On constant alert yet short-sighted: How MSPs can avoid alert fatigue with a complete SaaS security offering

Today, threat alerts have become fundamental to IT security, but are they enough in a time when traditional infrastructure has been eclipsed by cloud apps and remote users?

While alerts are effective and necessary, no MSP securing a modern SaaS ecosystem should rely on alerts alone, and there are a few important reasons for this.

The first is the steady increase of Alert Fatigue, the phenomenon whereby the sheer volume of red flags overwhelms security professionals, uses resources, and leads to an unbalanced alert investigation.

Of course, Alert Fatigue is not new. It has been a challenge for several years now and is said to be a leading cause of cybersecurity burnout. A survey from 2018 of MSPs providing IT security published by Advanced Threat Analytics (ATA) found that 44% of respondents experienced false-positive with alerts of at least 50%.

What happens in that scenario is down to human nature: if more than half of all alerts are false alarms, your vigilance will eventually wear down, and you’ll start to selectively favouring certain types of alerts over others. (You’ll also start to question the cost-effectiveness of your methods.)

On this front, the ATA report found that:

• 67% of MSPs adjusted specific alerts in ways that would reduce alert volume
• 38% ignored certain categories of alerts
• 24% had to and hire more analysts to cope

The profound benefits of early distant warnings

Even if MSPs can avoid major problems with Alert Fatigue, relying solely on alerts has to be seen in the big picture as a short-sighted approach to security. After all, is it more effective to merely deal with risks that are essentially on your doorstep or to strengthen your ability to address them when they’re still a good distance away?

To some extent, security will always be reactive, but it also must be proactive, especially if MSPs want to avoid having customers crippled by a major data breach from a threat that slipped through the cracks. Proactive tools can not only help organizations implement security best practices such as Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), but they can also chart a clear path towards full MFA adoption and track exactly which security policies are in place across a customer’s environment.

A leading-edge platform such as Augment Secure gives you this very combination of insight and foresight for a more comprehensive SaaS security picture that reaches far beyond alert limitations. Unique reporting tools lets MSPs show customers their vulnerabilities in a concrete way, providing a road map for addressing the high-priority risks and for documenting the successful interventions.

With all this and more, Augment Secure gives MSPs a greatly expanded view of SaaS security—a view that can directly translate into more services sold to more customers. With multi-tenant visibility across any customer or prospect, Secure lets MSPs filter the noise of alert volume and measure their customers’ methods against security best practices. The picture of added value that results will be anything but short-sighted.

Interested in learning more about how you can build up your SaaS security service? Email [email protected] or book a demo now.