PARTNER CASE STUDY THE ITEAM

The ITeam Turns toSophos for Its Small andMid-Sized Enterprise
Clients
The ITeam is a leading provider of comprehensive IT services delivery andmanagement in Calgary and Southern Alberta, Canada. The company’s
managed security offerings include firewall, network security, business
continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR), multi-factor authentication (MFA),
threat intelligence, cyber awareness training, and pen testing. For over 25years, The ITeam has been serving small and mid-sized enterprises (SME)
as well as organizations in oil and gas, finance, healthcare, construction, andthe legal sector.

PARTNER-AT-A-GLANCEThe ITeam

Number of UsersIndustry
Managed IT Services

Small and mid-sized enterprises in Calgary and Southern Alberta, CanadaWebsite
theiteam.ca

Sophos Solutions
Sophos Intercept X Advanced with Managed Detection and Response (MDR),
Sophos Central, Evaluating Sophos Network Detection and Response (NDR)

PARTNER CASE STUDY THE ITEAM“We selected Sophos MDR Complete over Sophos MDR Essentials
because we know we can rely on Sophos to be our SOC rather thancreating our own. Knowing that we have direct call-in support,
a dedicated incident response team, and breach protection
warranty (up to $1 million) helps us sleep better at night.“
James Wagner, President of The ITeam

Challenges
Ì Replacing next-generation antivirus witha managed service to increase protection
for the company and its clients
Ì Remediating issues outside businesshours with a 24/7/365 outsourced
security operations center (SOC)Ì Partnering with a trusted vendor’sknowledgeable sales and service
team to ensure mutual successÌ Increasing peace of mind and profitability
with the right solution set
Ì Expanding offerings to include
network security products

As with most managed service providers (MSPs),
partnering with the right security vendor is criticalfor success. Recently, The ITeam realized that its
vendor’s next-generation antivirus was no longer
sufficient to protect clients. It was time to begin
the search for a new vendor with proven solutions
that could keep up with the ever-evolving threat
landscape. The security group’s due diligenceled them to evaluate several vendors basedon specific criteria: a reliable 24/7/365 SOC,
a trusted endpoint security agent with a lightfootprint, responsive teams, and Canadianrepresentation.

What happens if, during newvendor evaluation, a threat isdiscovered at one of the MSP’slargest clients?
All vendors evaluated met the technology criteria, but
Sophos stood out by going above and beyond andactually addressing a threat discovered during theassessment process. The threat was found at one of theirlargest clients, where the client had decided to managed
their own security through their in-house IT team insteadof opting for The ITeam’s managed security services.
As it turned out, the client’s PC was communicating withan active command and control (C&C) server, relaying
proprietary information. The ITeam sought guidance fromthe Sophos Managed Detection and Response (SophosMDR) team on how to tackle the threat.

PARTNER CASE STUDY THE ITEAM

Despite Sophos not being fully engaged yet, Sophos
promptly involved senior MDR experts. Upon
reviewing the event, the MDR team determined thatthe attackers had controlled the PC for almost a year,
awaiting the opportunity to strike. Had Sophos been
engaged before the incident, Sophos Intercept X,with its comprehensive endpoint protection, wouldhave been installed and the root cause would havebeen identified. However, due to the extended period
without a Sophos agent installed on the endpoint,
this was not possible. Nevertheless, the desktop
was immediately disconnected from the network.
Ultimately, the Sophos recommendations wereswiftly implemented, saving the client from furtherharm.
This impressive response at a critical time made it
clear that Sophos was the right partner to help The
ITeam protect existing clients and open doors to newones.

What benefits has The ITeamseen with Sophos MDR
Complete so far?
Having decided that Sophos was the rightpartner, the next question was which solutions toonboard first. The assessment experience clearly
demonstrated the value of the Sophos MDR team.
And Sophos MDR met the criteria of 24/7/365
fully managed protection with full-scale incident
response and top-rated endpoint protection. The
next question was which Sophos MDR tier was bestfor The ITeam.

