A common issue faced by MSPs globally is the customers’ lack of due diligence before installing new applications on the internet. Nathaniel Gill, Head of Cybersecurity at Apex Computing Services recalls how onerous it became to properly secure their customer’s IT Infrastructure without the appropriate cybersecurity awareness training.
“We probably had about one customer on average every month that downloaded this file that they found online because it was a free version of the software that they needed and they didn’t check it properly, causing issues for us, increasing workloads, just generally keeping the security of the devices low.”
This pivoted Nathaniel toward implementing Zero Trust controls to assist with securing the endpoints of their end-users, especially in education. However, this opportunity to develop the company’s offerings also came with challenges.
“We wanted to carry on providing the best service that we can to our customers without being overly expensive and losing out to cheaper options out there in the market. We started looking towards different solutions as we just wanted to further protect our customers’ environments.”
It was essential for Apex to create a bundle of services that could enhance their end-users' cybersecurity stack. Looking for an application whitelisting solution, Apex purchased ThreatLocker in April 2022.
Implementing Zero Trust controls to deny by default is the best way to prevent untrusted software from running regardless of customer actions. Being an MSP “I look at how easy it is to deploy and manage a centrally managed platform with a lot of clients. You can go from one to the other easily and operating the clients is easy.”
The onboarding process at ThreatLocker was seamless. “No issue was too small. So even if we had a tiny issue affecting what we see, they would jump straight on, help us out, and get results for us as quickly as possible.”
It was important for Apex to partner with a company that aligned with their shared values and beliefs. When they looked at the ThreatLocker mission, they felt like it was very much in line with theirs in wanting customers to be the safest and happiest they can be.
By implementing Zero Trust, Apex’s business has benefited exponentially. “The main metric that I look at is how often our customers are being breached. Since installing ThreatLocker on our customers, we’ve not had a single customer report a breach or virus.”
ThreatLocker significantly reduced Apex’s global ticket volume, which was predominantly coming from user helplessness from things they could mistakenly do that would create issues. “The product is great, and it helps protect our customers without being overly expensive. Our customers also don’t need to worry about paying big fines due to their damages.”
Going forward, Apex will create a cybersecurity bundle to better protect its customers with ThreatLocker® in its baseline. “We would definitely recommend ThreatLocker to our peers. The team is super great, the product is incredible, and we’ve not had any issues.”
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The main reason we wanted to partner with ThreatLocker was it allowed us to screen any software that’s being run or been installed on the networks and devices, as well as creating compliance lists for Cyber Essentials and ISO certifications because you can pull the lists of the approved software.”
