Security Manager is designed to head off tickets before they appear, by proactively finding, fixing and automating Microsoft 365 security issues for MSPs.
Cloud automation and management software provider SkyKick, which is focused on the MSP market, has released Security Manager, the fourth addition to its Cloud Management application suite. Security Manager is designed to help MSPs proactively find, fix and automate Microsoft 365 security issues.
“No one in the market does anything close to this for the MSP,” said Todd Schwartz, Skykick’s co-founder and co-CEO [with Evan Richman]. “It’s much more than a pretty reporter dashboard. The automation behind this to find and fix the problem is extremely complex, and it allows us to monitor and proactively heal things before a problem develops.”
Schwartz also emphasized the challenge of developing the application from an engineering perspective.
“It took us years to build, including 10 years building the platform as the engine,” he stated. “No one has tried to address this complex a problem for the MSP market. It was a very hard problem to solve.”
Todd Schwartz, Skykick’s co-founder and CEO
“It’s a brand new concept,” Schwartz continued. “We built Security Manager to make IT service providers more successful in the cloud. Most companies serve all shapes and sizes, but our customer is the channel. What’s unique with our cloud automation platform is that we started with migrations, and automated it to take migration times from 40 hours down to 4 hours. Then we did the same thing with automation for the data protection market, then did it again for Cloud Manager. This is our fourth application for the platform. It is a very revolutionary product, which follows Microsoft guidance, and we get great feedback on that.”
Workflows lead the user through the process. For example, in a password spray attack, it shows the surface area of the attack, and gives a list of risky users. It is presented to the MSP in a way that transforms millions of security signals into actionable insights through a single pane of glass.
Security Manager reduces tickets and saves MSPs time and money through automation, but Schwartz said that its proactive capabilities are actually more important.
“When a ticket is created, the problem has already happened, and you know what work needs to be done,” he stated. “But it’s much better to see the problem before the ticket is created. You want to get in front of that problem. If you wait to get a ticket created, that’s backwards.”
The application also makes it easy to show what the MSP has done here to the end customer.
“There is a major challenge for the MSP managing their customer in security, in that a lot of partners struggle with showing they are doing a good job,” said Darren Peterson, Head of Cloud Management Products, and the person who created this application. “Partners are on the hook for support and have a hard way to show their value. This tracks everything done for the customer – and shows progress of the security score over time.
“Partners asked us for visibility across the entire portfolio,” Peterson continued. “It starts with finding the problem. You can see the red areas through Security Manager, which is where the problem is. There are also major efficiency gains because you don’t have to wait for things to come in as tickets.”
Security Manager is being explicitly pitched at the SMB market, but it is selling into a much broader market than that.
“So far, the data shows it has appeal to customers of all shapes and sizes, Schwartz indicated. “It sells broadly into the 2500 seat and below market – really everything that is not Fortune 500. The 25 to 100 seat range is the most common though, and is the real sweet spot.
“We have over 30,000 channel partners,” Schwartz concluded. “We are here to help partners be more successful and security is top of mind.”
