The Benefits of Whitelabel MSSP for Businesses

An MSP needs to provide security services as well as IT management. Cybersecurity requires a level of expertise beyond standard network and application management, and most MSPs aren’t in a position to provide top-quality managed security services by themselves. An effective way to bridge the gap is to use a whitelabel MSSP like Clearnetwork.

A whitelabel MSSP enables IT consultants and MSPs to offer managed security services to their clients without hiring security specialists. The customers get the services they need, such as a whitelabel SOC,  and quick incident response as part of their managed services package.

ClearNetwork provides managed security services that you can integrate with your IT stack. Monitoring, SOC as a service, and incident response guard against data loss at a reasonable and predictable cost. We use AT&T Cybersecurity (formerly AlienVault) as the platform for our managed SOC service.

The advantages of offering whitelabel MSSP Services

The choices for an end customer contracting out its IT services are these:

• Hiring security staff and doing it themselves (very expensive)
• Separately hiring an MSSP
• Hiring an MSP or IT Consultant that uses whitelabel MSSP security services

The do-it-yourself option is viable only for enterprises large enough to maintain a full-blown cybersecurity staff. Even in that case, using outside experts may be the better answer.

Having a separate MSP and MSSP is clumsy and involves giving privileged network access to two different providers. An MSP with in-house security staff may fail to provide the necessary quality of service. For the best and smoothest security protection, the whitelabel approach is the best.

Businesses of all sizes face threats. Data breaches are hugely expensive. Ransomware causes data loss and days of downtime. A small business with little to protect may find anti-malware software and firewall management sufficient, but anyone with valuable and confidential data needs more. The following are some of the advantages that a whitelabel MSSP offers:

Specialized security expertise

Cybersecurity today demands a high level of specialized skill. The COVID-19 pandemic has increased security requirements by pushing businesses to remote access, and the new work habits will stay around in many cases. A bewildering number of threats are known, and more appear every day. Knowing how to deal with them all is a full-time job.

A whitelabel MSSP makes this expertise available to managed service providers. They can concentrate on what they understand best, e.g., network architecture, user management, and application selection and deployment. The MSSP provides complementary security services, which the customer sees as part of a seamless whole.

Avoiding a security silo

If a business contracts separately with an MSSP, it has to give two services privileged access to its network. They may conflict with each other, with neither one fully knowing what the other is doing. The MSSP’s systems may even mistakenly see the MSP’s activities as a threat.

For many businesses, a turnkey MSSP offering provides the necessary level of protection economically. The same service is available to many customers, bringing down costs without compromising the level of support. Businesses with more critical needs will want a customized security approach, but it will still be fully integrated with the IT services.

Having a dedicated SOC

Security isn’t just a matter of software and firewalls. It requires analysts who deal with security incidents quickly and effectively. That’s the role of the security operations center, or SOC. Attacks can occur at any time, so it should be available 24/7. Most businesses can’t justify one in their budgets. Its activity comes in bursts, calling for a high level of action when a security incident is discovered.

A whitelabel SOC as part of managed services shares the cost among its customers, so each one gets the necessary service without overloading its budget. ClearNetwork offers whitelabeled SOC as a service to monitor your systems, identify security events, and respond promptly to prevent data breaches.

Getting the best threat intelligence

As new threats appear and existing ones change, threat intelligence databases capture the latest information available. The information is useful only when cybersecurity systems take it into account and security analysts are ready to act on it. A full-time MSSP is best able to keep up with changes in the threat landscape and guard networks against all current dangers.

Whitelabeled MSSP services

The most complete set of cybersecurity services comes from a dedicated MSSP with a full set of tools and an expert staff of security analysts. It goes far beyond basics such as firewalls and anti-malware software.

Risk assessment

When setting up or expanding a network, a risk assessment is necessary to find out how well protected it is. Every network has some issues; the key is to know what the most important ones are and whether they create an unacceptable level of vulnerability. ClearNetwork’s vulnerability assessment service allows fast identification and remediation of network vulnerabilities.

Network Security Monitoring

Continuous monitoring of a company’s network detects abnormal activity so it can be stopped promptly. Ongoing attempts to break security, such as repeated login attempts, may call for strengthening defensive measures and blocking the hostile IP addresses. Advanced persistent threats (APTs) can steal data over months if monitoring isn’t present to detect their activity. Monitoring can be internal or external, depending on the customer’s requirements.

Compliance

Computer networks that handle certain types of sensitive data need to comply with regulations such as HIPAA and industry standards such as PCI DSS. A security incident that results from failure to comply with standards can result in heavy penalties or the loss of processing privileges. An MSSP helps to verify that confidential information isn’t being moved without encryption and other required security measures.

SIEM and SOAR

Complex networks with valuable data benefit from automated detection and response. IDS (intrusion detection systems) and IPS (intrusion prevention systems) have long been part of the security provider’s repertoire. SIEM (security information and event management) and SOAR (security orchestration, automation, and response) have emerged in recent years, analyzing large amounts of information to better detect threats.

SIEM analyzes the logs from system services and applications, looking for anomalous behavior that could indicate a problem. It uses machine learning to keep the number of false positives low so that analysts know that any alerts they get are worth investigating. ClearNetwork’s managed SIEM service detects intruders and attacks and allows rapid responses to minimize the damage.

SOAR brings together information from multiple sources, including third-party software. It integrates workflows to generate reports on any security concerns. Where possible, it initiates an automatic response, eliminating the threat before it can do serious damage.

Penetration testing

Authorized, controlled attempts to break network security give a business assurance that its cybersecurity measures are up to snuff or reveal where the problems lie. A whitelabel MSSP can offer penetration testing for businesses that need it. Pen testing may be a whitelabel security service in its own right, since it’s a specialty even within the security industry.

MSSPs give peace of mind

With top-quality managed security services, you can be confident that the vast majority of threats will have no effect on your network operations, and that security analysts and systems are at work to remediate any security incidents quickly. Cybersecurity is a complex art, and you need the assistance of specialists to make sure your customers get the best.