With the new model of cybercrime as a service, bad actors are not only increasing in number, but they are becoming more agile—making cybercrime cheaper and easier than ever. The changing threat landscape is resulting in increased security risks for small and medium sized businesses (SMBs), some of whom are turning to managed services providers (MSPs) for help with security solutions. According to Symantec’s 2014 Internet Security Threat Report, “targeted attacks aimed at small businesses (1-250 employees) in 2013 accounted for 30 percent of all such attacks…the trend shows that the proportion of attacks at organizations of this size was increasing throughout the year…” While they may have not previously thought of themselves as high-risk targets, this proves SMBs need to take security seriously, and we know that one of the most effective ways for them to do so is by working with an MSP.
In OpenDNS’s webinar, Standardizing and Strengthening Security to Lower Costs, Senior MSP Product Manager Dima Kumets discusses best practices for MSPs in a landscape that is more demanding than ever. Here’s a condensed version of the highlights to help you save time and increase revenue with your OpenDNS partnership.
Risk Management is All About Layers
Just like bulletproof glass is made from layers of different materials, a managed security service requires more than one product to be effective. Signature-based tools like antivirus, firewalls, and intrusion prevention are only effective against 30-50% of current security threats. It’s not enough to rely on reactive products, and OpenDNS is a critical layer in your security stack that protects users at the network layer without signatures, and with predictive intelligence. Fortunately, you can deploy Umbrella regardless of your customers’ existing setup. By deploying Umbrella, you gain automated protection from infections, which will give your team breathing room for more important work.
Save Time With Centralized Settings
In streamlining your process with the Centralized Settings feature in Umbrella, you will save time with standardization and automation. Instead of creating exceptions for individual customers, you can manage customers in bulk. Take managing by vertical, for example, since the needs of a doctor’s office are going to be different from those of an elementary school. Customize the solution to your own standard and implement changes once as opposed to repeating the process for every new customer.
Use the Cloud Services Report to Avoid ‘Surprise’ Tickets
With ‘shadow IT,’ employees are buying or using their own consumer cloud services without MSP involvement and often without management’s knowledge. Unknown cloud services can create surprise tickets which then take up valuable MSP time and energy. With OpenDNS’s cloud services report, you can view all cloud services that a customer organization is using. This allows you to regain quick visibility instead of having your most senior tech spend his or her time looking at loglines. The report is also useful for compliance checks. Proactive knowledge of cloud services used by your customers eliminates surprises, saves time, and ensures that you’re not missing out on revenue.
Hire More Efficiently
While in the field with MSPs, Kumets hears a lot about the arduous task of hiring new team members. He says, “At MSP panels, I always hear how difficult it can be to hire good people who are technical and also customer facing, and who share your MSP values.” In reducing tickets by deploying OpenDNS, our MSP partners are able to increase their team’s bandwidth, thereby reducing the need for more hands on deck. One such partner is Mirus IT, an MSP in Milton Keynes, U.K., which saves approximately £60,000 per year in engineering costs with its OpenDNS deployment. We want to help your business grow, and our hope is that with OpenDNS you have the ability to hire on your terms instead of finding yourself in a crunch.
When You’re Saving Time, You’re Saving Money
Paul Tomlinson, Mirus IT Manager explains, “as a managed service provider we work on a fixed cost, so it’s up to us to reduce our cost of supporting the customer.” Once Tomlinson’s team was able to reduce the time of a typical rebuild from eight hours to “as little as 15 minutes,” Mirus could see that their effective bill rate was improving dramatically.
We want to help you deliver seamless, reliable security to your SMB customers as efficiently as possible. Watch the full webinar for more details on the changing MSP landscape and for more information on increasing your ROI with OpenDNS.
For more information about getting value out of your experience with Umbrella for MSPs, please read our whitepaper, Get Out of Firefighting Mode and Get in Control.
