NAK - IT and Networking Managed Services
Securing your business to stay one step ahead
Never before has the requirement for IT to be both secure and yet more integrated into multiple services and clouds, been more pressing than in today’s increasingly digital workplace. Traditional on-premise and appliance-based technology is no longer solely fit for purpose to cope with an increasingly dispersed workforce, demanding integration into multiple cloud technologies for core business applications. This new way of working demands a radical rethink of traditional perimeter security and devices. No longer is the trusted and un-trusted approach capable of meeting today's sophisticated security threats. A Zero Trust approach allows businesses to safely and securely integrate with multiple third parties and cloud platforms whilst providing maximum protection to the IT security threat.
Identity and Access Management
NAK helps businesses ensure strong identity governance and access management is implemented using leading vendor solutions and services. Digital transformation increasingly demands adopting a cloud-first approach to IDM / IdAM, and we understand the challenges businesses face, not only for their organisation internally, but when federation and wider connectivity and integration is required.
We help your business to achieve the appropriate configuration of User Management, Centralised Repositories, Authentication and Authorisation and Federation.
End-User Management
End-user computing is evolving at a rapid pace and is no longer only about the device and applications your users utilise to carry out their work. Data is now one of the most critical assets of any organisation. The protection of this data is vital, especially given the liabilities of today's legislation, coupled with the potential financial and reputational loss a business can suffer after a data breach. Securing your people while at the same time further empowering them to leverage the ever-growing list of business applications, is key to ensuring a successful business.
Endpoint Protection
Data is often the most valuable asset a company has and to lose that data, or access to it could put the entire business at risk. With the rise in the number and types of endpoints coupled with the dramatic move to homeworking due to the 2020 pandemic, endpoint protection is a vital part of any organisation's cybersecurity. The threat landscape continues to change aggressively, with hackers creating new and creative ways to gain access, steal data and manipulate employees into giving away sensitive information. When you consider the cost of reallocating valuable resources away from essential business goals to address threats, the damage to reputation after a large-scale breach, and the financial cost of compliance violations, you can see why having the right endpoint solution in place is a must-have to secure your enterprise.
Our experienced team of the end-user and mobility specialists fully understand the challenges your business faces. They will work with you to design, implement and support the most appropriate endpoint protection solution. We work with leading technology vendors and will match the right solution based on your needs and business requirements:
> Anti-virus protection,
> Anti-malware protection
> Web filtering and security
> DNS protection and
> Device control
Mobile Device Management
With the proliferation of mobile devices in the workplace, both corporate and personal, your business must have the right solution to ensure these devices are secure, while still allowing users the ability to maximise their productivity when out of the office. As MDM solutions continue to advance at a fast pace, and the number of solutions in the market continues to grow, an MDM solution must form part of your overall security strategy rather than traditional standalone technology.
We work with the leading MDM vendors providing both on-premise and cloud solutions. We have extensive knowledge in the design, planning, deployment and support of modern MDM technology. We will work with you to ensure that the right solution is provided, based upon your needs.
Security and Vulnerability Management
> Patching as a Service
> Monitoring as a Service
> Back-up as a Service
Patching as a Service
Comprehensive support for maximum security and compliance
Patching is, at the same time, one of the essential pillars of any company's security policy and a laborious task of administration that is often overlooked. It's unsurprising, then, that Microsoft finds that the majority of security breaches among its customers exploit vulnerabilities that could have been closed with readily available patches. Patch releases vary hugely, and many are issued at short notice to deal with high risk or critical vulnerabilities while missing even routine patches can result in unacceptable risks to a business.
Performing routine maintenance is critical to the health and stability of your IT estate. While most businesses recognise this, projects are also important, and it’s easy for maintenance to be demoted to a lower priority. Added to this are the complications that many businesses experience in implementing patching:
> More than half of all companies say that they spend more time manually navigating the various processes involved than actually patching vulnerabilities (1).
> Patching needs to be completed outside of working hours, adding an additional strain to an already busy workforce.
> On average it takes 12 days for teams to coordinate the application of a patch across all devices (2)
> Nearly two-thirds of companies struggle to identify the priority level of each software patch and subsequently decide which need updating first (3).
Patching as a Service is NAK’s fully outsourced security management service. We assist client IT support teams in managing the deployment of patches to server and workstation operating systems using leading toolsets adapted to suit your own policy and processes. The service incorporates vulnerability and anti-virus management.
Benefits of NAK’s Patching as a Service:
> Increased security through automated patching
> Remedial patching
> Staged deployment to minimise impact and costs
> Reduced risk from third party applications
> Increased visibility from NAK reporting
> Regulatory compliance to industry standard
“NAK started providing their patching services to us in 2016, enabling us to not only get up to date with our patching but enabling us to put in place a robust and repetitive approach. By providing this piece of essential service it meant our engineers were freed up to further manage our infrastructure. Patching is a critical piece of our service delivery model and was an integral piece in helping us pass our audit with flying colours! “
Lucy Jones, Head of European Service Delivery, Inchcape Plc
Security Patch Management
Security Patch Management encompasses Operating System security and vulnerability updates that are released on a monthly cycle. Our managed service includes:
> Pre and post deployment system monitoring
> Patch schedule and maintenance windows
> Deployment testing and approval
> Pre and post deployment validation and reporting
> Server/patch issue remediation and ownership
1. European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA),
2. Cyber Security Skills Gap” Information Systems Audit and Control Association (IASCA),
3. Ponemon Institute Cybersecurity Study 2018
Third Party Patching
The vulnerabilities of third-party software and assets is an often overlooked risk. Our patching service extends to include critical updates for Linux, UNIX, Mac, Google and applications from hundreds of vendors. We use the leading vendor tools to discover online and offline and workstations and servers, scanning for missing security and vulnerability patches, and deploying them when and where required.
