Protecting Small Businesses from Malicious Attacks through Managed Service Providers

Managed services are a key opportunity for service providers to increase their customer relevance, boost customer lifetime value, and grow top-line revenues. One of our passions in Cisco’s Service Provider team is working with our partners to develop differentiated services which expand the business value for our joint end-user business customers. Working together, we then help these business customers realize digital transformation which fundamentally enhances the relationships and experience with their consumers.

With most industries’ business models changing so quickly, the survivors will be the ones successful in creating this B2B value and staying agile. There are risks, however. Cyber security threats are advancing at an equivalent pace to value producing technologies. These malicious technologies pose a tremendous risk to smaller businesses in particular as SMBs have the same security challenges as large enterprises, but they have fewer advanced tools and specialized IT staff to protect them.

Consider this finding from the Cisco 2018 Security Capabilities Benchmark Study: More than half of all cyber attacks result in financial damages of more than US$500,000 including, but not limited to, lost revenue, customers, opportunities, and out-of-pocket costs. That amount is enough to put an unprepared small business out of operation.

To help keep business consumers and their data secure, Cisco recently partnered with Canada-based Rogers Communications to offer Enhanced Security as part of their Rogers Business Internet offering. Based on Cisco’s Umbrella for SPs Easy Protect cloud-based security platform, Rogers is able to offer an extremely effective, yet simple to consume, defense against common Internet-based security threats. Domain Name System or DNS security is built right in to the connectivity service and automatically blocks access to malicious sites, stopping malware attacks without slowdown.

We have also seen similar success with Telecom Italia and their TIM Safe Web solution. Looking to safeguard small and mid-size business users from malware, TIM Safe Web was rolled out to more than 600,000 consumers, with fewer than 1 in 10,000 opting out of the service. You can read more about this customer story here.

These managed services partnerships are truly a win-win: the small business consumer has the assurance of knowing its users and data are protected, and the service provider is able to strengthen the value of its broadband services while reducing support expenses related to security incidents.

At Cisco, we achieve our joint success with service provider partners by building flat, agile, cost-effective networks that support their services. We then develop with them new managed services, like these examples above, to grow their B2B relevance and revenues. All while lowering their risk with the best support in the industry and the strongest financial breadth in the networking space.

To learn more about managed service offerings, some of our small business programs, and hear from our SPs on what it takes to be successful – please join us at Cisco Live San Diego 2019 or contact your Cisco account team.