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As an MSP, you’ve got a lot in your tool belt. Anti-virus software. Anti-phishing programs. Your trusty RMM. The quick-twitch muscles in your wrist that let you click a hundred miles an hour.
But one of the most important — and sometimes underutilized — tools for a proactive MSP like yourself is account behavior analysis.
This is the practice of observing end-users’ permitted activities and typical login structures. For example, login locations, IP addresses, approved devices and more.
The bottom line: Account behavior analysis is the foundation for understanding typical user behavior so you can identify anomalies. And those anomalies are the alarm bells that help you prevent attacks on your customers’ accounts.
According to IBM’s most recent “Cost of a Data Breach” report, it takes an average of 204 days to detect a cybersecurity compromise. However, with strong behavior tracking systems in place, that number can go down significantly.
That’s music to any MSP’s ears.
First and foremost, better user activity analysis helps you respond quickly when a user’s behavior strays outside the norm. This means fewer successful hacks, less data loss and limited potential for financial losses.
Those are three pretty high-ticket items for any customer!
But account behavior insights can also be valuable forensic evidence. Cue the “Law & Order” sound effect.
When a compromise happens, the first order of business is obviously shutting it down. But after that, you should analyze what went wrong in the first place. This is where account behavior analysis can provide helpful, actionable data.
For example, let’s say an account in your customer’s environment got hacked at noon on Friday. What happened in the hours before that timestamp?
All this information can help you determine:
Without systems and technology in place to track user behavior, you’ll be flying blind when a hacker makes their move.
Setting up analytics can sound tedious. But the right technology can support data collection, storage and analysis to help you better protect your customers.
Spoiler alert: That’s why SaaS Alerts is here. Our platform helps you:
Keep the receipts: Platforms like Microsoft only default to storing end-user behavior logs for 60 days. But SaaS Alerts stores this info for a year. Longer storage time allows you to more easily identify patterns and conduct more thorough investigations, which will help you make better, data-backed decisions about future protection strategies.
Initiate easy reporting: Within SaaS Alerts, you can schedule regular reports to send to customers. Choose whatever cadence works for that organization (e.g., weekly, monthly). These reports will show management what their end users are doing each day, like:
And the best part? You don’t have to manually collect that data. It’s already housed in SaaS Alerts — all you have to do is schedule the report to send. That’ll save you approximately a billion clicks.
Inspire customer participation: Your customers’ end users are the weakest link in the security chain. (“You can say THAT again,” you’re probably thinking.)
A robust user-behavior analysis program will invite your customers to participate in their own security. They’ll be more knowledgeable about which user behaviors are atypical based on job title, duties and more.
They can help paint a clearer picture of what’s “normal” and what’s cause for “oh, crap.” (“James is downloading HOW many files a day?!”)
Configure automatic remediation: Easily set up specific behaviors that will trigger an account lockdown. Then sit back and let SaaS Alerts do the work automatically.
Empower proactivity: In this day and age, you know it’s dangerous to be in reaction mode all the time. Sure, quick instincts can save the day sometimes. But it’s better to do preventative work to limit compromises in the first place.
Enter account behavior analysis. With better user-behavior data, you can stay on top of trends, identify future indicators of compromise and offer your customers more tools to protect themselves day-to-day.
When you have those forward-thinking conversations with customers, you become more than just the person they call when they need someone to clean up a mess. You become a true partner in their business.
