Partner Newsletter June 2022

Dear ,

As I write this newsletter, summer has really begun. Temperatures well above 20 degrees were reason for me to write a blog: buy an umbrella as long as the sun shines brightly (Dutch). Unfortunately, some pretty heavy weather coming up again.

In this newsletter we honour that W.T. International has become a Platinum Partner, we introduce the UX interviews with Martin, we share with you best practices on how to successfully convert PoCs to order and invite you to join a webinar to learn how to sell Guardian360 services easily.

Of course, in this newsletter there is also a Lighthouse update. This month we'll release the scheduled scanning functionality some partners are despirately waiting for! We're still working on a blog how to use Power Automate to connect to the Lighthouse API, so a link to that will arrive in your mailbox somewhat later.

CISA, NSA, FBI, and similar organizations in the other Five Eyes countries are warning that attacks on MSPs -- as a vector to their customers -- are likely to increase. No details about what this prediction is based on. It makes sense, though. The SolarWinds attack was incredibly successful for the Russian SVR, and a blueprint for future attacks. We'll update you on this in this newsletter as well.

Greetings,
On behalf of the Guardian360 team,

Jan Martijn Broekhof

Managing Director

Platinum partner W.T. International

Partner director Jeff handed over a Platinum Partner award to W.T. International. W.T. International is a long time partner, we're enthustiastic about them becoming a Platinum Partner. It proves to us that sustainable partnerships are the way to go and we need the digital infrastructure to be a safer place!

Within Guardian360, we are happy with all of our partnerships, but because our Platinum partners have committed to dedication and revenue, we want to put them in the spotlight.

UX/UI interviews

In the past weeks, Martin has been reading through our documentation and had many conversations with colleagues about the Lighthouse Platform. Meanwhile, a number of processes have been further professionalized by him and we are ready to start working on a new Lighthouse frontend (and a new corporate website) in a structured way!

Martin would like to receive your input for the new UX/UI of the Lighthouse platform. To that end, would you please schedule an online UX interview via the button below? The interview will last up to 30 minutes and will be conducted in English.

Converting PoCs to order

We are for some time providing partners with the opportunity to convince their customers of our services by offering a PoC. We started with a POC of 30 days, in the meantime we have learned that partners are by far the most successful when they reduce this period to 14 days.

Here's why: during the sales process these partners already informed the customer about all the possibilities and benefits of the Lighthouse platform as well as the monthly pricing. As a result, the client already agrees with the pricing before entering into the PoC phase.

The PoC is only to prove what the partner already sold to the client. During the 14 day period, successful partners check in with their clients regularly and consult them by discussing issues on the Lighthouse dashboard. Since scan results are visible after one or two days upon onboarding, and updated daily, there's no need to extend the trial period to 30 days.

As on the request of a few partners we limit the PoC period to 14 days from now on. We removed all texts on our website that refer to the 30 day period and want to kindly ask you to do the same.

Our advice is to make the PoC a standard part of you quotation. So the customer signs for the quote in which the trial is included. As soon as the PoC is ended with a positive result, it automatically becomes a contract.

Lighthouse update

In the past months our team developed on the scheduled scanning functionality. This functionality allows partners to administrate per scanner platform (central/probe) at what time our daily scanning starts. We're on track to deliver this desired function before the end of June, stay tuned!

Also, we're working on a new function that gives an overview of all "live" assets during the latest scan. We expect this functionality to become available within a few weeks as well.

In the past weeks we added new functionality to Guardian360 Lighthouse and we fixed some issues as well:

Feature: Expanded the number of columns in the issues download
Fix: Rotating IP addresses tile on dashboard
Fix: Select All checkbox on issues pages and contacts page
Fix: Problems logging in due to request throttling
Fix: Problems building dashboards stats
Fix: Problems with probe deployment

CISA, NSA, FBI AND INTERNATIONAL CYBER AUTHORITIES ISSUE CYBERSECURITY ADVISORY TO PROTECT MANAGED SERVICE PROVIDERS (MSP) AND CUSTOMERS

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), in partnership with the United Kingdom’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC-UK), Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC), Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (CCCS), New Zealand National Cyber Security Centre (NZ NCSC), National Security Agency (NSA), and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released an advisory with cybersecurity best practices for information and communications technology (ICT), focusing on enabling transparent discussions between managed service providers (MSPs) and their customers on securing sensitive data.

The advisory provides several actions that organizations can take to reduce their risk of becoming a victim to malicious cyber activity. Additionally, MSP customers should ensure their contractual arrangements specify that their MSP implements the measures and controls in this advisory, such as:
Prevent initial compromise by implementing mitigation resources to protect initial compromise attack methods from vulnerable devices, internet-facing services, brute force and password spraying, and phishing.
Enable monitoring and logging, including storage of most important logs for at least six months, and implement endpoint detection and network defense monitoring capabilities in addition to using application allowlisting/denylisting.
Secure remote access applications and enforce multifactor authentication (MFA) where possible to harden the infrastructure that enables access to networks and systems.
Develop and exercise incident response and recovery plans, which should include roles and responsibilities for all organizational stakeholders, including executives, technical leads, and procurement officers.
Understand and proactively manage supply chain risk across security, legal, and procurement groups, using risk assessments to identify and prioritize the allocation of resources.