Building vulnerability management into your MSP portfolio

Running a profitable MSP is a challenge in a changing digital ecosystem. It’s particularly tough when you want to expand – such as by establishing yourself as a vulnerability management authority.

People know security matters, but they naturally want proof. Selling your services requires you to lay out the value proposition in real terms, yet your chosen field doesn’t always make this easy. With dozens of new dangers cropping up at each scan, achieving 100 per cent remediation is a pipe dream. It’s extremely tough to deliver vulnerability management offerings that would undoubtedly expand your client base.

Tough but not impossible as this article will explain. But first, why do you need a vulnerability management offering?

Why the vulnerability management sector is aching for help

The vulnerability management sector is growing, and the reason for this is clear when you look at the data. According to Forbes, 2021 saw an astounding 37 per cent of all organisations suffer ransomware attacks, incurring an average recovery price tag of $1.85 million.  

At the same time, there was a broad consensus that companies seemed fairly unprepared to handle these issues. Shockingly, more than 40 per cent of small businesses lacked any form of cybersecurity plan, and 85 per cent of MSPs said that ransomware was among the largest threats their small business clients faced.

A good risk management plan stands to save your clients millions. And as enterprises increase their adoption of cloud and distributed technologies, and breaches become more common, you’re likely to receive more inquiries about preventative measures. You’d better be ready to meet the demand.

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The fundamentals of an effective vulnerability management program

Overseeing vulnerability management programs can be tough. You only have so many people, and the hackers you’re up against seem to have infinite time. But, as we’ve stated, there’s a huge opportunity for growth if you can introduce an effective, high-value vulnerability management offering. Here are our tips for how to do it.  

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Build the right team and keep it ready

Having skilled people on board is vital. Your human assets need to be able to shift gears, adapt to new problems, and recognise threats that others might overlook. They also can’t afford to lose their edge as threat landscapes evolve. In short, you need to allocate ample time for training and business development if you want to stay ahead – not ask your staff to hone their skills on their own time.

Your management practices must also promote continuity. With skills shortages and high staff turnover rife in the cybersecurity industry, think about instituting training programs that make it easy to onboard replacements when team members leave. This should go a long way in helping make everyday work as seamless as possible. In addition, think about how you can automate typical administrative tasks to improve workers’ job satisfaction and free them up to deliver the security insights your customers value.

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Make prioritisation automatic

A critical part of effective vulnerability management is the prioritisation stage. By focusing on the most critical problems, you’ll make it easier to resource your client work realistically, and successfully patch the issues that pose the greatest threats.

Manual triage is unavoidably time-consuming. Even if you’re a project management master, there simply aren’t enough hours in a day to handle everything by hand.

RankedRight research revealed that manual triage eats up about £48,000 (or $63,474) per team on average annually. And that’s not the only cost!

Automating prioritisation is the smarter alternative. When all you need to do is define a ruleset and let the system work out which threats meet your criteria, you gain the freedom to strengthen other aspects of your operation – like how you respond, manage training, and promote client transparency that differentiates your business.  

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Invest in the superior systems

Building a stronger back-end tool kit improves your odds of delivering solutions when it counts. Ensure you have an accurate, thorough vulnerability scanning system in place, assuming your clients don’t have one in place already, and then add on tools and software that will equip you to be able to act on the scan data as quickly and effectively as possible.

A tool like RankedRight is perfect here as it ingests the scan data, enriches it with vulnerability intelligence and then prioritises and assigns the vulnerabilities in minutes, according to the rules you’ve set. This enables you to provide clients with quick, effective and consistent remediation straight off the bat.

Understand your differentiator – and how to promote it

If you introduce a vulnerability management offering, what will set you apart from other MSSPs or MSPs? Working out the answer to this is crucial if you are to attract customers.  

While price could be one obvious factor, it’s crucial to take a more comprehensive look at what makes your services worthwhile compared to others. For instance, if you use an automation system that lets you prioritise and triage vulnerabilities faster, you’ll also need to ensure the time gains translate to value for the customer.

In some cases, knowing your differentiator isn’t enough. You may also benefit from hiring a marketer to spread the word. If this isn’t in the cards soon, you can start testing your offering by selling to your existing customer base first. This should generate some accurate performance data for client case studies, and backing your advertising propositions with hard figures could determine whether your next big marketing campaign evokes a positive response.

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Provide better risk management with RankedRight

Prioritisation is the future of effective risk management. Automation is how MSPs will meet that destiny, and it works much better when you actually understand what’s going on behind the curtain.

RankedRight grants you the convenience of time-saving automation without asking you to relinquish control. You can peek under the hood without losing sight of the road ahead, fine-tune priority rules, generate comprehensive reports, and track performance data to provide a more complete vulnerability management service. Improve your public-facing offerings, achieve optimal efficiency, and save your clients some heartache by booking a demo today.

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