Beachhead Solutions is offering discounted pricing for its encryption and access control solutions to members of managed services co-op The 20.
Officially announced on the opening day of The 20’s annual VISION conference in Dallas, the special rates arrive less than a week after Beachhead shipped version 6.5 of its SimplySecure product, which lets MSPs protect Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android devices, as well as USB storage drives and Windows-based servers, from unauthorized access.
“We’re big believers in what The 20 delivers for its members, and wanted to do something special to ensure that participating MSPs were even more incentivized to deliver seamlessly managed encryption and access control to their clients,” said Cam Roberson, director of the reseller channel for Beachhead, in a press statement. “The themes of this year’s VISION event are security and sustainable business growth, and SimplySecure for MSPs delivers on both fronts to our channel partners. For MSPs who need to provide robust device security against ever-increasing threat vectors and deliver Compliance-as-a-Service, SimplySecure for MSPs is the built-for-MSP solution ready for the task.”
Tim Conkle, CEO of The 20, views SimplySecure as a means of both augmenting revenue and better securing end users.
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“We’re pleased to have established preferred SimplySecure pricing for our members,” said Conkle in prepared remarks. “PC encryption and compliance is fast becoming a necessary service component for IT Professionals, particularly those serving clients in regulated and compliance-driven industries. SimplySecure is a tool that will allow our members to focus on growing their businesses while ensuring the security of client data.”
Reduced pricing on Beachhead products is a permanent, rather than promotional, benefit for MSPs in The 20.
Key features in SimplySecure 6.5 include enhanced deployment and management options for Microsoft’s BitLocker encryption technology, including the ability to enable that feature on PCs without a TPM chip. Today, owners of such machines must use either a fob or 48-character recovery key to authenticate.†
“That’s impractical to the point that most just choose not to encrypt on these systems,” said Roberson in remarks emailed to ChannelPro. The new release of SimplySecure, however, allows administrators to enable BitLocker on endpoints with no TPM chip through the same automated process they use to setup SimplySecure-enforced passwords.†
Version 6.5 provides a recovery path for lost BitLocker passwords, as well, and lets technicians suspend BitLocker temporarily during Windows updates.
“Losing data and/or having remote users locked out of their computers is a common occurrence with Windows updates where BitLocker is utilized,” said Roberson via email. “SimplySecure will put BitLocker in abeyance during the update so as to avoid these common problems.”
Also included in the latest edition of SimplySecure is a new USB drive configuration setting that bans access to such devices by people outside a protected company entirely. Prior releases let MSPs limit access to USB drives through one of several authentication techniques, but didn’t permit them to lock out users from external organizations completely.
An updated recovery process in SimplySecure 6.5, meanwhile, lets administrators restore devices that have been quarantined following multiple invalid logins or another problem simply by switching their status to “active,” instead of both changing the status and resetting the device’s risk icon to green.
“Once the risk condition has been cleared, the risk icon will now return to green automatically,” Roberson notes.†
SimplySecure users can also download and utilize the latest agent installer automatically now using a specialized URL. “Previously, admins would have to go into their RMM system and update the installer for each account manually,” Roberson says.
Additional upgrades in version 6.5 include enhanced administration for MacOS FileVault and Windows Encrypting File System, new computer risk and encryption status monitoring capabilities, and interface improvements on the management console.
Discounted pricing on tools like SimplySecure is one of The 20’s key membership benefits. The organization is designed to help MSPs leverage the advantages of group buying power, centralized sales and marketing programs, and access to resources like an enterprise-grade network and security operations center without giving up their brand or control of their business.
This year’s VISION conference, which concludes Wednesday, is the first one open to attendees who do not currently belong to The 20
