Every company needs to adopt security controls, either to manage the availability of resources or to protect the network environment.
Starting with the firewall, which allows you to separate the enterprise environment from external network traffic and filter all requests.
But this is only the first step, and therefore investment in security technology can be a challenge, especially for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).
The more devices you connect on the network and establish communication with the web, the greater the need to have a firewall. In the traditional approach, companies need to buy hardware and software to deploy the security features in their network. However, to lower costs, you can opt for contracts as a service.
What is security as a service?
As a service stands for products and services offered from a periodic contract. In the case of security, a SMB is exempt from the investment in hardware and software, payroll and support hours, by hiring an integrator who will be responsible for these offers, for example. The SMB signs a fixed-term contract and can change the scope of service according to new needs over time.
Hiring security as a service offers advantages for SMBs:
1. Pre-defined investment in various resources
SMBs should invest in security controls, either to keep their IT environment available and with quality performance, or to protect data. But in some cases, the cost of hardware ownership may be high for the company. Besides the product, there is also demand for a specialized professional that manages security, which means a more expensive payroll.
But opting for security as a service, a SMB has the possibility to invest in several resources in a more flexible way, adapted to their own reality. With a monthly, annual or multi-year contract, the company has access to reliable technology, integrated functionalities that manages and protects the environment, specialized support, without necessarily having professionals on its payroll and allocated hardware.
In terms of cost-benefit is an ideal fit for SMBs and beyond the points mentioned above, this modality can also reduce maintenance costs – depending on the contract terms, the responsibility may be the integrator’s.
2. Ability to scale resources
Every SMB wants to grow. And when the time comes to increase the operation, IT infrastructure and security must most certainly be in the planning. Business growth will reflect more investment to meet new needs – more users, more devices, increased network infrastructure, new applications, new hardware etc.
In the service acquisition format, you can update the terms of the agreement, adopting new security specifications as the company grows.
3. Availability for business-critical applications
High availability is a key feature to avoid business disruption. For example, malfunctions in the firewall may prevent connectivity or expose corporate devices to malicious traffic.
The company can opt for a security service that also meets high availability, without necessarily paying for the additional physical equipment, which will be offered by the integrator within the terms of the contract.
4. Increased productivity of teams
Culture in small businesses can be more flexible, but cannot do without productivity. Among the features that can collaborate for better team performance are web content filters and bandwidth control. The first ensures filtering of web pages that can be accessed, preventing users from being exposed to risky content on internet pages, while bandwidth control manages network resources for the activities that are most important at any given time.
With more than 5,000 clients, Blockbit is one of the leading manufacturers of cybersecurity solutions, empowering businesses to protect themselves against a wide range of threats, vulnerabilities, and cyberattacks, whether internal or external, generic or specific.