James Wagner, President of The ITeam, explains
why Sophos MDR Complete was chosen: “Weselected Sophos MDR Complete over Sophos
MDR Essentials because we know we can rely on
Sophos to be our SOC rather than creating ourown. Knowing that we have direct call-in support,
a dedicated incident response team, and breachprotection warranty (up to $1 million) helps us sleep
better at night.”
Sophos Intercept X was also onboarded as a resultof lessons learned during the assessment process.
Sophos Intercept X, with patented CryptoGuard,
is now enabling The ITeam to protect endpoints
with a comprehensive approach that doesn’t relyon just one security technique. Sophos Intercept Xhelps The ITeam achieve its goal of keeping up withthe evolving threat landscape by building on basic
protections in Microsoft Windows and protecting
against fileless attacks, as well as zero-day exploits.
Sophos Central was also onboarded as the unified
cloud-based platform that manages Sophos
next-generation technologies. The centralized
management hub is designed to let teams scale
their security without scaling resources, and that isa key benefit for The ITeam.
In a short time, the new set of Sophos solutions,particularly Sophos MDR Complete, has alreadymade a big impact on The ITeam and its clients.
“Sophos MDR saved several clients from potentiallycatastrophic business failures. We couldn’t be
more pleased to have selected a solution provider
that both protects our clients and improves ourbusiness processes, enabling us to better serve ourcustomers,” Wagner asserted.

While the business impact is easily quantified, therelief that Sophos solutions bring to the team isbeyond measure. According to Wagner, “Security
events are among the most stressful situations weencounter. Now, the Sophos global SOC does theheavy lifting when issues arise so our teams canstay off the critical path, be productive, and avoid
burnout. It also allows them to learn, observe, andcomplement Sophos and our service options for ourclients.”

How do culture and businessprocesses change for
MSPs who become Sophos
partners?
Intercept X, with extended detection response (XDR)
and endpoint detection response (EDR), has been agame changer for The ITeam. XDR helps them huntdown and respond to suspicious activity acrossSophos and third-party security controls while EDR
performs the same functions across endpoints andservers. Sophos Central puts key information at theteam’s fingertips with consolidated views, robust
reporting, and actionable insights. Together with MDR
Complete, these powerful tools help The ITeam takecybersecurity and productivity to the next level.
“With these solutions, we can now speak firsthandabout how we’ve been able to leverage nextgeneration security technologies to help newclients. We can discuss how we’ve prevented client
environments from being compromised and saved
those that were already compromised too,” Wagner
said.

PARTNER CASE STUDY THE ITEAM

But the changes within The ITeam don’t stop
there. The Sophos partnership has also raisedinternal awareness of the security landscape andstrengthened the security culture. “These internalshifts keep us more secure and help us speak more
confidently about the security tools and services we
use to support our clients,” remarked Wagner.

What’s next for the Sophos
partnership?
With nothing but positive experience and results sofar, the sky is the limit for The ITeam partnership withSophos. The ITeam plans to go full speed ahead.

“Sophos MDR saved several clientsfrom potentially catastrophic businessfailures. We couldn’t be more pleased tohave selected a solution provider thatboth protects our clients and improves
our business processes, enabling us
to better serve our customers.“James Wagner, President of The ITeam

The next step involves implementing Sophos Network
Detection and Response (Sophos NDR) as an inhouse proof of concept (PoC). The ITeam recognizes
the value that Sophos NDR brings, with its ability toidentify unprotected devices, rogue assets, insider
threats, and zero-day attacks. The security groupbelieves that the way Sophos NDR works withmanaged endpoints and firewalls benefits existingclients and opens the door to conversations with newones. Soon, it’s likely that Sophos NDR will becomea standard offering. This addition will help The ITeam
continue its long-standing tradition of keeping clientssecure and delivering peace of mind.

Learn more about thebenefits of being a Sophos
MSP at sophos.com/msp© Copyright 2023 Sophos Ltd. All rights reserved.
Registered in England and Wales No. 2096520, The Pentagon, Abingdon Science Park, Abingdon, OX14 3YP, UKSophos is a registered trademark of Sophos Ltd. All other product and company names mentioned are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

2024-02-26 CCS-EN (NP)