendor.