Security is essential for everyone, no matter which department a person works in, how big or small the company is, or what industry the organization belongs to. Sensitive data is sensitive data. That gives managed service providers (MSPs) an easy opening to initiate conversations with customers about routine security checks. As their trusted security advisor, MSPs are also perfectly positioned to evaluate clients’ security posture and offer solutions to help improve it. Vulnerability assessments are an excellent place to start this process.
What are vulnerability assessments?
A vulnerability assessment is a method of identifying security weaknesses in a given IT environment. The process could apply to specific applications, solutions, networks, an entire IT infrastructure or a combination of all these elements. The results of a vulnerability assessment inform an organization and/or IT provider about risk areas that should be addressed and prioritized according to their respective risk level, and typically provide paths to remediation.
It’s not exactly rocket science to figure out why vulnerability assessments are important. If you’re not on the lookout for areas where you might be open to a security breach or attack, you’re more or less rendering yourself defenseless against malicious intent, which could result in disaster.
Assessments aren’t static. Threats come and go and evolve as new security measures appear, or as new tools arrive on the market. Because of this, MSPs offering vulnerability assessments should conduct them continually to ensure client environments stay as secure as possible. By doing this, MSPs can also build stronger relationships with customers by bringing new or changing vulnerabilities to their attention when they arise.
Types of vulnerability assessments
Because there are so many moving pieces within an organization, there’s more than one way to determine whether a company’s infrastructure and processes are at risk of losing valuable data and assets. The process for each security test is to identify the problem, evaluate the systems and processes in the environment, mitigate risks, and then create a prevention plan.
As mentioned above, individual vulnerability assessments could be conducted on applications, networks or databases. An MSP could also assess the security of physical IT assets such as computers, hard drives, IoT devices or on-premises servers. The efficacy of internal security policies could be assessed for security vulnerabilities as well. For example, a company might not have adequate safeguards in place for educating employees about social engineering schemes or the proper handling of sensitive information, which could leave them open to attack just as easily as unpatched software.
Benefits of vulnerability assessments for MSP clients
Mitigating risk and improving security posture
One of the main selling points for an MSP performing these security checks is the ability to mitigate risk for customers. These assessments uncover risks that wouldn’t have been noticed otherwise. To better understand their customer’s environment, MSPs will usually test each system’s capabilities and note shortcomings. After testing, they’re able to do a few things. First, they provide insights to leaders as well as users on what is problematic. Second, they can decide what the best mitigation strategy is to implement to create a more healthy, safe environment.
Compliance
Ensuring compliance from an industry standpoint is another benefit of vulnerability assessments for MSP clients. Depending on the industry, there may be just one or a few compliance standards that an organization needs to adhere to. Examples include the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), just to name a few. A security assessment can flag when there’s something amiss with an organization’s security settings that may affect compliance. Identifying such issues is undoubtedly helpful, as it ensures business data can remain safe in both an operational and legal standing.
Cost savings
According to IBM’s 2024 Cost of a Data Breach Report, the average cost of a breach is currently $4.88 million—a devastating sum for many businesses. While implementing proper cybersecurity solutions and procedures are an obvious first line of defense against breaches and attacks, regular assessments of those systems help to ensure they’re working as intended and prevent any gaps from forming before they can be taken advantage of. Beyond the extreme of a costly data breach, however, a vulnerability assessment’s ability to pinpoint risks for potential data loss due to human error or an out-of-date solution can also result in cost savings MSP clients will appreciate.
Looking to offer vulnerability assessments to clients? Start with Microsoft 365
The benefits of offering vulnerability assessments to your MSP’s clients are clear, but knowing exactly where to start might be a murkier subject. When in doubt, the low-hanging fruit is never a bad option.
Not only is Microsoft 365 a solution suite that many MSPs already offer and that millions of businesses already use, it’s also a magnet for cybercrime. More than 600 million attacks target Microsoft customers every day, and tech scams have increased by 400% since 2022. Any MSP managing Microsoft 365 licenses and environments for clients would therefore be well advised to make this area their launchpad for offering vulnerability assessments.
Office Protect makes this very easy to accomplish. Designed to monitor and protect Microsoft 365, the solution also equips MSPs with a simple yet effective security assessment that scans a client’s security settings and configurations to determine whether their environment is on par with expert recommendations. From there, your MSP can take necessary action to remediate any vulnerabilities the assessment identifies. Try it out!
Try our Office Protect Security Assessment
Deliver comprehensive cybersecurity for your MSP clients with an experienced partner
As an experienced Microsoft cloud solution provider, Sherweb understands the intricacies of delivering quality services for MSPs and their clients, cybersecurity included. Our experts can help your MSP business with a lot more than making vulnerability assessments a profitable piece of your offering! Reach out to us today to start a conversation, or check out our partner guide for more information about how we can help your business grow.
