Netsurion is looking to its new EDR partnership to attract MSP partners who have been using traditional endpoint protection, and haven’t seriously considered EDR because it has been too expensive for their market.
A.N. Ananth, Netsurion’s President
Netsurion, a managed security service provider which provides threat protection services for MSPs, has announced an integration with deep learning-focused cybersecurity vendor Deep Instinct. Netsurion will strengthen their endpoint threat protection capabilities by incorporating Deep Instinct’s deep learning endpoint security solution into Netsurion’s EventTracker threat protection platform.
“Our service is a managed platform which provides prediction, prevention, detection, and response,” said A.N. Ananth, Netsurion’s President. “This announcement strengthens our capabilities in detect and response, by adding industrial strength protection. That’s important in a market where many either have legacy AV, or if they have newer technology, they often don’t know how to manage it properly.”
Deep Instinct is a 2015 startup in the Endpoint Detection and Response [EDR] space, which uses machine learning to provide a predictive response to threat protection. CrowdStrike is the leading independent player in the space, with several of its competitors like Carbon Black and Cylance having recently been acquired. Ananth stressed, however, that Netsurion was impressed by Deep Instinct’s technology.
“We found them to be especially effective, and think they are better than other providers,” he said. “They don’t require any updates whatsoever. They support multiple platforms, and their effectiveness measured by services is superior. In a machine learning model, you expect and assume the endpoint has access to some store and it has a collection of rules embedded in the endpoint which have to be tweaked. Deep Instinct trains the brain which is deployed in the field back at the factory. Other companies use these neural networks back up on the cloud to do this. With Deep Instinct, everything you need is at the endpoint.”
Ananth also emphasized that compared to other EDR vendors, Deep Instinct is simpler for MSPs to manage.
“Compared to others like CrowdStrike or SentinelOne, this is easier to manage,” he said. “These stacks all pick up the slack from legacy AV, but you still have to manage them. That management challenge defeats a lot of our customers.”
Ananth also noted that practicality also entered the picture in going with Deep Instinct.
“It is easier for us to establish a relationship with them,” he said.
While the Deep Instinct partnership strengthens Netsurion’s EDR capabilities, they did have some previously.
“We had some EDR capabilities from our own EventTracker in the EventTracker sensors, and that continues unaffected,” Ananth said. “However, Deep Instinct significantly strengthens us in this area and adds new prevention capabilities for mobile phones and for the Mac OS.”
Netsurion will be positioning this to MSP customers primarily as a replacement for legacy AV and anti-malware solutions.
“Going forward, with the advances in EDR, we don’t think traditional signature-based AV will be necessary,” Ananth said. “[Security testers] SE Labs and others say you can use traditional AV in concert with EDR if it gives you comfort, and many companies do that, but it’s not necessary, particularly if there are concerned about how many agents are on the endpoint, and the total dollar cost.”
Ananth noted that EDR is still largely a green fields opportunity for MSPs.
“MSP adoption of EDR has been fairly slow,” he said. “I would estimate that around 30% of the market we serve has made an investment in something like this. The major issues have been price and inertia.”
EDR pricing has been significantly above traditional endpoint costs, but Ananth said that Netsurion will be making a serious effort to close the gap with this offering.
“We expect this to be super price competitive,” he said. “We can’t compete with rock-bottom traditional AV pricing, but compared with the EDRs. we will price this aggressively. We will provide better prevention at a price point that’s super competitive. I have no illusions we will be supplanting CrowdStrike – but it is highly attractive.”
Ananth also expects that movement toward the new offering will be measured because MSPs will typically be committed to traditional AV vendors.
“I don’t anticipate a rush because people are in multi year contracts, but with three year contracts being typical, every year a third of the market is up for contract renewal and begins looking around. It will turn heads in the market then, I have no doubt.”
