Office Protect: affordable security for small business

Convincing small business owners to buy security packages for Office 365 isn’t that easy. Just ask Stephen Shaw. The Indiana-based Managed Service Provider (MSP) said while his customers liked the idea of added protection, they weren’t always keen on the price tag.

Then Shaw discovered Office Protect, Sherweb’s own security management solution for Office 365.

“I knew that Office 365 was going to have to be a big cornerstone for my business, but I couldn’t get customers to buy the advanced security packages that are offered by Microsoft. I knew my customers were going to need them, but the cost was too high. Office Protect was easy to add on. It’s cost-effective and it’s easy to sell because of that.”

While Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection can cost up to $5.00/ month (which doesn’t include licenses), Sherweb’s Office 365 customers can get good security protection with Office Protect for about $1 per seat per month.

Sherweb’s in-house solution offers threat protection, monitoring, alerts and reporting services, all from one portal.

A good choice

Office Protect has also been a good choice for Shaw, who runs a one-man MSP called White River Networks. He’s been a Sherweb partner for about a year and currently has about 24 clients, mostly in professional services.

When his very first client, a financial services company, was hit by a cyberattack, Office Protect came to the rescue. Shaw had gone to the client’s site for an Office 365 issue when he discovered phishing emails that appeared to be coming from Venezuela and Algeria.

“One user had their global administrator password compromised through phishing. The hackers were logging into the client’s Outlook web application and essentially having access to an entire mailbox. The other user had been compromised through malware to an RSS feed that was publicly viewable on the internet. That was the first time I’d seen that kind of attack. The first one was a general run-of-the-mill kind of thing. But the other one was a step above, because it required execution on the user’s workstation.”

Too expensive

Shaw said he had offered these clients an Office 365 security and protection package, but they said it was too expensive. They were hoping to create a viable solution on their own. When that backfired, Shaw presented Office Protect. The clients agreed to try it and their security issues were soon resolved.

“There were more attempts to access their accounts through phishing email attacks. But Office Protect has settings to enable phishing protection. These settings increased security to the point where those emails were being caught and stopped.”

Shaw said he believes Office Protect is such a valuable security solution that he makes it mandatory for all his Office 365 clients. He added that one of the great things about Office Protect is that it’s easy for a small business owner to understand.

“Even if a company has internal IT employees, many aren’t lead engineers. Companies don’t have those skills. They can’t look at logs and identify one red flag out of thousands. Office Protect does that for you and it streamlines your MSP workflow.”

Multiple cyberattacks common

Shaw said once a client has been hit by a cyberattack, chances are very high that it will happen again. He said one of the reasons for multiple attacks is that people heavily reuse their passwords. He said users are also dealing with a more sophisticated hacking process.

“If somebody gets your email address in a hacked database, not only can they use it at the company where they got it, but they use bots to try these combinations across millions of web pages. And it’s automated. It’s not like the stereotype of a few guys sitting in the basement anymore. It’s college-educated, state-sponsored groups that are hacking accounts, websites and private companies.”

Because Shaw is running a one-man show, he’s decided to focus on cloud-based solutions. He said he can make more money that way than by working with on-premises solutions. He also likes the idea of building Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) as a Sherweb partner. Shaw currently offers his clients services for Office 365, Azure, Office Protect and Sherweb’s Online Backup and Cloud PBX solutions.

“Sherweb makes me great margins. I could not imagine being a one-man shop and not having Sherweb for the recurring side (MRR). If I had to deal with companies like Ingram Micro and TechData, I would not be able to get my work done. (Dealing with these big companies), you don’t know who you’re talking to; it’s different people all the time. It’s just really easy to build Monthly Recurring Revenue with Sherweb. It’s easier than working with any other company.”