A Step Ahead in Cyber Protection: The Strategic Advantage of Email Security for MSPs

Nearly every organisation, regardless of its size or industry, relies on email to underpin daily operations. Our ubiquitous use of email has not gone unnoticed to cybercriminals who continue to exploit it to distribute malware, phishing scams, and other malicious campaigns.

Given the evolving threat landscape, email security is crucial to prevent unauthorised access and data breaches. For MSPs, incorporating email security into their service portfolio is not just about protecting customers. It’s also a key component to driving business growth and ensuring customer retention.

We caught up with Rob Anderson, Director of Sales Engineering – MSP International at Barracuda to discuss the critical importance of email security for small to medium- sized businesses (SMBs) and how offering it as a service can be a strategic move for MSPs.

What is Email Security?

Email security is an umbrella term for the technologies used to secure the access and content of an email account or service. It protects against unauthorised access, loss, or compromise of email systems, ensuring the privacy and integrity of email messages, and shielding both senders and receivers from malicious threats. There are several components to email security, discover more about each type and which is the best fit for your business here.

Securing the Frontier

By outsourcing email security to an MSP, SMBs can focus on business growth, secure in the knowledge that risks associated with email-based threats have been mitigated.

Barracuda offers comprehensive email protection for MSPs to protect their customers from email-borne threats, as Rob explores:

“Email is the largest point of entry for threats with some organisations stating that it accounts for over 90% of cyberattacks. The email threat landscape is evolving daily with attackers finding new ways to gain access into people’s accounts, steal credentials and reach their end goal – financial gain. There are a multitude of solutions available to secure your business from email-based attacks, but we find a ‘defence in depth’ approach to be the most successful. We have been protecting customers email environments for over 20 years and the evolution of our security offering has changed significantly in that time. We can’t sit still and neither can anyone who uses email for their business.”

With the rising complexity and severity of email attacks, the reasons for SMBs to adopt comprehensive email security are compelling.

Protection Against Threats: Email security reduces the risk of security breaches by shielding against various email-based attacks such as phishing, spear phishing, ransomware, malware, and spam.

Data Protection: SMBs, like any business, have a responsibility to take effective measures to safeguard sensitive data contained within emails by taking protective measures to prevent unauthorised access and data breaches.

Reduced Downtime: By preventing malicious attacks, email security helps in reducing the downtime caused by security incidents, ensuring business continuity.

Cost Savings: Email security helps to avoid the significant costs associated with a security breach which include the downtime, loss of business, remediation expenses and any potential regulatory fines.

Improved Productivity: By filtering out spam and malicious emails, employees can focus on their tasks without being distracted by irrelevant or harmful content.

A Step Ahead in Cyber Protection

By offering email security MSPs can enhance their solution offering and demonstrate their commitment to being a trusted cyber security advisor.

Rob clarifies how:

“Selling email protection is a fantastic way to open the door to new business. Due to email threats being in such high numbers and the percentage of businesses that leverage email daily, it’s an easy conversation to have. With the growing adoption of SaaS services and the reduction in on-premises infrastructure this will only make this more important, people are generating more data than ever before and they have requirements to protect that data from attacks, whilst being confident they can recover if the worst should happen.”

Offering email security services to your customers provides:

Differentiation in the Market: As the MSP market becomes more saturated, offering specialised services such as email security can be a differentiating factor. It can help an MSP stand out and offer added value to new and existing customers.

Recurring Revenue Stream: Email security, like other managed services, offers the potential for a predictable and recurring revenue stream.

Customer Retention: Security breaches, especially via email, can be disastrous for businesses. By offering robust email security, MSPs not only protect their customers but also increase their own chances of customer retention. Customers are more likely to stick with an MSP that offers proactive protection and demonstrates its commitment to their security.

Holistic Service Offering: Customers prefer a one-stop-shop for all their IT needs. By including email security in the suite of services, an MSP presents itself as a comprehensive solution provider.

Steadfast Support

At intY, we understand the pivotal role email security plays in today’s dynamic threat landscape. We are unwavering in supporting our MSPs to expand and enhance their service offerings and remain competitive. Our specialised team of experts will work with you to integrate the right email security solution seamlessly into your cybersecurity stack and provide training so your team can deliver on your service goals.

Prevent and Protect with Barracuda Email Protection

With more than 90% of cyberattacks beginning with an email, email security is a fundamental basic of cyber hygiene that all SMBs should have. By leveraging our strong relationships with leading vendors, such as Barracuda, we help MSPs to build simple and straightforward security service offerings that can protect their customers.

Rob concludes:

“There are a large number of security vendors who offer fantastic email security solutions for MSPs to sell but we don’t believe there is a security vendor with the level of depth in their portfolio that Barracuda offers. We have a dedicated team who solely focus on Managed Service Providers who know what an MSP needs to be successful. 

Our portfolio has been packaged in a way that is easy to sell, deploy and manage which is what every MSP is looking for. We are constantly asking our partners for feedback and refining our model to ensure we adapt and evolve as the managed services market changes. If we do the right things by our partners, we know how successful they can be and their business will grow.”

Powered by threat intelligence, Barracuda can help your customers to detect, prevent and recover from advanced malware, ransomware, and phishing attempts.

Crafting Robust Cybersecurity Services

Email remains the most common entry point for cyberattacks which is why protecting this crucial communication channel is so vital. MSPs that display an understanding of this primary threat vector can position themselves as a forward-thinking and comprehensive security service partner. Partner with intY and we will provide the resources, support, and expertise you need to evolve your service offering.

Contact us today and accelerate your business success by offering email security services.