Protecting clients from cyberthreats is only part of an MSP’s daily challenge. Managing the growing number of security tools needed to do that job can create operational headaches, drive up costs and make it harder to scale.
Email security provider Trustifi is working to ease that burden by consolidating email and collaboration security into one platform. The company also relies on MSP feedback to guide its product development.
MSP feedback drives product development
Trustifi’s channel-first approach dates back to its earliest days, said Zack Schwartz, vice president of business development.
Zack Schwartz
“The reason I came on was to help build out our channel nine years ago. We started as a channel-first company, and that’s why the company and product have grown to be so amazing. We don’t have our own product managers. We take feedback from our partners and then we build that into our product.”
That feedback has become particularly important as clients adopt more collaboration and file-sharing applications. In August, the company introduced Trustifi Collaboration Shield. The new security solution extends protection beyond email into Microsoft Teams, SharePoint and OneDrive. The product helps MSPs detect threats, monitor sensitive information and manage security policies across clients’ collaboration environments.
Trustifi also supports Google Workspace for email security and is developing collaboration security capabilities for Google’s platform. Schwartz said the company has followed the growing familiarity with Google’s tools among younger IT professionals, many of whom first used them in school.
Less tool sprawl, easier management
For Denver-based IT service provider TekEfficient, consolidating security capabilities is a practical operational advantage. The Trustifi partner said managing multiple security products had created unnecessary complexity.
Moses Castillo
“We’re really focused on making sure our clients are getting the best value from technology,” explained Moses Castillo, vice president of business development for TekEfficient. “Partnering with Trustifi was a natural fit because [the vendor makes] it easy to bring multiple aspects of important topics, cybersecurity and especially email into one platform.”
Castillo highlighted the Trustifi platform’s ability to manage its clients. “One of the key reasons why we’re partnering with Trustifi is being able to manage multiple clients in a single interface. We have to have that. Trustifi makes it easy in that way, where others try to perhaps patch a few things together to make things work. This platform is super easy to manage.”
Trustifi has expanded those capabilities through Collaboration Shield and its newer Admin Center. Collaboration Shield provides multitenant administration, centralized policy enforcement and analytics. Meanwhile, the Admin Center helps MSPs manage permissions and apply configurations across customer environments. Together, these tools can reduce repetitive administrative work and help providers support more clients without adding equivalent staffing resources.
Addressing threats beyond the inbox
Trustifi’s expansion into collaboration security also reflects changing customer behavior. Employees routinely exchange sensitive information through messaging applications and shared files. Those activities can introduce risks that traditional email protection alone may not address.
Collaboration Shield addresses those risks by detecting malicious files, flagging risky sharing activity and automatically quarantining suspicious content. Investigation tools also help technicians identify affected users and files, potentially reducing incident response time.
Trustifi’s broader platform includes email security, encryption, archiving, data loss prevention and security awareness training. Those capabilities also create opportunities for MSPs serving clients with compliance requirements. According to Trustifi, Collaboration Shield recognizes more than 70 types of sensitive information and allows administrators to map detections to compliance requirements associated with HIPAA and PCI DSS. That gives providers another way to help customers identify data exposure risks, document security activity and strengthen compliance-related services.
More than a technology provider
The relationship between an MSP and its security vendors can be just as important as the technology itself. Trustifi’s approach to product development shows how listening to partners can lead to solutions that address real operational challenges.
By incorporating MSP feedback into its technology and expanding its capabilities, the company is helping partners adapt to changing security demands while keeping their operations efficient and manageable.
Anjali Fluker is managing editor of The ChannelPro Network, where she covers news, trends and best practices for the MSP community. She specializes in telling the stories that matter to IT providers serving the SMB market. When she’s not reporting on the latest in managed services, she’s connecting with channel pros at industry events across the country.
Images: AI generated by ChatGPT; Trustifi; Moses Castillo via LinkedIn
