Cybersecurity failures come in many shapes and sizes, but some carry lessons far beyond the headlines. The recent cyberattack that disrupted Jaguar Land Rover’s operations worldwide is one of those cases. JLR itself wasn’t directly breached. Instead, attackers compromised a third-party IT services provider — and yet the fallout landed squarely on JLR’s shoulders. Factories were halted, shipments delayed, and thousands of workers idled.

This wasn’t a failure of technology alone. It was a failure of strategy, oversight, and responsibility. And it should be a wake-up call to every executive who believes outsourcing cybersecurity somehow outsources accountability. It doesn’t.

Why We Outsource Security

Let’s be honest: The appeal of outsourcing security is powerful. Talent is scarce, hiring is expensive, and the cyber skills gap is widening every year. MSSPs, MDRs, SOC-as-a-service vendors, and cloud security providers all promise expertise, 24/7 monitoring, and cutting-edge tools for a fraction of the cost of building those capabilities in-house.

Businesses understandably want to focus on their core competencies — designing cars, running hospitals, moving money — not the endless grind of patching systems and chasing down alerts. Outsourcing seems like the perfect solution: Hand it off to the experts, sleep easier at night.

But the JLR breach underscores the uncomfortable truth: Outsourcing doesn’t make risk disappear. It just moves it around — and often magnifies it.

Lessons From My Own Experience

I’ve been on both sides of this equation. Early in my career, I ran an MSSP. Later, as a customer of outsourced security, I relied on third parties to protect critical systems. Both experiences taught me the same hard lesson: You can outsource execution, but you can’t outsource responsibility.

When you hand over the keys to your castle, you may think you’ve reduced your risk. In reality, you’ve just added a new layer of complexity — and a new point of failure. If that provider is breached, makes a mistake, or cuts corners, the consequences don’t fall on them. They fall on you. Your customers don’t care that it was your vendor’s firewall misconfiguration or your partner’s monitoring system that failed. They see your brand, your service outage, your failure.

That fundamental truth — that the end user still bears responsibility for their security — isn’t limited to MSSPs. It sits at the very core of cloud security as well. Every cloud provider trumpets its “shared responsibility model,” but when a breach happens, it’s the customer whose name is in the headlines. The provider may share some blame, but the customer carries the reputational and financial damage.

Where Outsourcing Breaks Down

So why does outsourcing often fail to deliver the security companies expect?

First, accountability is murky. Contracts and SLAs rarely cover the full real-world impact of downtime or data loss. A few hours of SLA credits won’t make up for a halted factory line or a million angry customers.

Second, transparency is lacking. Too many organizations assume their vendors are secure without verifying. They accept glossy reports instead of demanding real audits, penetration tests, and continuous proof.

Third, overreliance creates single points of failure. Companies build their entire defense posture around one provider, and when that provider stumbles, everything collapses.

Finally, there’s the complacency factor. Once security is outsourced, internal teams often disengage, assuming “the vendor has it covered.” That false sense of security is dangerous — and attackers know it.

The JLR Lesson

The JLR hack illustrates all of these issues in one case study. Attackers didn’t have to breach a global automaker directly. They found a softer target in a services provider and used that foothold to bring JLR’s operations to a standstill.

This is the reality of modern supply chains: Your cybersecurity posture is only as strong as the weakest vendor in your ecosystem. You can invest millions in your own defenses, but if your third-party partner is lax, you’re still exposed. And when the breach happens, it’s your name in the headlines, not theirs.

What CXOs Must Do

So how should leaders respond? The first step is to face the reality that outsourcing is not a panacea.

Enterprises must conduct rigorous due diligence when selecting providers — and not just once. Continuous audits, red-team exercises, and third-party risk assessments should be standard practice. Contracts should include enforceable SLAs, penalties, and reporting requirements, not just vague promises.

But beyond contracts, leadership must maintain in-house oversight. Even if you outsource day-to-day monitoring or incident response, you need an internal team empowered to challenge vendors, demand evidence, and retain visibility. Blind trust is not a strategy.

Diversification matters too. Don’t build your entire security posture on a single provider. Spread the risk, create redundancy, and avoid vendor lock-in wherever possible.

The Bigger Picture

What happened at JLR is not an isolated case. It’s a symptom of a larger structural problem: Enterprises have become deeply dependent on sprawling ecosystems of third-party providers, SaaS platforms, and managed services. Each one is a potential entry point.

Governments are starting to respond, introducing new supply chain security mandates. Regulators are tightening expectations around third-party risk management. But ultimately, the responsibility still lies with the enterprise. Leaders cannot afford to wait for regulators to force their hand.

Shimmy’s Take

Outsourcing cybersecurity isn’t inherently wrong. Done well, it can provide expertise, efficiency, and resilience you might not achieve on your own. But never confuse outsourcing with absolving responsibility. You can hand off execution, but the accountability stays with you.

When the lights go out, your customers won’t be calling your vendor. They’ll be calling you. And they’ll remember your name, not theirs.

The fundamental issue here is the same whether we’re talking about MSSPs, cloud providers, or SaaS vendors: The end user remains responsible. That’s not going to change. What must change is how we manage these relationships — with rigorous oversight, continuous verification, and a clear-eyed understanding that no matter who you hire, the buck still stops at your desk.

If you don’t treat outsourced security as a partnership requiring constant governance, you’re not just outsourcing operations. You’re outsourcing your future.