Building Trust in Your Security Strategy
One of the most common challenges we hear from the Managed Service Provider (MSP) community today is the requirement to deliver more with less. This resonates with most IT practices in general, but when it comes to the MSP model, the balance of increasing security challenges while competing on diminishing margins is more meaningful than ever before. Churn can severely impact an MSP, so there’s a constant struggle to strike the balance of ensuring a great customer experience with exceptional service and solutions, while maintaining efficient use of time and operations.
If you were to summarize this with a single word, it could best be described as trust.
Trust defines the core of what an MSP is. Businesses need to trust that their Managed Service Provider is delivering a complete package of function, service and security that works together seamlessly. Companies need to trust that their employees can work effectively, regardless of when and where, without compromising critical systems and data that are the organization’s lifeblood. MSPs have to trust that the technologies they choose are effective without being burdensome, and that their partners understand their challenges and are there to enable business outcomes, not sell products.
To an MSP, trust means lasting relationships. Trust means you’ve earned the title of advisor. Trust should define your business’s success and profitability.
Duo’s Trusted Access Story and You
There are innumerable reports showing us that the headwinds in cybersecurity are growing at an alarming rate. According to the 2016 Cost of a Data Breach Study: Global Analysis (PDF) by the Ponemon Institute, there are seven megatrends and countless stats that paint the picture of the challenges we face from a financial perspective, but this one really resonates: “The cost of lost business [as a result of a data breach] was particularly high for U.S. organizations ($3.97 million). This cost component includes the abnormal turnover of customers, increased customer acquisition activities, reputation losses and diminished goodwill.”
That’s why today, more than ever, we need to be able to deliver a story of Trusted Access. A story where only the right users, using only devices that are up to a business's security standards, can access only the right applications for their job. Businesses need to trust that the users are who they say they are, and users need to trust that they can do their work without jumping through frustrating hurdles, whether they’re at the office or on the road. Businesses need to be able to deliver an effective solution that addresses Trusted Access but doesn’t break the bank or require months of dedicated time and resources to implement.
MSPs also need to ensure that they can solve for Trusted Access in an efficient manner. You need to be able to minimize the management and maintenance of multiple solutions to accomplish one outcome. Operational efficiency is a critical component to the success of your business, so finding solutions that can do more with less is imperative. An effective solution that’s low-cost, incredibly easy to implement and significantly reduces help desk interaction sounds ideal but is unrealistic. Truly securing systems and users is painful and costly, isn't it? Not anymore.
Trusted Access in a Cloudy BYOD World
Two of the largest trends ever seen in technology are the adoption of cloud and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). They’ve also brought with them some very challenging side effects related to IT security. The traditional network perimeter has all but vanished, and employees are increasingly leveraging personal devices to access company applications that are hosted in the cloud or only offered as a service (SaaS).
So how can a business trust not only that the user is who they say they are, but equally as important, that the device they’re using to access the data isn’t presenting a huge security risk? There are lots of options in the market, but time is money, and “easy, effective and low-cost” don’t generally fit the description of most options.
Employees require the privacy of personal devices, and the agility to work on the go. Employers want to empower productivity, but can’t sacrifice security.
It’s time to rethink strategy. It’s time to approach today’s challenges while letting go of the notion that solutions from the past will present the answer. It’s time to do more with less. This is where having a partner whose foundation is built on security in the modern era can be the difference between leading a trusted engagement from the beginning, versus scrambling to mitigate the impact of a breach after the fact. We face endless challenges in IT, but delivering Trusted Access shouldn’t be one of them.
To learn more about how Duo Security is partnering with the MSP community to address Trusted Access with an easy, effective, and low-cost solution, visit our MSP page.