Businesses know they need to stick with the things they’re really good at, which may be why security is one of the rising areas of IT outsourcing.

The latest report from market research firm Computer Economics showed that nearly 8 percent of technology budgets in large enterprises are being directed to IT outsourcing firms. While a lot of the work providers are doing involves managing cloud and software-as-a-service (SaaS) products, security was singled out among the competencies where corporations believe working with a third-party vendor will benefit their ability to serve customers.

This may be just good common sense. Obviously, there is more time and talent that can be devoted to supporting products and services when in-house staff aren’t busy trying to identify and fend off the latest cyberattack.

SC Magazine noted that other drivers for IT outsourcing include a desire to be more flexible as an organization, to do new things or to reduce spending in certain areas. Of course, most organizations cannot afford not to invest in security, but the report suggested they are constantly evaluating their options as business and market conditions — which includes security risks — change.

In fact, The Data Center Journal pointed out that 92 percent of companies find the costs of handing over things like disaster recovery are often the same as doing the same work themselves. The objective, however, is to make sure business isn’t disrupted and customers aren’t negatively impacted in the event of a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, network outage or other security breach. The Computer Economics research suggested that companies are showing more confidence in this area of IT outsourcing because the providers of such services have established a strong track record over the last few years.

Beyond pure IT outsourcing, managed security services are also expected to grow considerably over the next five years. IFSEC Global reported that cloud-based security services in particular would eventually account for a larger share of the overall market than those who provide the same services on a customer’s own premises. Either way, it looks as though the increasing challenge of keeping up with security threats and mitigating the worst risks is leading more organizations to conclude they just can’t do it alone.