With more businesses moving to the cloud and adopting SaaS, ESET Cloud Office Security provides easily managed security to MSPs and their Microsoft 365 clients

Gartner has forecasted that the global public cloud service market is projected to reach $266 billion in 2020. This is a projected growth of 17% since 2019. And while we have yet to see final numbers for 2020, there is no doubt that the coronavirus lockdowns are accelerating these numbers even more. Gartner also expects that by 2022, 90% of enterprises who purchase public cloud will do it through a software-as-a-service (SaaS) application. Cloudification has taken hold as many companies no longer want to host and take care of hardware on their premises and are more willing to use SaaS applications.

Many enterprises and small- and medium-sized businesses will be adopting SaaS applications as their dominant form of software delivery, but more and more will find themselves struggling with the number of apps they now have to manage. This is music to the ears of managed service providers (MSPs), as they have unparalleled access to the expertise and tools necessary for implementing a strong plan for companies’ SaaS solutions.

Many MSPs will find new and existing clients migrating to the cloud, if they haven’t already. While MSPs benefit from not having to travel as often to physically inspect their clients’ hardware, a move to the cloud poses new challenges and behavioural changes for employees that are critical for continued business security.

On top of the 78% of organisations already using Microsoft 365 and the 13% planning to start using it in 2019 (according to Gartner), the current need to work remotely has only further pushed the demand for tools like Microsoft 365. Microsoft 365 is a cloud office tool that not only offers email services via Exchange Online, but provides data storage and collaboration capabilities via OneDrive, SharePoint and Teams. And here is where the threat becomes greater: the more connected your cloud environment, the greater an impact a threat can have when it arises. As the number of businesses relying on Microsoft 365 grows, MSPs will have to keep close tabs on clients, while maintaining flexibility and the capability of reacting quickly to detected threats.

So, what’s the threat? Phishing emails are everywhere…

In 2018, Microsoft scanned more than 470 billion Microsoft 365 emails every month for phishing and malware. The highest detection of phishing emails was in November 2018 with around 2.6 billion phishing messages. This increased to a high of almost 4 billion in July 2019 (if we take a baseline of 470 billion emails scanned per month, although the number is likely higher). Phishing emails are rife, and they aren’t going anywhere – only increasing.

ESET’s own quantitative research into MSP customers in 2019 revealed that spam emails and ransomware were of key concern for MSPs, accounting for the top two security challenges encountered. Crypto malware and lack of IT expertise followed closely behind in importance, revealing that cyber security education amongst employees is also vital.

This is where ESET Cloud Office Security (ECOS) can help MSPs protect their clients from dangerous emails. ECOS adds a crucial layer of security on top of the built-in protection in Microsoft 365 by taking advantage of ESET’s award-winning engine, the same as used in ESET Mail Security, to scan all incoming and outgoing emails and attachments in Exchange Online for spam, phishing and malware. In addition, ESET Cloud Office Security integrates with OneDrive to scan all files for malware. This helps businesses to isolate malware before it can spread within their environments and disrupt business continuity.

One of the key benefits for MSPs is being able to access the ECOS dashboard remotely through any major browser to keep an eye on clients across the board, as well as the automation of actions and processes for maximum efficiencies. The key benefits of the dashboard are:

1.       Easy management and flexibility

·       Integration of ECOS with ESET MSP Administrator

ECOS is easy to set up and usable out-of-the-box for all customers that prefer ESET’s growing Managed Service Provider model.

·       Licence Management

ECOS allows administrators to view and assign licences to users from the perspective of licence pools that are associated with a given account. The admins assign licences directly to each Microsoft 365 user and can also directly open ESET MSP Administrator in order to conduct more advanced operations. ESET MSP Administrator is a self-service portal, and seat changes take effect immediately without the need to contact ESET.

·       Multitenancy with access management

MSPs will be able to manage all their customers from one console through multitenancy with the option for layered access rights for different admins, and complete control for super admins.

2.      Control over threats

Provides visibility into detections and quarantines threats with the following features:

·       Detection statistics, filtering and identification

With the ECOS dashboard, MSPs have a full overview of suspicious activity and can see the times at which malware, spam and phishing detections are peaking, hour-by-hour. MSP admins can also use detection filtering in ECOS to check their clients’ environments for indicators of compromise (IOCs) as a quick way of identifying the presence of attackers.

·       Accountability

If MSP admins are concerned no detection is happening, they can check the logs to see that ECOS is still scanning emails and files and that all items so far are free from malware, phishing and scams and users are still protected.

3.       Fast and effective action

·       Immediate notification when detection of malware occurs

As soon as ECOS detects a suspicious email, it will automatically quarantine it and trigger an email notification to allow MSP admins to take immediate steps to address the issue. Admins can access further details about the quarantined emails, and have the options to either delete, release or download the quarantined items.

4.       Low maintenance

·       Automatic protection of new user mailboxes

In ECOS, admins can automatically assign a licence to a new user and enable protection via a group policy. In other words, automation of new user enrollment saves time and eases management.

·       Custom protection settings

Via a policy-based model, ECOS can apply custom settings per organisational unit and per user, allowing certain groups of users in the Microsoft 365 environment to enjoy tailor-fit protection settings.

All who are on the ESET MSP Programme can start ordering ESET Cloud Office Security even now via EMA2. Learn more about ESET Cloud Office Security here.