Insights
10 things an IT manager should know about cybersecurity
As an IT manager, you’ll know that cybersecurity is a specialist subject with its own skillset, certifications, and technologies…
Oliver Pinson-Roxburgh
CEO and Co-Founder
22nd September 2021
IT service providers are perfectly placed to help solve small businesses’ cybersecurity challenges.
Through years of helping businesses improve their IT security, we’ve heard many times that small businesses feel particularly underserved. There are many cybersecurity products out there that claim to be suitable, but these solutions are often too complex and too expensive to be accessible for smaller companies. This complexity is only compounded by the lack of experience or resources in-house, making it even harder to benefit from their investment.
The issues don’t stop there for SMBs, however. Once a security tool highlights a risk, it’s typically left to the customer to figure out:
- What do they need to do?
- How serious is the alert?
- What are the next steps they must take?
While security providers will often provide some guidance and reassurance within their tools, this is not enough for the typical small business and business owners who want sleep. These companies need someone to assess and fix the problem for them.
This is where IT support partners come in – they have the skills and personnel to take information from the security provider, prioritize issues and take action. Risks are remediated without the customer even having to lift a finger. The right outsourced partner simplifies security for SMBs, offering great support at a much more affordable price than an internal hire.
Why should IT service providers be talking to their customers about security?
Malicious actors are looking for new targets every day and small businesses are no exception. One small system misconfiguration can expose you and a vulnerability can be found in less than thirty-two milliseconds. Businesses need to be on their toes – it’s not enough to deploy security tools and fix the immediate vulnerabilities discovered, as new threats emerge often and so regular testing is essential.
Successful businesses not only protect themselves from cyberattacks, but are also able to prove they have the right security controls in place. Customers want to know that the businesses they partner with are taking care of their data and many require partners to maintain and demonstrate compliance with security standards. Best practice also now promotes security and privacy by design, therefore more and more organizations now ask security questions as part of their vendor due diligence. They want reassurance that security and compliance play a part in all business decisions, from developing new products or processes to customer care, rather than being an afterthought.
Cybersecurity has become such an important part of business that many boards request regular updates – in fact, it’s often a mandatory agenda item, required for compliance. Partnering with a security company to provide specialist services will benefit your mutual customers, as their expertise will extend your knowledge, helping you to support business-critical security projects with confidence.
How does Defense.com™ help channel partners?
Defense.com™ is designed to protect customers by giving them security tools backed by experts that help quickly improve and manage their business security in one place. For managed service partners, this presents a great opportunity to extend their relationship with the customer by offering a broad set of security controls. It also reduces the complexity that can happen when managing deals and relationships involving multiple vendors.
Increasingly, smaller businesses ask us for further help – they need someone to carry out remediation actions on their behalf. Many SMB’s rely heavily on their current IT provider for system maintenance and new projects, and they expect cybersecurity protection to be included in this service. While often the basics - patching, implementing deployment best practice - are covered, providers don’t always have their own security team or tools and aren’t able to offer a proactive service. Defense.com™ highlights those areas of improvement in security and compliance so that you can offer to fix customers’ issues and ensure they stay secure.
With demand for remediation services high, we also regularly have opportunities to bring to our channel partners and work with them to support successful delivery.
We designed Defense.com™ to be partner-ready from launch:
- Partners invite their customers to join the platform using unique links, and can track their customers’ subscription status easily in one simple dashboard.
- Customers can grant their service provider administrator access to their Defense.com™ account, making it easy for partners to provide support and prioritize remediation actions.
- We handle the billing, so our partners don’t have the hassle and administration overhead of collecting payments. The SaaS payment model is affordable for customers and provides a recurring revenue stream.
- Our partnership model is flexible, allowing organizations to decide how much support they want to provide their customer
- Defense.com™ subscription includes access to our compliance experts, security analysts and support teams, so partners don’t need to become security specialists themselves to provide comprehensive services.
- We add partners to our Finder tool on our website so local businesses needing support can find help quickly – a cost-free source of leads.
Summary
IT service providers who build strong relationships and provide expertise are key for small businesses who want a successful cybersecurity strategy. Defense.com™ is designed to bring the tools and knowledge partners need all in one place, so they can see customer vulnerabilities and proactively fix issues before an incident can occur. With security increasingly becoming a ‘must-have’ for businesses of all sizes, Defense.com™ provides a simple way for partners to offer the cybersecurity services needed to win new opportunities and extend protection for existing clients.
IT support provider? Read on for our top 10 tips to help your customer become cybersecurity mature with Defense.com™:
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View your customer’s attack surface from the perspective of the hacker.
With Defense.com™, you can see what passive information gathering reveals about your customer, just as a hacker would. You can work through these findings to help reduce the attack surface.
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Run regular vulnerability scans.
We provide a simple vulnerability scanning solution that helps highlight key risks that can be actively exploited. Regular scans help you stay on top of customer vulnerabilities and quickly fix any issues.
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Use endpoint security to reduce your customer’s risk of getting malware or ransomware.
Help your customer to deploy agents out to new and existing employee hardware and respond through Defense.com™ if something is identified. You can even take action and isolate compromised devices for customers, saving them time and resources.
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Take a proactive approach to your customers’ cybersecurity.
Defense.com™ includes proactive environment monitoring - if someone is poking around, we will detect the attack as soon as possible. You can then work with us, using your access to understand the issue, respond to the incident and secure your customer.
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Help your customer achieve compliance.
We offer a range of options to help achieve and maintain the compliance standards they need for their business, including Cyber Essentials. Make it easy and add value by taking our expert’s advice and helping your customers apply it in their environment.
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Train staff effectively to avoid human error.
Defense.com™ includes innovative video training to help your customer’s users stay informed and vigilant. We can even test their understanding by simulating a phishing attack, tracking the results to see where you can provide further training or support.
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Establish data privacy best practice.
GDPR is a complex area, so we work with partners to help them assess customer’s current situation, identify areas of non-compliance and improve their data privacy controls.
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Stay up to date with threat intelligence.
With a targeted view, you can make sure your customers are informed on the latest relevant intelligence affecting them and take advantage of our guidance on what controls should be used to mitigate the threat.
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Know where to go for incident support.
We provide a 24/7 security team, reassuring our partners and customers that there is always help on hand should an incident happen. We carry out the initial triage of the threat, and then identify the root cause allowing partners to quickly remediate and prevent future issues.
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Carry out regular penetration tests.
Partner with us to offer penetration tests to put your customer’s security through its paces as a hacker would, and easily track their results and work on remediation from our central Threat Dashboard.
Oliver Pinson-Roxburgh
CEO and Co-Founder
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