Vulnerability Management
Vulnerabilities in your IT environment can often arise outside standard server patch schedules. Without scanning, you won’t know whether your systems and applications have become more vulnerable or if there is a significant security risk. This in turn can lead to compliance problems, especially with industry standards such as Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI- DSS) and Cyber Essentials / Cyber Essentials Plus.
Vulnerability Management enables the scanning of environments and applications in order to produce a list of security vulnerabilities that require addressing. These are remediated using a variety of automated and manual processes.
Vulnerability Management enables core-infrastructure services and applications to be maintained at an agreed version level in order to sustain vendor support and meet any regulatory compliance expectations. Our service includes:
> The review of vulnerability scan output reports
> Management of the remediation, escalation and deviation of all identified vulnerabilities
> Regular reporting
Anti-Virus Management
We can manage anti-virus solutions implemented across your IT estate, including:
> Installation and monitoring of managed clients
> Scheduled updating of client definitions for workstation and servers
> Regular reporting as part of our Service Account Management
Monitoring as a Service
Eyes on every part of your IT estate
Effective monitoring is an essential part of maintaining a healthy IT environment. You can quickly discover faults in the network and maintain a clear picture of the pressures on different parts of your infrastructure. This in turn can inform decisions on reconfiguration and investment, improving the performance of the estate and managing issues before they become problems. Monitoring is a 24 hour activity, and for many companies it is a task ideally suited to outsourcing.
Our service uses market-leading software to monitor your network, servers and applications around- the-clock from our Service Operations Centre. We can configure it according to your business priorities, creating your own dashboards and reporting protocols, and the system is fully scalable. The service is flexible and you have the option either to fully or part outsource to us. We can even monitor your own monitoring.
Why it’s needed
> Fault detection
> Network management
> Pro-active re-configuration
> Inform investment priorities
Benefits of NAK’s Monitoring as a Service
> Globally available support 24/7/365
> Configurable and scalable
> Fully outsourced or hybrid
> Cost saving, in most cases
Backup as a Service
Targeted backup for your most important data
The effective and secure backing up of your data is the cornerstone of any information security policy and essential reassurance for your customers and end-users. Risks to your data include not just accidental deletion, software corruption and hardware failure, but increasing threats from malware, malicious actors and ransomware. GDPR compliance is an important factor to consider for most companies, and it is good practice to back up data in a location separate from where the original is held. Not all data is of equal importance, and the most vital will need backing up more frequently than
data at lower risk.
Cloud based backup provides a ready solution to all of these issues. Our service combines market-leading software built on NAK’s own cloud infrastructure. It can reach into all parts of your network, including datacentres, cloud, and branch offices, and can be configured to protect all the data essential to the running of the business. Your data will be stored only in compliance with the highest standards, and you’ll receive regular updates on your backup status.
Why it’s needed
> Vital to your information security policy
> Essential to business continuity
> Reassurance to customers and end-users
> High level compliance
Benefits of NAK’s Backup as a Service
> Prioritise key data
> Data sovereignty guarantee
> Ransomware protection
> Service Desk 24/7/365
SIEM
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) is a software solution that aggregates and analyses activity from many different resources across your entire IT infrastructure. SIEM tools are an essential part of the data security ecosystem because they aggregate data from multiple systems and analyse that data to catch unusual behaviour or potential cyberattacks. SIEM tools provide a central place to collect events and alerts, providing you with an overall view of your threat landscape.
SIEM collects security data from many areas within your IT infrastructure, including; network devices, servers, domain controllers, and more. It stores, normalises, aggregates, and applies analytics to that data which in turn enables organisations to discover trends, detect threats, and enables you to investigate any alerts.
SIEM provides two primary capabilities to your internal IT Security team:
> Forensics and reporting about security incidents
> Alerts based on analytics that match a defined rule set, which indicates a security issue
At its core, SIEM is a data aggregator, search, and reporting system. SIEM gathers immense amounts of data from your entire networked environment, consolidates and makes that data humanly accessible. With the data categorised and laid out, you can research potential data security breaches with as much detail as needed.
Gartner highlights three critical capabilities for SIEM - threat detection, investigation and time to respond. When considering a SIEM solution, you must ensure that it includes the following key features & functionalities:
> Basic security monitoring
> Advanced threat detection
> Forensics & incident response
> Log collection
> Normalisation
> Notifications and alerts
> Security incident detection
> Threat response workflow
NAK works with leading SIEM solution vendors which are deployed and supported by our highly experienced security engineers to provide a 24x7 fully managed and tailored SIEM service. By providing this vital threat detection service, we allow our clients to use their precious and often limited resources to focus on the critical tasks of remediating the threat, ensuring your business is kept safe and protected.