AWS Unveils Level 1 Managed Security Services Competency
As cybersecurity threats increase, more organizations and managed service providers alike understand the need to protect networks and assets. But accomplishing this is, of course, easier said than done. That’s why Amazon Web Services on Tuesday launched Level 1 Managed Security Services for managed security service providers.
The competency adds heft to certain AWS partners who validate their capabilities with the world’s largest public cloud provider. To that point, Level 1 Managed Security Services encompasses 10 areas of expertise:
- AWS infrastructure vulnerability
- AWS resource inventory visibility
- AWS security best practices monitoring
- AWS compliance monitoring
- Monitor, triage security events
- Around-the-clock incident alerting
- Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) mitigation
- Managed Intrusion Prevention System
- Managed Detection and Response (MDR) for AWS-based endpoints
- Managed Web Application Firewall
Overall, the competency “makes it easier for customers to find validated MSSP partners qualified to deliver Level 1 Managed Security Services,” said Doug Yeum, head of AWS Partner Organization, and Mona Chadha, director of AWS Marketplace Category Management at AWS, in a joint statement to Channel Futures. “At the same time, this competency allows AWS partners to differentiate themselves as having had their technical and operational capabilities successfully validated against the Level 1 Managed Security Services baseline.”
And given the rise in the number, frequency and volume of cybersecurity attacks, especially since the start of the pandemic, now proved the right time to unveil the program, Yeum and Chadha said.
“Security has always been important, but as we’ve seen over the course of the last year and more, it continues to become increasingly imperative,” they explained. “A crowded security product space, an increase in cyberattacks, and a rapid pace of cloud migration and digital transformation has many customers seeking a validated and recommended solution from their cloud provider. In general, customers want to spend less time researching and validating security products and more time on their core business.”
Hear from Sophos, Alert Logic, IBM Security
To that end, more than two dozen AWS partners – either pure cybersecurity vendors or firms with an MSSP arm – helped pilot Level 1 Managed Security Services. Sophos was one of them. As a result of the new competency, the company now offers its threat protection, monitoring and response package for SMBs, midmarket organizations and enterprises through its channel partners. That offering combines a range of functions, including cloud security posture management and compliance, firewall, cloud workload and endpoint protection.
“Sophos has listed all Sophos Central security services in AWS Marketplace to ease the procurement process for customers and partners alike, enabling our channel of 60,000 partners to wrap consulting services around this offering to help with the deployment and proper implementation/configuration of security services in AWS,” Scott Barlow, vice president, global MSP and cloud alliances at Sophos, told Channel Futures.
Alert Logic is doing much the same. Like Sophos, the company has earned the Level 1 Managed Security Services competency, but for its managed detection and response platform.
“We’ve long held the belief that while some organizations possess the resources and expertise to manage security operations in-house and handle their share of security responsibilities in the cloud on their own, most do not,” Dan Webb, vice president of partner sales and alliances at Alert Logic, told Channel Futures. “The majority require support and having a competency that recognizes excellence in the provision of managed security services on AWS can only be a good thing.”
Alert Logic aims to help MSPs, who generally do not have a security strategy. Many MSPs are trying to decide whether – and how – to transition to an MSSP model. The question is not an easy one to answer. Becoming an MSSP requires …
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