An Industry First: How GamaSec Has Married Comprehensive Web Security and Financial Assurance to Safeguard SMBs and Their Assets Online
TL; DR: Founded in 2006 as an internet security consulting firm, GamaSec grew into a full-service provider of innovative web protection technologies that have been helping small- and medium-sized businesses safeguard their online assets for more than a decade. Today, the company continues to push the envelope through an industry-first turnkey bundle that marries its security software with financial assurance and remediation services. This package presents a unique opportunity for the hosting community to offer customers all-inclusive packages that incorporate the comprehensive website and asset protection they need to guard against the ever-evolving threats in the modern online landscape.
While downtime and data loss are major problems for businesses of any size, they can be especially traumatic — and sometimes fatal — for small- and medium-sized businesses. SMBs often lack the funds for comprehensive web protection, let alone for the resources to recover after a successful attack.
This is particularly troubling when considering that SMBs have become very attractive targets for website and DDoS attacks, as these criminals know small organizations are less likely to have sizable security in place. This is why, for the past decade, GamaSec has made a mission of helping protect the world’s SMBs from the hazards they face online.
“It’s hard to defend yourself if you don’t know your vulnerabilities,” said Rob Zimmer, GamaSec’s VP of Strategy. “About half of small businesses in America don’t allocate any budget to risk mitigation — and many struggle to keep their doors open after a data breach.”
Because SMBs tend to be more vulnerable, their assets must be protected in a way that is not only budget-conscious but, ultimately, very effective. Attacks can happen from a number of angles, from customer-facing websites to employee email accounts, making it essential to implement a combination of security, education, and risk mitigation tools to protect and insure critical data and financial assets.
“Attacks on SMBs have seen a big uptick recently,” Rob said. “The number of disclosed data breaches in 2016 jumped about 40%.”
GamaSec’s new, industry-first bundle provides a sound solution to address this expanding online threat matrix. Created for the SMB community, GamaSec’s turnkey package, GamaSure PLUS, helps galvanize small- and medium-sized businesses against threats from numerous angles. The cloud-based services feature DDoS protection, WAF (web application firewall), remediation-as-a-service, and vulnerability testing based on a virtual hacker — all in an affordable and easy to deploy package.
One of the main features that make the package unique is the Data Breach Limited Warranty that allows businesses to rebound financially should a data breach occur. This helps SMBs recoup costs associated with an incident — paying up to $50,000 in damages. With this new bundle — and its vast array of existing tools — GamaSec’s goal is to bring SMBs the same level of resilience and peace of mind large enterprises enjoy at a fraction of the cost.
Founded in 2006 with a Mission to Lower Risk for Small Businesses
Prior to offering its current extensive portfolio of services and tools, GamaSec began as a security solutions advisor. Founded in 2006, the company spent its first few years doing consulting work for companies across Europe.
“GamaSec took that know-how from Israel to the rest of the world,” Rob said. “Ultimately, the company developed turnkey solutions that lower risk for small business.”
The transition from advisor to provider was an easy one for GamaSec, considering it was already a leading expert on security, developed to assess vulnerabilities in government systems. Rob told us making the transition to a technology and services business allowed GamaSec to offer cloud-based services to small businesses, helping them more directly and, therefore, more effectively than before.
Despite rising security concerns, SMBs often lack the extensive IT departments that enterprises have. And that’s where GamaSec comes in to protect and ensure the safety of their assets.
A Turnkey Bundle to Find, Mitigate, and Insure Against Attacks
To combat rising risks, GamaSec’s industry-first bundle, GamaSure PLUS, was designed specifically for SMBs. GamaSure PLUS offers a fast, easy, and cost-effective solution that includes vulnerability testing, threat mitigation, and recovery.
Its comprehensive and easy-to-use toolset makes GamaSure PLUS an ideal bundle for SMBs tackling growing security concerns.
“GamaSec’s pricing for remediation services is much more affordable than reactively hiring IT security specialists,” Rob said. “We’ve packaged that all in for a yearly subscription service.”
GamaSure PLUS not only protects against attacks, the plan also enables businesses to recover should one occur.
GamaSure PLUS protects SMBs through every stage of an attack, starting with risk assessment powered by a virtual intruder. GamaSure PLUS then employs Remediation-as-a-Service to mitigate discovered vulnerabilities.
“Our virtual hacker identifies where the vulnerabilities are,” Rob said. “In 2017, we added DDoS services and firewall to prevent the attacks.”
After a combination of manual and automated processes clean a site of vulnerabilities and malware, GamaSure PLUS rescans the site to validate results. In addition to finding, fixing, and preventing exploits, GamaSure PLUS insures SMBs against data breaches. The packaged data breach limited warranty includes coverage of up to $50,000 for data restoration costs — allowing SMBs to quickly get up and running after an attack.
Partnering with Hosts to Help Defend Their Customers’ Sites
Rob told us he sees the hosting industry as the foundation for the cloud industry, and that hosts should be able to provide full-service solutions for their customers. Cloud-based security is rising in popularity due to its effectiveness and ease of use. Furthermore, the growing trend of hosts bundling tools and services with packages has allowed GamaSec to enter into a mutually beneficial relationship with several leaders in the hosting world.
“You have infrastructure hosting, application hosting, managed services, and — our favorite — security services,” Rob said. “Security services are expected to be 23% of the industry this year. Comparatively, 29% is infrastructure hosting, so we know security is top-of-mind.”
Hosts partnering with GamaSec gain a competitive advantage by providing complete security to their customers.
In addition to scanning hosted files for malware, GamaSec’s Application Vulnerability Scanner identifies possible exploits in Cross Site Scripting and SQL injection. GamaSec’s partner program is ideal for hosts looking to leverage value-added security tools with affiliate revenue opportunities.
“We know about the challenges in the hosting industry, between monetization, capital investment, and competition,” Rob said. “Customers keep demanding more than just traditional hosting. It’s almost a $40 billion industry, and providers need to become more things to more people.”
To stay competitive, many hosting providers offer security packages to put SMB webmasters at ease. The structure of the hosting industry allows for labor-based consulting services, even though this is not the usual business model. GamaSec marries the two business models by leveraging managed security services with the host’s core business.
By providing what SMBs need most, hosts can tap into lucrative new revenue streams.
“This is an opportunity where hosting companies can lower the risk of their SMB customers and make a lot of money with very little work,” Rob said.
Building an Ecosystem to Bring SMBs Security and Financial Protection
GamaSec seeks to simplify the process of securing the online spaces of small- and mid-market companies. Because of their limited resources, many SMBs are looking for easily deployable solutions that don’t break the bank. And, by turning to hosts that offer GamaSec’s security as part of their hosting packages, these businesses can rest assured their assets are safe.
“The hosting industry is our first major partnership toward our growth,” Rob said. “We’re developing an end-to-end partner ecosystem to increase the speed of market adoption.”
Having started in Israel, GamaSec was born alongside the best in the industry. Israeli security companies not only have an established ecosystem of collaboration between military forces, universities, and businesses — they also assist numerous smaller nations in web security startups. Similarly, GamaSec is building a multinational network of solutions that benefit everyone — from government entities to small online shops.
Ultimately, it’s all about delivering multilayered security to SMBs to safeguard them from the malicious agents who are targeting them with increased frequency.
“Small business doesn’t mean small security,” Rob said. “We’re focused on bridging integrated solutions with security and a data breach limited warranty and then delivering it to the mass market in a simple way.”