Ignition launches first Cyber-Security-as-a-Service platform

Ignition Technology announces the launch of Catalyst Insights, the UK’s first ‘Cyber-Security-as-a-Service’ aggregation platform designed exclusively for the channel. Catalyst Insights currently supports 15 vendors spanning endpoint assessment, breach data reporting, MFA, EDR, IT Service Desk and Contact Centre, delivered within an integrated management and reporting service.

Developed over the last 12 months, Catalyst Insights provides a single pane of glass deployment, management and reporting function offered as a white label platform to Ignition’s 870 strong partner community to streamline MSSP and SoC delivery for the channel.

Creating highly configurable solutions

At launch, Catalyst Insights integrates with 15 security and infrastructure management products with built-in breach data reporting and Microsoft Active Directory support to allow channel partners to create highly configurable solutions for both single clients and as part of a MSSP / SoC offering.

“Several security vendors offer ‘Cyber-Security-as-a-Service’ solutions, but these are only designed for their own products and each requires a separate administrative layer which is impractical for channel partners’ supporting growing client bases,” explains Paul Risk, CTO for Ignition, “In some cases, these products were never designed for MSSP usage and as such offer limited multi-tenant support, service provider reporting or integration with IT service desk tools.”

Cyber security solutions

Catalyst Insights has been developed over the last year based on feedback from our partners"

“Catalyst Insights has been developed over the last year based on feedback from our partners to offer a better way of using multiple best-of-breed cyber security solutions within an integrated process to handle moves, adds and changes as well as monthly billing and reporting,” adds Risk.

Catalyst Insights launches with built-in breach data reporting to allow channel partners to show clients which corporate email addresses, passwords and personal data is on the dark web, and where these have been connected to known breaches. Other noteworthy features include Global Cloud Health Status showing all the data centres and component status’ of AWS, GCP and Azure/O365 in a simple view plus Active Directory to Endpoint AV cross-referencing to show which endpoints don’t have AV installed, or what machines have AV that aren’t in Active Directory.

Offering significant benefits

The platform includes integration capabilities that spans both the Ignition vendor portfolio and third party solutions including:

Blackberry Cylance: An endpoint assessment scanner.
Cybereason: Endpoint Protection, Detection, and Response.
C3M: Cloud security posture management and compliance assurance.
Okta: Multi Factor Authentication and Single Sign On.
SolarWinds: IT Service Desk platform.
Duo Security: Multi Factor Authentication and Single Sign On.
Five9: Cloud Contact Centre software.
IT Glue: A SOC 2-compliant documentation management platform.
LogicMonitor: A fully automated, cloud-based infrastructure monitoring platform.
Microsoft Active Directory support for management and reporting.
Fortinet: Next-Generation Firewall and Secure SD-WAN.
Microsoft Office365 productivity suite.
Qualys: Auditing, compliance and cyber protection.
MalwareBytes: Anti-malware software.

Gerhard Conradie, CEO of ENHALO Limited, an advanced cyber defence group says, “This concept of aggregating security SaaS is long overdue and offers significant benefits in terms of streamlining the management of multiple solutions under a common platform.”

“Individual security vendors have a vested interest in making it harder for channel partners to swap out their solutions or mix and match different point products. It is logical and highly beneficial that a distributor like Ignition should take on this role which will make not only selling cyber security SaaS easier, but also reduce the day-to-day management and reporting burden,” Conradie adds.

SaaS based application

Carl Shallow, Pre-Sales Director at Orange Cyberdefense, the expert cybersecurity business unit of the Orange Group says, “We talk to customers of all sizes and industries and the common requirement they have is a dashboard or management tool that gives the visibility of their deployed security estate.”

“To be able to converge this into a SaaS based application that gives additional benefits will always help improve the relationship between the customer, reseller and distribution company. We can only see this type of requirement growing along with the automation that becomes possible running it as SaaS solution.”

Cost effective cloud-based software

We have a common goal in that every day we help Software Vendors find their ideal customers"

“Having witnessed the recent security attacks on Covid-19 vaccine research companies, everyone understands how critical it is that businesses make the right cybersecurity software choices”, comments Julian Painter, CEO at Yappady Apps.

“We have a common goal in that every day we help Software Vendors find their ideal customers. As one of the UK’s most popular advisors to SME on choosing the most cost effective cloud-based software, at Yappady.com we are proud to be a founder partner with Ignition and highly commend their Catalyst Cybersecurity-as-a-Service initiative to our clients.”

“At a technical level, Catalyst Insights uses direct calls to the underlying API’s of each vendor solution and this framework approach makes it easier to add additional products, bespoke platforms and scripts as we onboard more vendors or if channel partners express a need,” says Risk.

Managed security services market

Ignition is currently developing additional Catalyst Insights ‘connectors’ to add integration support for Chronicle, BeyondTrust and IRONSCALES. Partner feedback has been positive with a recent Ignition channel survey highlighting beneficial Catalyst Insights use cases including ‘Upselling product/services to existing customers’ (26%), ‘As a business development tool’ (25%), and ‘As an end customer resource’ (23%).

According to MarketsandMarkets, the global Managed Security Services Market is projected to grow from USD 31.6 billion in 2020 to USD 46.4 billion by 2025, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 8.0% during the forecast period.