Zero Trust: The Best Defense Against Attacks on MSPs

IT managed service providers (MSPs) are faced with a lot of challenges. They are often responsible for ensuring their customers can continue to operate under uncertain and constantly changing business conditions.

Unfortunately, traditional security models that rely on perimeter security are no longer sufficient to protect MSPs and their clients. Zero Trust has emerged as a crucial solution to combat these evolving threats.

What Is an MSP?

An MSP is a third-party company that provides ongoing IT management and support services to businesses. They handle all or most of a company’s IT infrastructure, including:

• Hardware and Software: Maintenance, updates, and upgrades
• Networking: Setup, configuration, and security
• Security: Firewalls, antivirus, and data backup
• Cloud Services: Cloud storage, cloud applications, and virtual machines

Attacks on MSPs Are on The Rise 

Managed service providers (MSPs) are increasingly becoming targets of cyberattacks. This is due to several factors:

• Attractive targets: MSPs often have access to a large amount of sensitive data from multiple clients, making them valuable targets for attackers.
• Vulnerabilities: MSPs often have complex IT environments, which can be more difficult to secure than those of smaller businesses.
• Lack of resources: MSPs may not have the same security resources as larger companies, making them more susceptible to attacks.

The Most Common Types of Attack

Here are the most common types of attacks on MSPs.

• Phishing: Attackers use email, social media, or other channels to trick employees into clicking on malicious links or opening attachments.
• Malware: Attackers use various malware types, including ransomware, to steal data, disrupt operations, or gain control of systems.
• Denial-of-Service (DoS) Attacks: These attacks aim to disrupt the MSP’s services by overloading their servers with traffic, making them unavailable to clients.
• Exploiting Vulnerabilities: Attackers exploit vulnerabilities in MSPs’ software and systems to gain unauthorized access.
• Social Engineering: Attackers manipulate employees into revealing sensitive information or granting them access to systems.

How MSPs Protect Themselves

Here’s how MSPs can protect themselves against increasing cyber attacks.

#1: Segregate Internal Networks

It’s vital for MSPs to understand their environment and segment their networks. 

A good start is to apply appropriate network security controls to critical business systems: identify, group, and isolate these systems to reduce the impact of a compromise.

All connections should be reviewed and verified by MSPs between:

• Internal systems
• Customer systems
• Other networks 

Separate customer data sets from each other as well as from the MSP’s internal networks to limit the impact of a single attack vector. 

Admin credentials also shouldn’t be reused across multiple customers.

#2: Use the Principle of Least Privilege

The principle of least privilege should be applied throughout an MSP’s network environment and privileges should be updated immediately when administrative roles are changed. Ensure administrative accounts don’t have unnecessary access or privileges by using a tiering model. 

Make use of time and location-based privileges to further restrict the use of full privilege accounts across an enterprise when necessary. 

Finally, reduce access to high-risk:

• Devices
• Services
• Users

This principle should be applied to both internal and customer environments by MSPs.

#3: Enforce Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) 

To harden the infrastructure that enables access to networks and systems, organizations should secure remote access applications and enforce multi-factor authentication wherever possible. Customers should be advised to adopt MFA across all services and products provided by MSPs. 

Also, MSPs should implement MFA on all accounts that have access to customer environments and treat those accounts as privileged.

#4: Improve Monitoring and Logging Processes 

Implement and maintain a separate logging regime to detect network threats, whether through a SIEM solution or discrete logging tools. The activities involved in delivering services to customers should be logged by MSPs. 

Depending on the contractual agreement, MSPs should log both internal and customer network activity.

Also, MSP client organizations should implement endpoint detection and network defense monitoring capabilities along with application allow/deny lists, whether through:

• Contractual arrangements with an MSP
• Independently

Implement a Zero-Trust Security Solution with Check Point

By adopting a Zero Trust security solution, MSPs are better able to protect sensitive data, systems, and services across increasingly dispersed and complex enterprise networks.

The Zero Trust security model removes implicit trust in any element, node, or service by acknowledging threats inside and outside traditional network boundaries, requiring continuous real-time monitoring of information from multiple sources to determine access and other system responses.

A good Zero Trust solution should include:

• Comprehensive security monitoring
• Granular risk-based access controls
• System security automation. 

A properly implemented Zero Trust strategy allows for significant improvements in detection, prevention and containment of intrusions compared to less integrated legacy cybersecurity approaches.

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