TreeTop Peak Platform
To say the cybersecurity landscape has changed is an understatement. Around the start of the new millennia, a firewall and anti-virus were largely "good enough" cybersecurity. Today, a firewall and anti-virus barely scratch the surface in protecting the modern business. Security done properly requires ongoing processes and it is not a “set and forget” product as many want you to believe. Not to mention, the problem has shifted from just big business to a concern for every business. It is safe to say the problem has officially moved the ever-growing cybersecurity crisis from Wall Street to Main Street. Regardless of the size of a business and budget, cybersecurity is challenging. It’s why we continue seeing breaches at huge companies that spend millions to protect themselves. On a limited budget cybersecurity becomes even more daunting.
After working with businesses on IT and security for over 20 years, the founder of TreeTop Security had a simple idea… Build an affordable and comprehensive cybersecurity solution for small businesses. It was based on the premise that small businesses care about cybersecurity, but they don’t want to go broke doing it. The market needed a solution that every business could afford. The idea led to years of trial, error, and development to what is now known as the Peak platform. Peak is a holistic approach to cybersecurity designed with small business in mind.
Can Peak protect you from every single attack? No, but nothing can. Is it perfect? No, but nothing is. Regardless of what any vendor says, no product or amount of money can prevent 100% of attacks. What Peak will do is put a small business in the top tier in terms of cybersecurity best practices without breaking the bank. How? Peak is based on solid fundamentals, an intelligent selection of protection and products, and automation of security monitoring to protect against real-world attacks. And there’s nothing else quite like it!
1/4 the price or 4 times the capabilities
Anyone can resell a handful of cybersecurity products and claim they do cybersecurity, but do they truly understand the big picture? A cybersecurity platform requires a partner who understands and addresses security gaps for the customers they serve. Only by addressing the components below (and many more) and eliminating the most common security issues can the sum of the parts truly add up to more than the whole. Risks and vulnerabilities are minimized and that exhaustive level of coverage translates to happier customers who can breathe a little easier regarding their overall security posture.
Plain and simple… No cybersecurity solution is complete without backups. With the Peak platform, we can easily perform both onsite and offsite backups. In fact, Peak provides offsite backup storage as part of the solution. We then monitor backup jobs to make sure they are running. Last but not least, we periodically compare the cloud backup with the local data to ensure it is in sync. Data is encrypted before it leaves your location. In addition, all offsite storage is fully encrypted and compliant with standards such as HIPAA, HITECH, and more.
Rather than relying on standard anti-virus, Peak uses next generation anti-virus for endpoint protection. The next-gen anti-virus provides memory protection, a smaller footprint (computer resources) than traditional anti-virus, and protection against a numerous types of scripts. The next-gen anti-virus also uses artificial intelligence to significantly better the protection against unknown threats. As with other components, we then monitor any alerts received and investigate them to ensure further action is not necessary.
The Peak platform provides a leased firewall for each customer location. In addition to proper configuration, each firewall also comes with intrusion prevention and ongoing threat intelligence feeds for improved protection. We then extensively monitor the firewall for any security-related events. We also monitor for non-security events such as VPN tunnels, connectivity to external resources, and more. In the event of failure, the firewall is replaced with our no questions asked policy to get the customer back up and running in no time.
Many compliance standards such as PCI require both quarterly external scans as well as quarterly internal scans. Unfortunately, many businesses overlook the latter despite its security benefits. Vulnerability scanning is essential to the Peak platform and doing security properly. Aside from identifying simple items such as mis-configured services, a quality vulnerability scanner can also perform checks-and-balances on other Peak components. For example, a patch can errantly report back that it was properly applied to a server. A vulnerability scan can, in turn, verify that server is lacking the patch.
Patch management remains an issue for businesses of all sizes. A missing patch is often the cause of some of the biggest data breaches in history. Peak includes patch management for all major operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, Apple Macintosh, and Linux. The patch management solution also includes third-party patches for many of the most popular applications. As with all other aspects of the platform, we monitor the patching process to ensure all patches are getting properly installed.
