Ian Hunter meets with David Carroll, CEO at Cyber Security firm XQ Cyber to explore a new Software as a Service offering the company has ready for the channel that looks set to disrupt the market.
We all recognise that cloud deployment of business applications brings many benefits for users; scalability, reduced or zero CAPEX outlay, fast and flexible delivery – the list goes on but what about benefits for the reseller?
For me, the key benefit for channels in the SaaS model is the reduction in training and accreditation costs; the annual recertification process of legacy based CPE solutions cost a lot of money – including time off the road for technical staff. SaaS either remove these considerations or significantly reduces them to a minimum.
Therefore, I believe a generic benefit of the SaaS model to be that resellers no longer need to have such a highly skilled workforce as they would need with legacy alternatives.
So, how would it be if a reseller currently leaving all the cash on their customers’ security table could immediately begin a wallet share grab with a SaaS solution that addressed the entire market for Cyber Security?
Well this is exactly what Gloucestershire based security firm XQ Cyber are offering with their CyberScore application.
CEO David Carroll says that cyber security, often the domain of the larger enterprise organisation where 1000’s of security consultants ply their trade of producing heavy reports on company security risks and six figure invoices for their trouble.
“The trouble is that these security risk report and fixes are akin to having your car MOT’d. All they can prove is that the car was deemed ok on the day of the test. Tomorrow the wheels might fall off.
CyberScore is an easily affordable security testing and rating service that converts vulnerability data into get well plans and risk management reports for businesses and their supply chains.
CyberScore gathers data about your organisation and interprets it to present a view of your security posture. It’s simple: just download the software and scan your network to produce your very own, peer-rated security score, along with a Get Well Plan and a CyberScore certificate.”
You receive a numerical score from 0 to 10 along with an alphabetical suffix from A to F. For example, you might score 5.6C. The numerical score is a measure of your internal security – how tough you are on the inside. The alphabetical suffix is a measure of your external security – how hard your perimeter is to the outside world.”
Benefits
CyberScore aims to prevent harm being done to the organisation, either directly or via third parties. It does this by giving a view of firms’ security posture - that is, how they look to someone seeking to attack their IT infrastructure - and creating a plan to fix things quickly.
Carroll says, “If you are running obsolete software - we'll let you know. If you're running supported software that is missing lots of security fixes, we'll flag it and include it in your Get Well Plan. We'll let you know where all your vulnerabilities are, which ones are most important, either because of their nature or their prevalence. And we'll tell you what to do about them, hopefully before someone else, who cares less about your wellbeing, does.
What do we scan? We automatically detect devices (computers, routers, gateways, mobile devices etc.) on your network. If there are devices connected to your network, CyberScore can locate them and, if you don't know what your network looks like or what your IP addresses are, we can automatically detect them for you.
Once we have found the computers on your network, we can carry out detailed inspections of them to check for vulnerabilities.
Finally, we can turn the process around and scan you from the outside, to assess your perimeter security.
Ed Says...
CyberScore, which is ‘agentless’ and virtual – everything sits in the cloud, looks to be a useful addition to a resellers tool bag. It provides a recurring SaaS revenue stream just for the monthly scanning and reporting services. From there resellers can add value by arranging the fixes. Worried about the gathered data? Don’t be, its housed within Ark Data Centres which is Pan Government Accredited (PGA).