It’s a great time to be an MSP or MSSP. IDC research indicates that over 60% of organizations are looking to manage security investments to help manage cloud adoption and usage.
It appears that many organizations lack the internal skills, expertise and/or time to secure the cloud by themselves, so they’re leaning on MSPs to do the work for them, and they’re willing to pay for it.
For MSPs like you, this blossoming market offers an unparalleled opportunity–once you overcome some initial hurdles. Namely, you need to find a cloud security solution that balances cost-effectiveness with reliability, agility and security.
The cloud security challenges your clients need help with
Before you can settle on a cloud security solution, you first need to build a comprehensive picture of the challenges your clients face. From our experience working with numerous companies across industries like healthcare, finance and general enterprise, we’ve found that the majority of companies face the following struggles:
Cloud Misconfiguration
A cloud misconfiguration is any cybersecurity error or gap that leaves your cloud environment, or the data stored in it, exposed to theft or loss. Chances are, many of your clients believe that, when their data is in the cloud, it’s completely up to the cloud provider to secure it. However, as we know, when it comes to access management, controlling their data and application build testing, this is their responsibility.
Poor password policies and a lack of multi-factor authentication coverage
Passwords like 12345 and qwerty for SaaS applications are a cybercriminal’s dream. In the age of LinkedIn, it’s easier than ever for hackers to do a tiny bit of digging and discover your company’s email address format.
If your clients’ employees use basic passwords and/or use the same password across multiple accounts, the likelihood of a data breach skyrockets. This is especially the case if your clients don’t use multi-factor authentication to verify that users are legitimate.
Insider Threat
The insider threat takes many forms. It can be a disgruntled employee, an employee who makes a mistake or even a threat actor who has gained access to legitimate credentials. The tricky thing is, within SaaS applications, it can be hard to tell who is who and what data they’re accessing.
This is especially the case in the work-from-anywhere world. Away from the watchful eyes of IT, some employees have become more laid back about corporate security policies. They may send confidential data to the wrong person by accident or share passwords amongst teams for ease of use. These practices increase the risk of a data breach.
Shadow IT
Gone are the days where a centralized IT department approved every purchase decision. These days, individual teams have their own budgets and can purchase software and devices as they please.
This sprawl of applications and devices creates a data security nightmare. Without a single view of where data in the enterprise resides, internal IT teams struggle to keep data safe and meet compliance obligations.
Data security
Looking through the top risks your clients face, you can see a common thread: the struggle to protect data in SaaS applications. The good news is that this challenge creates an excellent opportunity for MSSPs to swoop in and save the day by bringing much needed visibility and control over data usage in the cloud.
To do this, you need a cloud-based DLP solution in your security stack.
What is SaaS DLP?
SaaS DLP solutions work by monitoring, classifying and protecting sensitive data across cloud applications and collaboration tools. Through predefined policies, these solutions prevent data loss in real-time through automatic actions like redaction, encryption and deletion.
The best-in-breed cloud DLP solutions are also self-learning. They use AI to pick up on patterns about user behavior and sensitive data, and evolve their policies in line with this analysis. This takes the burden off your team having to re-define and set new data policies constantly.
What to look for in a SaaS DLP provider
Of course, the DLP market is extremely crowded. So, here’s a handy checklist of what to look for in a SaaS DLP provider.
No/Low code software
Low and no-code platforms are a must for easy deployment, helping you to deliver security to your customers in a matter of minutes, without a hefty, cumbersome installation process.
With our DLP solution, for example, you can set clients up in less than an hour. It’s as simple as ‘plug and play’.
Contextual and dynamic
Data is constantly changing in its perceived value. Yesterday’s data classification policies might not be suitable today. This means that your DLP solution needs to keep up with the dynamic pace of business.
So, ideally, you want a solution that has contextual awareness of the compliance and security challenges your customers face. Our solution offers ready to use policy templates for HIPAA, PCI, PHI, GDPR, and CCPA. With an intuitive interface, it’s also simple for non-technical users to configure custom compliance policies seamlessly.
Auto remediation
AI is the future of security, helping to automate manual work so you and your clients can spend more time on meaningful tasks. You should look for a SaaS DLP solutions that take advantage of AI and machine learning.
Our solution, for example, uses AI to discover and secure sensitive data like PII and PHI in real-time in cloud applications, file storage platforms, ticketing systems & codebases.
The solution is self-learning and automated, meaning you rarely need to interfere. ‘Self-learning’ means the DLP picks up on sensitive data patterns based on predefined data classification policies your company entered when first installing the program.
Real-time employee training
What if your DLP solution could not only prevent breaches, but helps to reduce accidental insider threats from making the same mistake in future?
Our solution does just that. As well as securing your customers’ sensitive data in real-time, it will alert employees if an action they’ve tried to take could harm data security. At the same time, our engine blocks the action from occurring, so data security isn’t compromised.
Over time, these in-app nudges can effectively build a data security culture by putting security front of mind for employees without taking them away from their workflow. In fact, we’ve found that our solution reduces risky data sharing behavior by over 70% in 1 month.
