Avast is providing the new tool free to its partners, in the belief that going forward they all need to focus much more on security than many have in the past.
Sean Sykes, Managing Director, AVG Business by Avast
AUSTIN – At ChannelCon 2017, security software vendor Avast is announcing the release of the 11.0 version of their AVG Managed Workplace solution, their RMM platform. The major enhancement is the addition of a Site Security assessment tool that allows MSPs to perform and report real-time security assessments.
“Integrating SMB security assessment capabilities into our RMM platform simplifies assessing security needs for MSPs, and also provides a better way for them to discuss the results with business clients and take action on them,” said Sean Sykes, Managing Director, AVG Business by Avast.
Sykes said this kind of tool has become necessary for MSPs because it provides a better way for them to respond to the increased volume of security threats.
“These threats also now tend to focus on the SMB, whereas in the past, they targeted the enterprise,” Sykes said. “In order to address customer needs, MSPs require more of a focus on security than they have had in the past. They have RMM tools for performance and availability type measurements. We believe they now also need to be able to identify security risks at customer sites, to show clients what and where security risks are, how they impact business and how to prioritize the next steps.”
The technology for the new tool comes from AVG leveraging the Onsite Manager within Managed Workplace. When an assessment runs at a site, MSPs get a security score of vulnerabilities at that site and can see issues contributing to the score on the site’s dashboard. An assessment will also show what is at risk, how to mitigate this, and what action is needed. Three types of reports are available depending on the level of detail needed: a security summary; a site security report; and a site security detailed report.
“We studied this to determine what reports were of most value to partners,” Sykes said.
The Site Security assessment tool is free of charge to partners.
“We made a deliberate choice when we decided not to charge for this,” Sykes stated. “Some vendors charge for similar tools, but we want all of our partners to have access to this. We have made that commitment.”
Sykes indicated that while some MSPs are already using a third-party tool to provide these assessments, many are not, and having it as part of the solution rather than bolted on top is more desirable in any event.
“MSPs are at different stages of maturity as it relates to supporting security,” he said. “While you have MSSPs who have already put security at the core of their business, you also have many MSPs who are only just starting to think about who to transform their business to handle security issues, because the trend of targeting SMBs is somewhat new. It wasn’t a priority for them before. Even if they are using something now, this gives them one integrated solution that does this, rather than use a point solution.”
Sykes emphasized that all their MSPs need to be using this tool.
“The key message here for MSPs is that security will be one of their main focuses going forward,” he said. “For MSPs to be successful moving forward, they need to put security at the core of their practice. These rich security reports will help them differentiate their business so that they can be successful.”
Avast is in attendance this week at the CompTIA ChannelCon event.
