MSP

A vendor that remotely manages a customer's IT infrastructure.

A managed service provider remotely operates and maintains a customer's IT systems, such as servers, networks, and endpoints, often under an SLA. Outsourcing operations can improve coverage and reduce cost, but it also introduces third party risk because the provider holds privileged access to client environments. A compromised MSP can become a path to many downstream customers, which makes vendor due diligence and least privilege essential. An MSSP is the security focused counterpart, concentrating on monitoring and defense rather than general IT operations.