Here’s How SMBs Can Affordably Protect Themselves

aiMSSP Enables Managed Security Service Providers to Deliver Comprehensive, Affordable, Integrated Security Services to Small-to-Medium Businesses and Enterprises

by Arun Gandhi, Director of Product Management, Seceon

Today threat surfaces have broadened significantly and security teams have to defend against sophisticated cyber-attacks, such as Ransomware, Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS), Inside threats, Vulnerability exploits, Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs), Email phishing, to list few. Cybercrime is developing much faster than security tools, adoption and proliferation of the Internet of Things (IoT) increasing the risk of a breach, and cloud and virtualization trends are set to be main pain points for organizations in three years’ time. Many small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) and enterprises think they’re flying under the radar of cyber-attackers. But the reality is very different. Perpetrators specifically target smaller, more vulnerable businesses because of their lack of security expertise and fragile infrastructure, and because they often provide easy entryways to larger companies with whom the SMBs work. Empirical data shows SMBs have high security-related risks that can be extremely detrimental to their existence, compared to larger organizations. According to Hiscox’s Cyber Preparedness Report 2017, small businesses lose an average of $41,000 per cybersecurity incident. They are the hardest hit most often, although their breaches may not make headline news. More alarmingly, over 60 percent of the SMB enterprises go out of business within six months of devastating cyber attacks.

SMBs typically have a shoestring IT & security budget and very limited expertise with cutting-edge tools. Therefore they must lean on Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs) to help them attain a shield of protection that small-to-medium businesses need for their very existence. MSSPs offer superior protection, cost savings, customer support, advanced technology to the SMBs without the need of making significant investments, and enables businesses to focus on their core competency to increase their bottom-line. Key MSSP services include:

• Outsourced, advanced-tier 24×7 monitoring of security events and This is a cost-effective alternative to having dedicated in-house staff managing security events.
• Deep threat  intelligence   covering   a wider security landscape, such as device management, breach monitoring, data loss prevention, insider threat detection, phishing attacks, web exploits, and
• Incident response to contain and eliminate cyber threats in near real-time and keep your business
• The flexibility of deployment. The MSSP’s services should be available over the Internet, via on-premise systems that are managed remotely, or through a hybrid, SMBs may choose to implement some security capabilities in-house alongside other services from their trusted MSSP.
• Consulting on industry-specific requirements and know-how pertaining to your business. This helps the MSSP implement best-practice processes and the right technologies for

The Seceon Approach to Empower and Elevate the Managed Service Providers Seceon® aiMSSP empowers managed security service providers the ability to address a wide range of client cybersecurity requirements at speed and scale, delivering data protection and differentiated services on their path to profitability. It enables MSSPs to deliver comprehensive, affordable security services to enterprises and SMBs and maximize revenue- generating opportunities for providers. MSSPs can now provide radically new managed Internet security services to SMBs, Enterprises, and other smaller MSSPs as a master MSSP, which transcends and outperforms traditional SIEM solutions, delivering the functionality of SOC at a fraction of the cost. Seceon’s innovative aiMSSP solution combines the benefits of SIEM and MDR, and dramatically extends the defense-in-depth approach for businesses of all sizes, from the micro-SMB to Enterprise.

Key benefits include:

• Reduces Mean-Time-to- Identify (MTTI) and Mean-Time-To- Response (MTTR) with automated, real-time detection and response (viz- à-viz, 24×7 SOC Monitoring and Threat Management) focusing on known and unknown “threats-that-matter”.
• Enables organizations to achieve continuous regulatory compliance with continuous monitoring and
• Decreases CAPEX/OPEX significantly.
• Empowers SOC analysts to become more
• Flexible and   Scalable Deployment

aiMSSP is built on a Big/Fast Data Architecture with Machine Learning and AI as its cornerstones. It performs large-scale, robust data collection from the cloud and other modern IT data sources to provide organizational wide situational visibility,  incorporates threat intelligence feeds for correlation and enrichment, provides continuous learning about normal network activities via machine learning and enhanced data analytics beyond rules, and uses advanced Artificial Intelligence for actionable remediation. According to Grigoriy Millis, Chief Technology Officer of Richard Fleischman & Associates, “RFA is currently processing over 700 million events per day. On average, Seceon aiMSSP solution generates 20-25 alerts per day with less than 1% of false positive. Also, quite often it isn’t really a false positive as it is the activity that is being flagged. It has also increased the efficiency of our IT and SOC personnel by 37%”

1 – Assuming the salary of one person to be $200,000 per annum (fully loaded)

2 – These are estimated charges

In this digital era, where cyber-attacks happen at all times around the world, security breaches can be devastating to a small business that has significant resource constraints. Cyber-attacks, such as Ransomware, DDOS, point-of-sale malware, etc., specifically target smaller, more vulnerable businesses with a lack of security expertise and fragile infrastructure leading to a huge payout for the attackers.  MSSPs are an increasingly popular choice for SMBs who need a simple, cost-effective solution for cyber threat protection that leverages the latest innovations and provides 24×7 access to security experts. MSSPs are a great resource for either supplementing your existing security team or starting your security practice. aiMSSP enables service providers to deliver affordable, reliable, differentiated security services that protect SMBs and enterprises. It empowers MSSPs to address a wide range of customer’s security requirements related to protection and compliance at speed and scale and enables them to create revenue-generating services for providers.

About the Author

Arun Gandhi is the Director of Product Management of the Seceon. He has more than 17 years of experience with startups and global brands and his experience includes product management, business strategy, high profile customer engagements, product marketing, sales enablement, positioning of emerging technologies, strategic analysis, development & test for security, networking, and cloud technologies in the Service Provider and Enterprise Markets. At Seceon, he is responsible for driving strategic go-to-market initiatives, positioning, product roadmap, and executive engagements with customers & partners. Prior to Seceon, Arun held various technical and leadership roles in Product Management, Strategy, Marketing and Engineering at Juniper Networks, NetBrain Technologies, and Misys Plc (now Finastra). Arun can be reached online at [email protected] and at our company website http://www.seceon.com/