Amaxra Beacon is affordable and advanced turnkey cyber-security for SMBs

A cyber-security attack is the nightmare scenario for all businesses. When a company is victimized by malware, ransomware, or phishing attacks, the outcome often seriously disrupts business operations while also damaging the company’s reputation. Notice we said “when” rather than “if” when it comes to cyber-security threats—because, sadly, the odds are that every business will fall prey to hackers at some point.

When you look at the stats, it is the small to midsized businesses (SMBs) that are disproportionately affected by cyber-security attacks. In their annual 2020 Data Breach Investigations Report, Verizon Enterprise cyber-security experts noted that 1/3rd of all cyber-attacks were targeted at small businesses. In the past two years, phishing scams and ransomware attacks related to the COVID-19 pandemic have increased by an average of 300% according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Worst of all, a full 60% of small businesses who fell victim to cyberattacks went out of business within six months according to the U.S. National Cyber Security Alliance.

Amaxra believes that no SMB should ever live in fear of cyber-attacks. While these security threats are serious and everything seems dark, Amaxra’s cyber-security experts can be your company’s guiding light with Amaxra Beacon. These are a set of turnkey, cloud-powered security solutions scalable to meet your desired business outcomes to protect every employee and device at your SMB.

What is Amaxra Beacon?

Amaxra Beacon is a tiered set of turnkey cyber-security solutions designed to defend SMBs using the Microsoft 365 For Business suite of productivity apps against increasingly persistent threats. Amaxra, as a Gold-level Microsoft Partner with over a decade of successful Microsoft cloud solution deployments in the SMB space, has always deployed Microsoft 365 solutions to our customers with a base level of cyber-security that includes multi-factor authentication and limited administrative rights for all users at no extra charge for the customer. At a high level, the baseline Amaxra cyber-security protections relate to employee identity: ensuring only authorized users have access to your cloud-based corporate assets and Microsoft 365 applications such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, OneDrive, and SharePoint. Amaxra Beacon builds on that baseline protection with advanced premium options to protect not only identity, but also the applications, data, communications, and devices your employees use every day. We offer two tiers of Amaxra Beacon cyber-security, and each of them can be augmented by managed detection and response services.

Amaxra Beacon Lite and Premium: cyber-security service tiers and options

For as little as $1.50 per user, per month, SMBs can add Amaxra Beacon Lite services to their Microsoft 365 deployments. Amaxra Beacon Lite provides our baseline identity protection along with advanced options for passwordless sign-ins and added visibility into user activity. Amaxra Beacon Lite service locks down Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, and other apps so that rogue add-ons (a common malware infection vector) cannot be installed. Options are available in the Amaxra Beacon Lite tier to protect against phishing and other attacks targeted at Outlook and Teams using cloud-based artificial intelligence to automatically block spam, dangerous links, and attachments in email and chat messages.

As the name suggests, Amaxra Beacon Premium costs a bit more than Lite while building upon the Lite tier’s features. Amaxra Beacon Premium solutions add zero-trust security, data leak protection for cloud-based files, and automated endpoint protection. The zero-trust security and endpoint defenses are crucial for SMBs to fight ransomware—especially as more companies empower their employees to work remotely. These endpoint defenses allow for IT departments to protect both company and employee-owned devices against attacks. Zero trust protections ensure that only authorized devices and users can access corporate assets. And best of all, the Amaxra Beacon Premium solution includes regular security check-ins, remediation of covered events, security planning, and ongoing enhancements to your SMB’s current security posture as new cyber-security capabilities in Microsoft 365 become available.

What is Amaxra Beacon with managed detection and response (MDR)?

Amaxra Beacon with MDR delivers 24/7 cyber-security monitoring and response as a turnkey service for your business. Managed detection and response or “MDR” adds a human touch to cyber-security that is often lacking. Typical cyber-security systems for businesses, such as hardware firewalls or antimalware scanning software, generate logfiles and threat alerts that a corporate IT team must sift through and respond accordingly. For most SMBs with limited IT resources, the voluminous security alerts quickly overwhelm an overworked staff. Amaxra Beacon with MDR handles all the cyber-security monitoring using a team of trained IT security experts working 24/7 in an operations center. Adding MDR to Amaxra Beacon solutions means Amaxra provides your SMB with a list of prioritized alerts, suggested action items for your IT team, and if authorized, Amaxra takes an active role in responding to the security incident on your behalf.

Can you afford to skimp on cyber-security protections for Microsoft 365 at your SMB?

In every conversation about migrating business IT to the cloud and using Microsoft Office, Teams, and other solutions, Amaxra consultants always ask about the prospective customer’s cyber-security strategy. Security cannot be an afterthought for any business IT purchase, especially in our cloud-first/mobile-first world where remote workers need secure access to company assets from any device. A common objection from SMB IT buyers for cyber-security is the price of adding those protections. But it’s not easy for IT leaders to justify paying over $100,000 on average for a data breach (as per a recent cyber-security risk study by Kaspersky) versus the extra few dollars per user every month for Amaxra Beacon protections. Faced with the very real potential of business closures, job losses, and other socioeconomic effects, smart IT buyers know it’s better to pay a little upfront.

Find out what our Amaxra Beacon can do for you. Download our brochure.