01732 759725 40 CYBERSECURITY Andy Hardy, co-owner of South West IT, explains how best-in-class cyber support is helping the Weymouth-based MSP meet the security needs of healthcare clients In addition, as patient information is often available to a wide number of personnel, the risk of an accidental breach is increased. To minimise these risks, healthcare providers need to maintain a robust information security posture and have tried-and-tested plans in place should a breach occur. We’ve found that AV is not enough and that when it comes to security end users are the weakest link in the chain, allowing exploits on the network. Zero Trust seemed to fit the bill. Then it was a no brainer to roll it out to our entire client base as, with the introduction of GDPR and associated fines for noncompliance, cyber and data security have never been higher up boardroom agendas. Planning now for upcoming risks puts clients in the best possible position to prevent incidents or at least reduce any impact should they occur. You now provide ThreatLocker as a standard offering in your MSP stack. What attracted you to that solution in particular? AH: Prevention is better than cure, and ThreatLocker was the first and best product of its type that we looked at, in terms of the features on offer and the fact that network access control and storage control sit under a single pane of glass. We hoped it would help alert us to risks that we had not traditionally considered; help us with continued automation tasks and auto elevation; and help create secure policies for the white-listing and blacklisting of applications. Support was another key factor. ThreatLocker’s commitment to it makes their product the best in class by far and was the catalyst for us using their product. On top of that, our company mission, strategy and culture are really aligned with ThreatLocker’s. Our core values match perfectly. How does ThreatLocker help your team achieve its objectives? AH: It helps to ensure we are configured correctly and has streamlined our security efforts and efficiency in a number of ways, the two main ones being ease of deployment and ease of use. We have integrated the alerts into our PSA and RMM solutions, so we are now able to deploy and react within minutes, which is a game-changer. Are there any metrics or KPIs that demonstrate the success of your partnership with ThreatLocker? AH: We rely heavily on KPIs in order to track service level agreements with clients, and while we initially had a small increase in ticket volume due to requests for software installation and elevation, over time the implementation of security policies for our clients has reduced that by more than 33%. Elevation requests accounted for a huge proportion of ticket requests and they have been almost eradicated! We are still in the process of optimising each client and we estimate further savings as we make use of the various features provided by ThreatLocker. How has ThreatLocker contributed to your business's success? AH: Having ThreatLocker in our arsenal has undoubtedly helped us win more clients and secure some key business within the healthcare sector. It also means we spend less time having to deal with customer support requests. We are a small team and our motto is work smarter, not harder. Not only does ThreatLocker software allow us to achieve this, but the support and back-office team are so good that they feel like part of our company. For a small business, ThreatLocker is a powerful tool that allows us to compete with much larger MSPs with an eye to future growth. Security is, hands down, the biggest challenge for our industry, and working with a partner we trust is fundamental to the solutions we provide and our core goals of steady growth and continuous improvement as a business. https://sw-it.uk What is South West IT’s core proposition and target market? Andy Hardy (AH): My co-owner Adam Comden and I started South West IT in 2016 as a small IT provider for home and business users, before adopting an MSP model in early 2018 and moving away from home IT support and services to concentrate on B2B IT services. Today, our priorities are to add more managed IT clients and to move further into the healthcare space. We currently employ six full-time staff and offer a full range of IT and security services to everyone from single users to mid-sized organisations. We have a hand in anything that touches IP, from a full MSP stack of services, encompassing traditional tiered levels of support and software implementation, to DaaS, HaaS and hosting services. We are a registered ISP, providing our own internet connectivity to clients, and also specialise in data infrastructure design and implementation (copper and fibre), commercial Wi-Fi installations, CCTV, access control and VoIP. Cybersecurity is a key growth area for MSPs but also a big challenge. What has influenced your choice of partner in this area and your decision to adopt a Zero Trust endpoint security solution? AH: We wanted to offer the best security to healthcare clients who connect to the NHS HSCN network. The wealth of data available on NHS networks and the potential impact of data unavailability makes health and social care organisations very attractive to cyber criminals. Security breeds success Prevention is better than cure, and ThreatLocker was the first and best product of its type that we looked at, in terms of the features on offer and the fact that network access control and storage control sit under a single pane of glass
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