What The Best Managed IT Service Providers Know About Security

These days it’s essential for any good managed IT service provider to have security as a top priority in their business. Companies will simply not want to work with a service provider that cannot adequately protect business-critical data, and provide assurance that their company data is safe from cyberattack. What Managed Service Providers (MSPs) know about security is that it is essential for business growth. That means the best security practices must be in place right from the beginning, so that they can grow right along with the company.

What MSPs know about security

A managed IT service provider also knows that protecting data is the first obligation in cybersecurity, so detecting any system vulnerabilities becomes paramount. Since the threats themselves are external, they cannot be controlled in any way – but the steps taken to prevent threats from actually being carried out can be managed. Therefore, service providers know they must implement several layers of security, in order to protect their clients’ business data, so their own services will be in demand. The security layers called for include training employees, management policies, security procedures, and such technical controls as firewalls, passwords, anti-virus software, multi-factor authentication, and data authorization.

Security service providers also know the best security practices available at any given time. This can be a tricky thing to manage, because those practices must be constantly updated and changed, in accordance with new methods and approaches used by cyber criminals to penetrate networks. Here is how an MSP will implement top-notch security practices, based on their knowledge and experience with cybercriminals:

Firewall – since the Internet is the primary access point to all stored data on the cloud, a solid firewall must be setup to block intrusions.

Dynamic firewall rules – these must be implemented, so that it’s not necessary to update firewall rules with every new threat.

Protect wireless access points – employees use these to connect to Wi-Fi, so they must be protected through authorization and encryption.

SD Wan – allows for high availability of data for situations like VoIP and Microsoft Teams.

Servers and workstations – since these are network endpoints, they must have comprehensive security controls in place.

Virus detectors – must be running continuously, and must include all known threats.

Backups – to be prepared for inevitable data breaches, data backups must be maintained off-site so that corrupted or encrypted data is not lost.

Putting what they know into practice

Knowing the best practices to implement for security is the foundation for services provided by an MSP to all clients. All the security controls described above must be in place in order to properly protect client data. All data gathered from these controls can then be logged into a central repository, where the service provider will receive instant notifications about any suspicious activity. Because client data is constantly being monitored, any risk to clients is significantly reduced, while security is being increased.

Contact us

If you’re in the market for a new managed IT service provider, we urge you to contact us at your earliest convenience. We make a point of maintaining a staff of the best and most knowledgeable security experts, so they can use their knowledge to help protect your valuable data assets. We use what we know about security and cybercrime to prevent intrusions and breaches, so that you can sleep easier at night, with the knowledge that your business-critical data is safe from exploitation by cybercriminals.