Your Exclusive Access to Updates Cybersecurity Comparatives

20 March, 2024 by Iratxe Vazquez

In the rapidly evolving arena of cybersecurity, staying informed about how our solutions measure against the competition isn’t just an advantage – it is a need. That’s why we’re happy to remind you of the resource menu available at your Partner Portal, that gives you access to our repository of competitive intelligence.

What’s New?

Our team has been analyzing and updating our assets to bring you the latest insights that matter. We are excited to announce fresh updates and additions to our collection:

• Firebox vs. Fortinet: Discover the latest battlecards that highlight the strengths of Firebox against Fortinet’s offerings.
• WatchGuard Endpoint Security vs. Microsoft Defender (deck and battlecard): Delve into the detailed battlecard that demonstrates how our Endpoint Security measures up to Microsoft Defender.
• The Endpoint Security Comparative Matrix: A comparison with 12 of the leading competitors, offering you a panoramic view of where we stand in the Endpoint Security landscape.

Specialised Comparatives:

• Vulnerability Assessment & Patch Management in Endpoint Security: A deep dive into the essential aspects of vulnerability assessment and patch management within our Endpoint Security solutions compared to other vendors.
• MDR Services: Uncover WatchGuard MDR vs. other vendors’ services that help you to differentiate and elevate your security service offering without the overhead of an in-house SOC, a 24/7 specialized cybersecurity team, and advanced technologies.

We encourage you to dive into these resources, integrate this intelligence into your operations, and continue to excel in offering top-tier cybersecurity solutions without the complexity.

Customising The WatchGuard Cloud Dashboard: Putting You In Control

27 February, 2024 by Kirk Jensen

A customisable dashboard is a new feature in WatchGuard Cloud that allows you to tailor your dashboard to display the specific metrics and data that matter most to you. This allows you to focus on what is most relevant, make efficient decisions, adapt to changing needs, and boost efficiency. Customisable dashboards do not require additional purchases or licenses and are unique to individual operators. We encourage you to explore the customizable dashboard feature and see how you can tailor it to your business needs.

Why a Customisable Dashboard Matters

With WatchGuard Cloud, we strive to provide you with the tools and capabilities to effectively manage your clients’ security posture. A key aspect of this is empowering you to customise your WatchGuard Cloud experience to meet specific needs.

The current WatchGuard Cloud dashboard offers a standard view for all users, regardless of individual roles or responsibilities. While this provides a consistent starting point, it can also lead to information overload and make it difficult to identify the most relevant data quickly.

A customisable dashboard allows you to:

• Focus where you need to: Prioritise the most important widgets to your work, ensuring immediate access to the information you need to make informed decisions.
• Make efficient decisions: Arrange widgets on the dashboard in a way that supports your workflow and decision-making processes. This customization enables quick access to critical information, aiding in identifying security risks and quick remediation steps.
• Adapt to changing needs: Easily modify a dashboard layout and content to accommodate changing security priorities and technologies in use by your organisation.
• Boost efficiency: Prioritise and display the most relevant information; you can spend less time hunting down threats and risks, boosting the productivity of your operators.

Customisable Dashboards are a powerful tool that helps you manage your clients’ security more efficiently and effectively. It’s unique to each user, so you can customise your dashboard without affecting your colleagues. It gives you the flexibility to focus on what’s important to you. Plus, it’s included as part of WatchGuard Cloud, so no extra costs or deployments are required.

Launching A New User Experience For The AuthPoint Application Portal

15 February, 2024 by Sam Manjarres

WatchGuard are excited to launch a redesigned user experience for the AuthPoint Application Portal, which enables single sign-on (SSO) authentication. With this new design, we’ve made it even easier for partners and their customers to manage and access business applications while ensuring the highest levels of security.

The AuthPoint Application Portal provides a refreshed design for a more consistent look and feel that improves user experience and navigability and a search bar for easier navigation. The portal already offers features that include user-led mobile and hardware management and password reset options for users manually created in AuthPoint.

Why Launch a New AuthPoint Application Portal Experience 

• Accessibility and Inclusivity: A well-designed user experience (UX) must consider the accessibility needs of individuals with disabilities to promote inclusivity and ensure a wider user base.
• User-Centered Design: Focusing on user experience leads to user-centered design, where needs, preferences, and behaviors are understood to create products and services that meet user expectations.
• Increased User Engagement: A positive user experience (UX) can lead to increased engagement, longer usage durations, higher interaction rates, and more frequent visits to a website or application.

Elevating the Power of Single Sign-On (SSO)

AuthPoint is armed with a built-in single sign-on (SSO) feature, but only one-third of AuthPoint partners have implemented it. The recent redesign of our application portal presents an excellent opportunity to highlight the competitive edge SSO can offer partners and the potential for increased productivity for end-users.

