Comptel: Perimeter offers user security dashboard

Perimeter eSecurity, which wholesales managed security services, is offering an end-user dashboard which its service provider customers can use to prove the benefits of security services to their small-to-mid-sized business customers.

Perimeter has had a Web portal or dashboard available to its Network Service Provider Partner Program customers for several years, said Clark Easterling, vice president of marketing for Perimeter, but this latest generation of that product – the sixth – enables service providers to put their own logo on a dashboard they provide to their customers.

“This makes it very tangible to small businesses,” he said. “In the past, we have been showing them reports but they weren’t as user friendly. This shows a small business owner exactly what the threats to his Internet security are and how the service is working to protect his business.”

The dashboard shows all six layers of the managed security service which Perimeter offers – firewall, intrusion protection, gateway anti-virus, desktop anti-virus, anti-spam and Web content filtering. An end-user sees which services he is subscribing to and exactly what those services are doing on a real-time basis. It includes a list of most recently blocked viruses and attacks, as well as tracking Internet usage.

One goal of the end-user dashboard is to help service providers upsell customers from one or two layers of security protection to all six, Easterling said. “They see the services they are not subscribing to and can click on those services and see what it would cost to subscribe and even submit an order.”

Perimeter, which also sells security services directly to customers such as financial institutions with compliance obligations, believes managed security services are an excellent way for service providers to target small businesses, who are much less likely to have their own IT staff to set and constantly update security for Internet-based networks.