Avast is about to roll out a program for MSSPs in North America, which they discussed while exhibiting at the recent IT Connect event.
David Ryder, Director of SMB and MSSP at Avast
Security firm Avast was in attendance at the recent ConnectWise IT Connect show with a clear message for managed service providers. The company has just launched its Avast Business Secure Internet Gateway, their second business-focused solution to emerge from their partnership with Zscaler. However, they are also preparing to launch a program specifically for MSSPs in North America, which they believe will offer great value to the market.
“Avast is building a North American proving grounds for the next generation of MSSPs,” said David Ryder, Director of SMB and MSSP at Avast. “Over 90% of the world’s MSSP revenue is in the U.S. This will be the inspiration for the rest of the world.”
Avant launched their Avant Business portfolio, much of which came from their acquisition of AVG, in the fall of 2017. Their CloudCare security platform now has a range of layered security services including managed anti-virtus, content filtering, backup and disaster recovery and email security. In June, they added a patch management service.
The CloudCare platform also has two services which come as a result of an OEM relationship with Zscaler. In March they announced Avast Business Secure Web Gateway, an enterprise-grade secure cloud web gateway aimed at the SMB market. In September, they launched Avast Business Secure Internet Gateway, which they are terming a game changer product. It’s a cloud-based UTM that overcomes the traditional problems in managing encrypted traffic inspection from on-prem devices.
“We think customer premised-based equipment is soon to die,” Ryder said. 95% of sandboxes are worse than a waste of money, because they are false security. They are also hard to configure. With this, the security of the perimeter is fully taken care of, and every mobile user tunnels back.”
With the new content now out, Avast has been working on designing Avast Business MSSP, a program for MSSPs, particularly smaller ones.
“The OEM relationship with ZScaler has been there for over a year, but it takes time to put this sort of program together,” Ryder stated. “We will introduce these products to the smaller MSSPs. They serve a part of the market that requires Zcaler’s enterprise grade security, and with these offerings we now offer a full stack of network security.”
Ryder emphasized that Avast is so confident of this program’s value that they will be making it available to MSSPs on a month to month basis.
“The two and three year lock-in periods common to boxes are antithetical to good security,” he said. “This is a massively affordable way with no contract, just month to month. We are that confident of its adoption.”
The launch, which Ryder said was imminent, will include a launch customer in Canada.
“The details of the program were determined about three weeks ago, but we wanted to make sure that it is fully baked before we roll it out,” he noted. “While the program is solid, we are prepared to tweak it for local markets when necessary.”
Ryder said that the feedback at IT Connect was highly positive.
“One MSSP said we would be the Google of MSSP security,” he commented.
