ConnectWise Launches New Security Assessment Tool for Managed Service Providers

ConnectWise today announced the launch of ConnectWise Identify which allows managed service providers (MSPs) to easily assess their own and their customers’ current security posture against a wide variety of malicious cybersecurity threats. The result is an easy-to-understand, customized risk report with remediation options, all from a single pane of glass, that has implications for the entire business, not just the network. 

Beginning April 1, partners can trial ConnectWise Identify with two full risk assessments for free – one for themselves and one for an end user. After performing the first two assessments, partners can purchase ConnectWise Identify for an introductory price of $99 per month for unlimited risk assessments.

The news was shared at IT Nation Connect, the company’s premier thought leadership conference for IT business owners. During today’s keynote address, John Ford, Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) for ConnectWise, discussed the importance of risk assessment to an organization’s overall cybersecurity strategy, explaining that it is impossible to fully provide cybersecurity services without first having an initial understanding of the level of risk and security posture. Ford said that both network assessments and risk assessments are necessary first steps of a comprehensive security offering.

“MSPs, and frankly, our whole industry, should be taking a more holistic approach to security. Network scans, while important, are not sufficient on their own. To truly ensure protection against cybersecurity threats, a global view of an organization’s security posture is needed, and that means starting from the beginning with a risk assessment,” said Ford. “Now more than ever, it is vital for MSPs to prioritize working with their customers to identify the areas of their business that have security gaps, vulnerabilities or lack of proper security controls. That’s what ConnectWise Identify allows our partners to do.”

ConnectWise Identify generates risk assessment reports quickly and at a fraction of the cost and time of other risk assessments, allowing MSPs to show their customers where risks exist and how to address them through remediation. The product allows MSPs to view all reports and entities from one place and view overall security posture via heat maps.

NIST Cybersecurity Framework

ConnectWise Identify aligns with the Cybersecurity Framework written by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which provides a way for organizations, including small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), to assess security risks and provide guidelines for identifying, protecting, detecting, responding to and recovering from cyber threats.After analyzing the critical controls as defined by the Cybersecurity Framework, ConnectWise Identify provides a prioritized report of risks indicating areas of strengths and weaknesses, along with remediation options.

“ConnectWise Identify is much more than a product. While others are selling widgets, we are offering a product and educating our partners about their risks and teaching them how to do the same for their customers,” said Jason Magee, CEO, ConnectWise. “This will help them gain a bigger picture view of cybersecurity and a better understanding of their own security posture as well as that of their end users.”

Perch Community Defense Platform

April 1 will also mark the launch of ConnectWise reselling the Perch Co-Managed Threat Detection & Response Platform, which was built specifically with MSPs in mind. The product includes an intrusion detection system, threat intelligence platform, and event logging with next-gen security information and event management capability. All of this can be managed by Perch’s Security Operations Center (SOC) to reduce complexity and staff headcount, allowing customers to spend less time on threat intel and more time on revenue production. The cost of the Perch Community Defense Platform equates to less than two percent of what it would cost an organization to build its own SOC.

Perch is fully integrated with ConnectWise and provides ticket creation to document threats and real-time threat activity notifications. MSPs that partner with Perch for community-based defense receive shared intelligence to help them stay up to date with new and evolving threats as well as threat response assistance from Perch’s SOC.