Peak is designed to work with existing managed service providers (MSP) or IT departments. What that means that those partners can see much of what we can see. If we see any service drop or security alert, the partner sees it too. This approach leads to better support from existing resources as they gain access to tools/capabilities they previously did not have. The IT support can still provide the day-to-day IT needs of the business, sells computers, etc. Since the system is designed with this in mind, MSPs and IT departments can see all of their systems and related services in their dashboard, but they cannot see those of anyone else.
Without cybersecurity awareness training, end users are the weakest link in security. With properly trained staff, end users become a core element to your overall security. Well-trained employees essentially become another security sensor to alert you when something isn’t quite right. To accomplish this, the Peak platform includes the industry-lauded cybersecurity awareness training from TreeTop Security. How do we know it is so well-received by the community? We received tons of feedback before and after we gave it away for free! Yes, we gave it away because we believe in good karma and because it is the right thing to do!
Click here for Cybersecurity Awareness Training
When you are on the Peak platform, cybersecurity awareness training then becomes an ongoing process. Our platform is holistic so if we see an issue, we can investigate it and discuss it with the end user right away. We call this approach “security awareness reinforcement training.” It is one thing when an end user sits through an annual cybersecurity training and learns to identify and not click phishing links. It is a whole different experience when they receive a phone call within 20 minutes to discuss a link or attachment they shouldn’t have opened. That is why the reinforcement training becomes such a huge part of the process.
Periodic cybersecurity awareness trainings for end users only go so far. You need to test your end users using hands-on events rather than waiting for the next “live fire” attack. TreeTop provides periodic email phishing assessments using some of the same phishing tactics the bad guys are using in the real-world. Quality phishing assessments also ensure your end user awareness training is working.
The Peak platform relies on threat intelligence to augment many of the individual components. Using available data also enhances the security posture of an organization by knowing the worst of the worst on the internet can’t communicate with their systems. Monitoring system activity against the various threat intelligence feeds also provides alerts for systems that might be behaving abnormally.
A staple of the security industry is the CIA triangle -- confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Despite the emphasis on availability, it is often overlooked in the grand scheme of information security. Ensuring that systems/services are running and they are allocated the proper system resources is not just about good IT, but good security. This is the reason why the Peak platform combines network and security operations.
Every tool has a dashboard. Peak brings all of those tools into a primary dashboard using custom API calls and scripts. Thus, all events are viewed through a single pane of glass which provides vastly improved event correlation. Big businesses traditionally have a network operations center (NOC) for system/uptime monitoring and a separate security operations center (SOC) for security tools. Peak combines those two worlds. If a Windows service is down, it is easily viewed in the dashboard and alerted on through the Peak platform. If a new threat is detected on an endpoint or at the firewall, it is similarly displayed (and alerted on) through the Peak platform. Overall, correlating network and security operations data leads to better outcomes and far superior service.
* Secondary or shift monitoring for 24x7x365 coverage is also available.
The modern office often has more devices connecting wirelessly than hard-wired via a network cable. We drastically improve wireless security by ensuring proper setup and ongoing monitoring. We also configure wireless so only authorized new devices can connect to your private wireless networks. Want to provide employees wireless access for their personal (BYOD) devices that won’t decrease your security? We can do that too and so much more. As with other platform-related hardware, in the event of failure, access points are replaced with our no questions asked policy to get the customer back up and running in no time.
All costs are based on previous customers who currently use the Peak platform. We will soon add a no-haggle cost calculator so you can get a more accurate estimate for your environment. Prices typically do not vary much, if at all from the estimate price. However, changes can occur when a) an initial install leads to an active response scenario, b) the patches for an environment are significantly out-of-date, or c) higher density wireless equipment is necessary.
Equipment provided by TreeTop Security
Equipment provided by TreeTop Security
Equipment provided by TreeTop Security