How Single Sign-On (SSO) Impacts Your Customers

• Simplified User Experience: It can be challenging to remember and keep track of numerous usernames and passwords for different systems.
• Increased Productivity: Single Sign-On (SSO) enables users to log in once and access all authorized applications seamlessly. This reduces the need to log in and out of multiple systems, saving time and increasing productivity. With SSO, users can focus on their tasks rather than dealing with authentication processes.
• Enhanced Security: SSO can improve security as organizations can enforce stronger security measures at that central location by having only one authentication point, such as multi-factor authentication (MFA). This approach can be more effective than relying on potentially vulnerable passwords across various systems.
• Reduced Password Fatigue: Many individuals find it difficult to remember multiple complex passwords, leading to password fatigue. Single Sign-On (SSO) helps to address this problem by reducing the number of passwords users need to remember.
• Consistent Access Control: SSO ensures that access control policies are consistently applied across all connected systems. This helps organizations maintain a unified security stance and reduces the risk of inconsistent or outdated access permissions.
• Mobile and Remote Access: As organizations increasingly adopt remote and mobile work arrangements, SSO becomes essential for providing secure and convenient access to applications and services from various locations and devices.

How Single Sign-On (SSO) Impacts Your MSP Business

• Customer Satisfaction: A well-designed user experience leads to higher customer satisfaction. When users find a product or service easy to use and enjoyable, they are more likely to perceive the brand positively.
• Customized Branding: Using a single sign-on (SSO) solution that offers customization options is ideal for allowing your customers to add their brand’s look and feel. This can make a significant difference in providing the best user experience (UX) as it assures users that they are accessing a familiar and inherently trustworthy environment.
• Competitive Advantage: Service providers that prioritize UX gain a competitive advantage by attracting and retaining users more effectively than their competitors. Plus, AuthPoint offers SSO access without any added cost, whereas other security vendors charge a lot more for this functionality, sometimes extra fees per application.
• Easier User Onboarding and Offboarding: SSO simplifies the onboarding process for new employees. Instead of creating separate accounts for each system, administrators can grant access through a centralized authentication system. Similarly, when an employee leaves, deactivating a single account ensures that access to all associated systems is revoked.
• Cost and Time Savings: Managing multiple usernames and passwords can lead to increased support and helpdesk costs due to frequent password resets and account lockouts. SSO reduces these costs by streamlining the authentication process and minimizing the need for user support related to password issues.
• Compliance and Auditing: SSO solutions can facilitate compliance with security and privacy regulations. Centralized authentication and access controls make it easier for organizations to monitor user activities, track access to sensitive information, and generate audit reports.

The new user experience we’ve designed for the AuthPoint Application Portal is more than just a facelift. It’s a comprehensive update that improves usability, functionality, and security for your clients’ applications and data.

Check out the updated AuthPoint product pack, which includes new SSO content and an updated image library:

• AuthPoint Product Pack

A Look At WatchGuards Q4 2023 Feature Enhancements

11 January, 2024 by Kirk Jensen

Cybercriminals quickly exploit new technologies and trends, so cybersecurity solutions must evolve alongside them to stay ahead of the curve. This is challenging because not only do you need to stay up to date with those constantly evolving technologies, but you also need to do so while trying to scale your business. We are continuously enhancing our Unified Security Platform architecture to simplify security and make it easier for you to protect your customers. We publish quarterly updates on our recently released features so our partners can stay informed about the latest innovations from WatchGuard.

NETWORK SECURITY RELEASES

Expand Configuration Imports

WatchGuard is simplifying the transition from local to Cloud-managed Fireboxes by expanding our configuration import feature. This ongoing initiative will allow you to import Routes, Blocked Sites, Blocked Ports, Syslog & Dimension Servers, and ConnectWise & Autotask configurations from existing Firebox files. Recognizing the difficulty and time commitment involved in manually recreating established configurations, we aim to streamline migration for our customers and partners. The expanded import functionality will save time, reduce errors, and ultimately ease the shift to Cloud-managed Firebox security. Learn more.

SECURE WI-FI RELEASES

Arista Wi-Fi Cloud v13.0.2

WatchGuard is releasing one of the last feature release firmware updates for WatchGuard Wi-Fi Cloud and Wi-Fi 5 access points. This update includes security patches, troubleshooting tools, and performance improvements. Although it has been announced that WatchGuard Wi-Fi 5 products and WatchGuard Wi-Fi Cloud will go end of life on December 31, 2026, we will continue supporting these products with critical security updates and troubleshooting assistance. See the release notes.

ENDPOINT SECURITY RELEASES

Service Provider Endpoint Manager

We have introduced an update to WatchGuard Cloud that streamlines configuration management for service providers and their respective subscriber accounts. This update allows service providers to assign multi-level configuration settings to customers easily while partners gain comprehensive tools to monitor their customers’ deployments and service providers. Key features include inheritable configuration templates for providers and customers, centralized monitoring of endpoint risks and attack indicators across all customers, on-demand scans and patch identification for all or specific endpoints, user and session activity tracking, setting profile management, and task management. This comprehensive update delivers enhanced clarity, control, operational efficiency, and the ability to manage all your customers’ deployments from a single console. Learn more about multi-tenant management.

ADDITIONAL RELEASES IN Q4

As a reminder, there were also several bigger updates released in Q4 of last year:

• Delegated inventory support enables partners to use licenses, including those from MSSP points on delegated accounts.
• Endpoint risk assessment is a free, non-intrusive tool to evaluate your customer’s endpoint security.
• Network Access Enforcement ensures only devices with acceptable security posture can connect to corporate Wi-Fi and VPNs.