Office Protect allows MSPs to proactively manage Microsoft 365 security

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Adam Harrington, President of Firelink Consulting, knew he needed a strong security offering to protect his clients’ Microsoft 365 tenants from cyberattacks but struggled to find the right solution.

“There really were no options available that were effective or things that we could easily implement for our clients. They were always too intensive both from a resource and from a management perspective.”

A Sherweb partner since 2017, Firelink Consulting provides application and security services along with technical support for approximately 60 SMB clients. While security has always been a part of their offering, Harrington was looking for a solution that allowed them to take a proactive approach, was affordable and simple to implement.

Harrington has a background in Information Security and sees many smaller organizations overlook Microsoft 365 security.

“A lot of small to medium-sized organizations have a tendency to gloss over it and say ‘this isn’t really in the budget,’ not understanding that it needs to be in the budget or else it can be really expensive when things go wrong.”

Finding the perfect fit with Office Protect

To ensure his clients were set up to meet the challenges of an evolving security landscape, Firelink Consulting decided on Office Protect, Sherweb’s in-house security software.

Office Protect offers a proactive approach to security and provides MSPs with effortless 24/7 security and monitoring for Microsoft 365. As a backend tool that requires no end client intervention, it’s the perfect solution for MSPs who want to strengthen their security offering and get up-and-running quickly.

“Office Protect has stopped things before they’re a problem. In the last 2 months, we have had at least 10 instances where we were able to deal with compromised accounts before it became an issue. We were able to lock down accounts and stop any kind of access before the user even noticed anything was going on and before anything left the organization. This is a very welcome solution.”

Beyond functionality, Office Protect offers MSPs an affordable security solution to bundle with Microsoft 365. This means reliable revenue and good margins for MSPs looking to enhance their security offering.

“It’s not only made a lot of the challenges we had prior to Office Protect go away, in general, it's really positioned us where we can offer services that we would never have been able to before.”

Peace of mind for MSPs

A main challenge that Harrington had in the past was dealing with the constant flow of alerts from Microsoft 365, especially from a security perspective. 

“One of the things we found originally is that there’s a huge amount of information that would come at you whenever you needed to get details around what was going on within the Microsoft 365 space and you become a little bit blind to it.”

This is where Office Protect really shines for busy MSPs. Office Protect Core offers around-the-clock threat protection, monitoring, alerts and reporting services, all from one portal. Office Protect Alliance has the added benefit of managed detection and response (MDR) from Sherweb’s security experts to free MSPs from the cycle of constantly monitoring alerts. 

“The MDR service with Office Protect Alliance has been fantastic. It’s reduced the noise and the amount of email traffic that we receive on monitoring and alerts and really given me peace of mind and time after hours to relax.”

Beyond giving Harrington some time back, offering Office Protect has saved Firelink from having to add up to two full-time employees to manage the growth they’ve seen in the past year. Leveraging the Sherweb team of experts with Office Protect has ensured that they can continue to offer the same level of service to their clients while only getting involved when they need to be.

“We’re a small team so we don’t have endless resources. This has been a big bonus for us.”

Essential addition to any MSP security offering

Overall, Harrington sees the benefit of Office Protect as twofold—protecting his clients’ money and reputation while also providing those same benefits to MSPs like himself. 

“It’s something I generally, if not always, recommend to my clients. As much as it hurts to lose money, it also hurts your reputation as an organization to fall victim to malicious attacks. Office Protect is critical from my perspective for our security offering as it provides us the peace of mind that we’re monitoring and managing our clients’ email infrastructure and Microsoft 365 environment against any potential threats or intrusions.”

As far as future growth for Firelink’s use of Office Protect, Harrington expects the demand will continue to grow from his clients as security needs change and evolve across industries. 

“It’s 100% there to stay as an offering for Firelink and something that we’ll continue to leverage and push as a solution that most businesses need to think about.”