Did you know that over 25,000 calls were made last year to the Australian Cyber Security Centre’s (ACSC) cyber security hotline? That’s an average of 69 calls per day and a 15% increase from the previous financial year1. According to the Microsoft Digital Defense Report 2022, hackers only take 1 hour and 12 minutes to access private data in a phishing attack. Overall, these reports show an increase in the number and sophistication of cyber threats, making crimes like extortion, espionage, and fraud easier to replicate at a greater scale.
Using modern, integrated, and intelligent tools for threat detection, protection, incident response, and security management is a must. An integrated solution makes detecting vulnerabilities, identifying attacks, and automating responses easier.
But threats and vulnerabilities are constant, and the alerts and recommended actions modern tools provide so well can be a lot to monitor and manage, especially when you have a small IT team with limited bandwidth or insufficient cybersecurity experience. To keep your IT environment cyber safe while taking advantage of the modern security tools available in Microsoft 365, a Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP) can prove to be an integral part of your modern workplace.
Firstly, what is the difference between MSPs and MSSPs?
You’ve probably heard of Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and might already be working with a traditional MSP. At a high level, MSPs focus on IT infrastructure and operations, and the traditional ones help your business with network services, server management and monitoring, and desktop support. On the other hand, modern MSPs, such as Professional Advantage, deliver what traditional MSPs do but also put digital transformation at the heart of providing support services. This enables organisations to fully harness their cloud software investments by giving your business a vision to adopt the tools you are licensed for and ensure optimal security is at the heart of the approach.
Compare Traditional vs Modern MSP in this blog.
A Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP) offers focused security support services including security monitoring, vulnerability assessment, threat detection, and incident response. With Professional Advantage being highly specialised in leveraging Microsoft 365 security solutions, our MSSP focus can help you with the visibility and coverage your business needs to defend against the latest cyber threats.
How can a focused MSSP help your business?
With Professional Advantage as your MSSP, you benefit from:
- Reduced IT costs. Get rid of all your disparate third-party security solutions that do not talk to, track, or report on threats end to end and leverage the existing tools and services in Microsoft 365 to keep your business secure and productive.
With Professional Advantage as your MSSP, you gain instant access to some of the industry's most qualified support engineers and cybersecurity professionals. You don’t need to hire an additional full-time employee, which can be quite expensive or difficult to find with skills shortages in Australia. - Get proactive systems monitoring using Microsoft Defender Suite that covers alerting from tools like:
- Microsoft Defender for Identity – uses Active Directory signals and Microsoft’s cloud intelligence to protect against identity-based threats, compromised and malicious users, and lateral movement on your on-premises AD environment.
- Microsoft Defender for Endpoint – the Server and Desktop endpoint protection platform provides everything from prevention to detection investigation, response, and risk mitigation for endpoints.
- Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps – detecting unusual behaviour across cloud apps to identify ransomware, compromised users, or rogue applications.
- Microsoft Defender for 365 – offering threat protection across email and other collaboration vectors like Microsoft Teams, SharePoint Online, and OneDrive for Business and Office clients.
- Microsoft Endpoint Manager (Intune) and Azure Active Directory Conditional Access policies – receive a rapid incident response to critical issues and risks to mobile devices, non-compliant devices, dormant devices, etc.
The above solutions may be a lot to take on for your IT team, but our dedicated managed security services team can be your first line of contact to enable and support these for you.
- Monthly reporting analysis. Receive monthly expert consultancy and discuss security status and optimisation with your key stakeholders focusing on the alerts our team receive and the recommended actions for the environment. This helps to form a macro view of security operations and strategic considerations to complement the regular individual alerts and suggestions on day-to-day actions.
- Benchmark against Microsoft 365 Secure Score. Use Microsoft 365 Secure Score and built in Essential Eight scorecard trackers to understand your security maturity levels better. We can help you review reports, achievements, and goals for the year ahead to help decide about getting more from your invested platforms.
- Single point of contact for licensing, consulting services, and support. As a Tier 1 CSP, a Microsoft Cloud Partner, and an MSSP, you benefit from working with a single service provider uniquely positioned to guide you with the licenses you need, help you maximise the existing ones you already have, and provide proactive support services.
Should you hire an MSSP?
- Your team does not have the capacity to monitor your IT environment proactively.
- Your business currently uses conventional point solutions that do not communicate or integrate across your security layers.
- You are working with a traditional MSP that has limited capacity to help you fully benefit from the modern productivity and security tools in Microsoft 365.
- Your team lacks a multifaceted understanding of Microsoft 365’s security capabilities.
- You work with a break fix provider who attends to your business needs only when something breaks.
Did you relate to any of the above statements? If you did, we highly recommend partnering with a modern and highly specialised MSSP like Professional Advantage. We can help augment your IT team and get the most from Microsoft 365 and Azure so your business can truly achieve what is needed to keep your IT environment secure and operating smoothly.
Learn more about our Modern Managed Services here.
[1] 2022 Annual Cyber Threat Report, Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC)
