IT and business leaders acknowledge they don't have the staff or expertise to secure their data internally -- at least not without help from outside experts. If you work for a managed security service provider (MSSP), that's good news.

That's one of the takeaways from the Eighth Annual Global Information Security Survey CSO conducted along with sister publication CIO and PriceWaterhouseCoopers. Some 12,847 business and technology executives from around the world took the survey.

More than half (52 percent) of survey respondents said that outsourcers, also known as managed security service providers (MSSPs), are important or very important to accomplishing their security objectives. Another 19 percent said outsourcers play some role. Meanwhile, more than 30 percent cited outsourcing of some or all security functions, such as e-mail filtering and management of application firewalls, as a top priority in the next 12 months, up from 18 percent a year ago.

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