The Almost MSSP Playbook
Easy Ways to Beef up your Security Offerings
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MSSP. It’s an attractive title, isn’t it? Hey, you - don’t be fooled! Necessary for some? Sure.
But as an MSP, efficiency is the hallmark of your operation and much of what is housed
under the umbrella of a traditional MSSP’s service offerings is actually overkill for small
to medium sized clients like yours, better suited instead for larger enterprise businesses.
Lucky for you, there are much simpler ways to enhance your current security offerings to
better serve your SMB clients. This Almost MSSP Playbook will detail various areas of
focus so you can beef up your current security offerings across networking, OS, Software,
Education and Backup. This will allow you to enhance your security offerings without
wasted efforts while charging a premium for additional security items.
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Networking
Networking - it’s your clients’ exposure to the internet and a hackers first point of entry.
It’s typically a focal point of targeted attacks. Network vulnerabilities are commonly-detected by bots and other automated attackers. Translation? You need to protect your
neck.
Next Generation Firewall – Upgrade to traditional network firewall. Device should perform the following functions: Antivirus, intrusion detection, anti-spyware,
URL filtering, Data Loss Protection and zero-day analysis.
Vulnerability Scanning – Identifies rogue systems, poor patching and
non-compliance with security controls. This technology allows you to see
holes in network.
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Operating Systems
Unsupported, outdated and poorly patched operating systems are an easy target for
automated tools and malware. Your clients’ OS is under a constant threat from broad
stroke security attacks like viruses, trojan horses, worms and other programmatic threats.
By enhancing OS controls, you can protect your users while they’re remote or on public
networks such as the local coffee house. Iced latte, please. Hold the virus.
EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response)/Next Gen Antivirus – Both of these will give you
greater visibility into what’s going on in the OS and allow you to protect against advanced
malware. They will also give you contextual data of what happened and how.
Whole Disc Encryption – Ensures data is protected in the event of loss or theft. This keeps you
from having to tell people you lost their data. Phew!
Local Firewall – Local firewalls are often overlooked and generally free of software cost.
They provide significant protection for remote users and those on public wireless networks.
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Software
With the cultural change from desktop applications to cloud services, perimeter controls no
longer protect your clients’ data or users. Implementing security controls that extend past
your network is now an essential piece of any good security program.
Credential Management –
This could possibly be the most important
thing on this list - so listen up! Credential
Management allows you to protect secrets
and passwords for online applications and
critical systems.
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Application Management and Inventory –
This is most commonly addressed with a
whitelisting product. AMI gives you the
ability to immediately stop ransomware
and other malicious programs.
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Education
Pretend you have a building. You secure it with all of the most secure bells and whistles. The
best that money can buy. Cameras, alarms, you name it. No one is getting in if you don’t
want them to. But what good is all of that when an employee leaves a door open? All the
other stuff is useless if people aren’t properly trained on best practices.
Security Awareness Training – The human is commonly compromised. Implement a
comprehensive training program that addresses all risks appropriate to your client.
Security Awareness Testing – This should be a combination of penetration testing and
phishing attempts. This allows you to proactively test your users and see how subjectable
they are to exploitation.
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Backup & Disaster Recovery
There’s one certainty when it comes to security - your security functions will always fail at
some point. That’s why you need backup. Nothing is impenetrable. If you can’t get your
clients’ data back you’re going to lose that client and your reputation as a security advisor.
Backup of the following is essential to protecting client infrastructure…
Devices/Endpoints –Data loss is often fatal. One study showed that 60 percent of small and medium size
businesses (SMBs) that lose their data will shut down within six months. Axcient Business Continuity software enable SMBs to focus on their business instead of worrying about their data or business availability.
Infrastructure – In addition to ensuring complete resilience for their clients’ infrastructure, applications,
and data, today’s IT leaders are asked to find new ways to deliver higher levels of service at lower cost and
using fewer resources. Axcient Fusion allows MSPs to consolidate and converge infrastructure and workloads in a single, secure cloud platform.
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Backup & Disaster Recovery continued...
Critical Apps (0365) – The move to Office 365 makes sense for many companies. Automatic software
updates and security fixes, access to documents anytime from anywhere on any device. And it’s automatically backed up, right? Wrong. CloudFinder from Axcient puts you back in control of your Office 365 data by
providing cloud backup and restore so you can continue to access your documents and Exchange Online
anytime from anywhere on any device.
Critical Docs – Many small and medium size businesses, lacking the resources to build out their own enterprise-class file sync environment, turn to consumer-grade alternatives such as Box, Dropbox, and Google
Drive. But sometimes “free” costs too much. Anchor from Axcient enables MSPs to offer their clients secure
file access anywhere, anytime, on any device, across all corporate content.
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Thank You.
For more information on how Axcient can help you
strengthen your security offerings, please contact us at
info@axcient.com or visit us at www.axcient.com