How inSOC Helps Nostra, a Leading MSP, Expand Its Security Offering
KEVIN O’LOUGHLIN
CEO
Nostra is a managed services company founded in 2006. It has about 250 clients in Ireland, where it’s headquartered. Many of these clients also have offices in the UK, the US, Europe, South Africa, and Australia. Nostra’s clients include credit unions, pharmaceutical companies, and manufacturers such as Dawn Foods, Port West, and Amryt.
In the last five years, its revenues have increased sixfold, rising from €4 million in 2015 to €24 million in 2021. It now employs more than 160 people at its premises in Dublin, Laois and Galway. In the next five years, Nostra is aiming to grow revenues to €100 million, with security services contributing significantly to that growth.
The MSP offers comprehensive services to cover its clients’ day-to-day IT operational needs, such as help desk, infrastructure projects and cloud solutions. As the IT market evolves and customer demands increase, Nostra has had to become more proactive in addressing its clients’ IT security needs.
CHALLENGES
Increased Demand For Cybersecurity Services
High-profile security incidents, such as the Health Service Executive (HSE) data breach, highlighted the need to improve IT security for Nostra’s customers, and they started to seek advice from the MSP. Most customers look to Nostra to take care of their security needs instead of implementing a separate security program using a third-party supplier.
A key challenge has been that many of Nostra’s customers think that cybersecurity is just part of the operational side of IT. For example, they assume that some endpoint security measures, such as antivirus or email filtering solutions, are all they need to stay safe. As such, Nostra has had to educate its clients about their security gaps.
However, it’s not easy for non-technical customers to understand and prioritise their cybersecurity needs. For example, a client may choose to implement tactics that aren’t the most effective in reducing its security risks, despite Nostra’s effort to provide a prioritised security roadmap.
Meanwhile, Nostra has many clients in the financial industry, and increasingly they must meet tougher compliance standards. These clients need comprehensive vulnerability management and 24/7/365 security monitoring, services that are above and beyond what Nostra had offered traditionally.
Before working with inSOC, Nostra had worked with several other SOC as a Service providers. However, they didn’t have the complete solution that Nostra needed to address all aspects of IT security for its clients.
THE SOLUTION
Streamlined Delivery of Cybersecurity Services
When Nostra started using inSOC’s MSP Protect for its internal monitoring, it found the graded monthly risk report and the extensive support from the team invaluable, prompting the MSP to partner with inSOC to provide One Stop SOC security services to its clients.
Besides weekly meetings that keep all the projects moving forward, the inSOC team provides extensive onboarding and ongoing assistance whenever necessary to ensure that Nostra delivers the best security services to its customers. Because inSOC’s CISSP-led onboarding program hardens each protected environment to the NIST CSF and Critical Security Controls, false alarms and duplicate alerts are filtered out, ensuring that Nostra’s team need only focus on critical security items guided by inSOC’s expert SOC analysts.
“Every one of our customers request not only operational reports but also board-level reporting. We can easily use the inSOC reports along with some other security items across Microsoft 365 and other security tools we have to meet the customers’ needs. This information feeds into the effort to strengthen the security posture for the customer. The reporting is very good for everyone.”Gary Melvin, Security and Compliance Director, Nostra
Nostra also leverages inSOC’s monthly risk report to help its non-technical clients understand how to prioritise their resources to implement controls that will have the most impact. In fact, many of its customers are keen to see the reports and how their security postures are improving.
For example, if a client gets a low score on a particular item, they look to Nostra to help improve its security posture — opening up more revenue opportunities for the MSP while it offers more value to its customers.
“We sell the services as an additional layer of defence and a proactive approach to securing our customers’ networks. Clients value having the ability to understand what’s happening within their networks in real-time, so they can take immediate steps to ensure security while improving their long-term security posture”Gary Melvin, Security and Compliance Director, Nostra
The elements of long-term partnership and continuous improvement that inSOC provides are highly valuable for both Nostra and its customers, enabling them to proactively keep their security controls up-to-date to prevent issues from developing into crises.
THE RESULTS
A Joint Partnership That Helps Nostra Expand Its Customer Base
With inSOC’s support, Nostra has quickly established a security and compliance department to address its customers’ rising cybersecurity concerns. inSOC not only enables Nostra to offer the latest cybersecurity defence to its clients, but the responsive team also provides support in marketing, customer meetings, and presentations to improve customer satisfaction and drive sales.
Meanwhile, the transparent working relationship allows inSOC to get Nostra’s input and keep theMSP abreast of the improvements. When any issues need to be addressed, Nostra can quickly and easily access the right people for support.
Nostra plans on bringing many more customers onto inSOC’s platform to help them become more proactive with their IT security. inSOC’s offering allows Nostra to provide a holistic suite of cybersecurity services to its clients to meet market demands and generate sales while improving customer satisfaction and retention.
Why Partner with inSOC
- Fast track your cybersecurity offering and secure your clients
- Meet customer cybersecurity demands, drive sales, and increase revenue
- Focus on critical security issues and improve response time
- Get ongoing support to market and sell your cybersecurity services