What makes up a network security solution

Network security components consist of many pieces, including:

  • Anti-virus and anti-spyware
  • Web protection
  • Email security
  • Backup and recovery

As a managed service provider (MSP), securing and protecting your clients’ networks from the myriad of threats on the cyber landscape cannot be overstated. And there are plenty of them:

  • Adware
  • Data interception and theft
  • Denial of service and distributed denial of service attacks
  • Hackers
  • Ransomware
  • Spam
  • Spyware
  • Trojan horses
  • Viruses
  • Zero-day (or “zero-hour”) attacks

Without the proper security, companies leave themselves vulnerable to a variety of calamities, whether initiated by the technology itself or by the people and processes behind it. Offering a network security system can bring your clients the confidence in knowing that their most prized assets — their computer systems, networks, and data — are safe, secure, and protected against attacks and unauthorized users from inside or outside their company.

Man working on computer

Network security payoffs

Network security has a number of benefits for defending your clients’ businesses against threats.

Obviously the number one advantage is minimizing the level of risk for attacks, infections, and breaches. For most companies, reaching an acceptable level of security can be difficult, if not impossible, to achieve on their own, even for organizations that have their own IT staff and help desk.

With the right network security tools, however, MSPs can offload the security yoke from organizations and protect their clients’ computer systems, networks, files, and data from attacks and breaches.

Keeping files free from infection is particularly important in today’s collaborative workplace, where information is shared among co-workers inside a company as well as with partners, consultants, analysts, and others outside the company.

Network security also keeps sensitive data, such as personal information and confidential business materials, away from unauthorized individuals. The impact resulting from a breach of this data can cause significant and long-lasting financial and legal consequences, embarrassment, and ruined reputations. Companies that are subject to the scrutiny of regulatory standards such as HIPAA, PCI DSS, NERC CIP, and SOX might also be subject to legal implications and hefty penalties.

Besides these benefits, a network security system offers additional advantages that may be less obvious but are just as critical to a company’s business operations.

Men checking phone

Increased profits

Keeping computer networks operating at peak efficiency is critical for any organization. With network security tools in place, sluggish systems and downtime, which can eat into profits and render systems unstable, become a thing of the past.

Improved Productivity

The more time employees spend visiting recreational websites, the less time they devote to their work. Network security can promote safe browsing and improve productivity by preventing employees from accessing these sites.

Moreover, certain sites — such as those containing adult, gaming, gossip, and racist content — are notorious for containing viruses, malware, and other anomalies that can be easily transmitted to client computers and networks without the knowledge of website visitors. Denying access to these sites reduces the chance that these infections and malware will get introduced into your network.

Full team

Leave reactive for proactive

Most companies adopt a reactive attitude when it comes to their networks and take action only after something goes wrong. Using an MSP to enforce network security allows problems to be identified and remediated quickly before they can cause downtime, render systems unstable, and affect business operations.

Enhanced Compliance

Companies that adhere to regulatory standards know the penalties they will incur if they should fall out of compliance. Adopting a network security system can enhance a company’s compliance posture through real-time monitoring of data flows throughout the organization.

Client Confidence

Once clients know their systems and data are being protected, their confidence in the protection being afforded and in you as their gatekeeper of security, rises. A natural outgrowth of this confidence is that clients become inclined to purchase other service offerings from you.

Finding the right tool for your clients

Frequently Asked Questions

Identify the digital assets that need protection

Identify the digital assets that need protection

In order to protect client assets, you have to know what to protect. By understanding what data needs to be protected, where that data resides, and who has permission to access the data, you can reduce the threat that cyber attackers will get their hands on your clients’ systems and data.

Current security level

Current security level

Determine which, if any, security controls are already in place at your clients’ locations. This assessment will allow you to find holes that you can fill, without offering service duplicate offerings that your customers already have. But that doesn’t mean you should overlook existing controls. Rather, determine whether the security controls that are already being implemented work with each other to offer a layered security curtain of protection (which is discussed later).

Prioritize the security needs of your clients

Prioritize the security needs of your clients

Some clients may place a higher degree of security on certain assets over others. For example, does a client devote more security to the personal identification information of customers who visit its website than it does employee information? If a client has multiple servers, does it allocate the same level protection to all of them, or do some servers require tighter security than others?

Determine how your clients handle their data assets

Determine how your clients handle their data assets

Clients that share data outside a company have a greater likelihood for virus and malware than those that keep data within their security perimeter. If clients share data, find out whether they control the individuals who can access that data and whether varying levels of access exist in the network.

Accommodate growth

Accommodate growth

Clients are always upgrading their hardware and software to outstep the competition. And as clients prosper, that success usually comes with an increase in traffic. The network security tool should be able to keep pace with these natural evolutions throughout a company’s lifecycle.

Assess risk liability

Assess risk liability

The number of network security tools to which a client is likely to subscribe can depend on the amount of liability they are willing to accept if data becomes corrupted, lost, or stolen. Some companies can tolerate long periods of lost productivity or service interruption while others can face financial and reputational losses with even the slightest amount of downtime.

Layered security from N‑able

Layered security from N‑able

After you determine which network security tools would be attractive to your clients, the next step is finding the right network tool for you and your technicians. N‑able provides MSPs with the most complete collection of layered security tools for building a barrier between their clients’ networks and cyber criminals.

Like ancient castles that protected their treasures by surrounding them with a moat and several walls of protection, layered network security protects a client’s valuable computer, network, and data assets in like fashion, by surrounding them with multiple layers of protection.

N‑able RMM provides multiple layers of protection. With those layers comes unparalleled ease and convenience by allowing you to manage all layers from a single console. In addition, layers can be automated so that client hardware systems and software applications stay up to date without MSP intervention.

Striving for 100% security remains an objective that everyone wants to achieve. But no network security tool can guarantee it. N‑able empowers MSPs to get their clients as close to this goal as possible by delivering leading-edge solutions that work in concert, are easy to use, and  can be automated so that MSPs can attract more clients, grow their business, and increase profits, without adding headcount.

Network security solutions

  • N‑able delivers the only 100% SaaS, fully cloud-based ITSM platform
  • Deployed on millions of endpoints across hundreds of thousands of networks
  • N‑able’s passion is helping IT professionals secure and manage their systems and data