Fortify

Includes a comprehensive and tailored solution that is purpose-built for lower middle market PE firms to manage risk, preserve value, and protect against business-impacting incidents and ongoing management of your cybersecurity program.

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Future Proofing Your Portfolio Investment

Portfolio companies that opt for a “do it yourself” approach to cybersecurity during critical financial transactions are taking on significant risk. With 68% of businesses seeing an increase in cybersecurity incidents at the time of deal closure, the stakes are high. Mid-sized companies often face severe consequences, typically paying an average ransom of over $1 million—three times the average. Additionally, half of these companies do not have cyber insurance, and those that do can expect their premiums to rise after an attack.

At IT Ally, we help future proof your portfolio company investments and preserve their value. Based on extensive experience partnering with lower middle marker private equity firms and our risk advisory expertise, we have created the Fortify solution to to eliminate business impacting risk. We partner with leadership teams and investors to manage risk with confidence and free up internal resources to focus on serving customers and driving growth and innovation.

SOLUTION COMPONENTS

​Our Fortify solution includes a bundled set of capabilities delivered as a managed service that spans advisory and management to network and security operations. The combination of the strategic advisory from IT Ally and the operational expertise from our proven partners , provides an unmatched end to end solution to proactively manage risk and preserve value.

CYBER ALLY SERVICES

Includes expert resources to guide your C-Suite and IT team, monitor changes in the threat landscape and ensure the organization understands the status of the risk and control environment.

Ensure cybersecurity policies are in place and people and processes are in compliance along with a cybersecurity roadmap to improve your cybersecurity capabilities.

Regularly review your cybersecurity controls, collect evidence and identify and manage compliance gaps and remediation plans.

Meet regularly with the internal IT team and business stakeholders to review operations performance and monitor the effectiveness of the security program.

Monitor, automate, and report regularly on the performance of your cybersecurity program.

Self-assessment that identifies the root causes of Tech Debt 2.0® and assigns a rating of Excellent, Good, Fair or Poor.

Includes identifying cybersecurity and IT infrastructure risks, evaluating risk mitigation alternatives, and supporting clients in mitigating such risks.

Provides executive advisory services and oversees the Fortify Program services.

SECURITY OPERATIONS CENTER (SOC)

Endpoint anti-virus security using artificial intelligence and machine learning to identify malware before execution.

Collect & analyze behavioral data to identify signs of an attack without relying on the presence of malicious files.

Protection against inbound attacks with a range of security capabilities, including anti-spam, sandboxing, and encryption.

Cybersecurity awareness training and phishing campaigns for all employees.

Vulnerability visibility, impact, and remediation recommendations.

Monitoring and reporting on compromised credentials.

Cross-platform log collection, aggregation, and analysis.

Next-generation firewalls utilize purpose-built security processors and threat intelligence to deliver top-rated protection and high performance including encrypted traffic.

Enhances security by requiring multiple forms of verification from users to access network resources. This service decreases the likelihood of unauthorized access due to compromised credentials, combining something the user knows (a password), something the user has (a security token), and something the user is (biometric verification) to protect the organization’s digital assets.

This service continually assesses and helps to optimize the security posture of your cloud infrastructure. It identifies misconfigurations and compliance gaps in real-time and provides actionable recommendations to enhance security, ensuring that cloud environments adhere to best practices and regulatory standards.

Enhances network security by blocking access to malicious and unwanted websites, reducing the risk of phishing and malware infections. This service filters and monitors DNS requests to prevent network intrusions, ensuring safe and compliant internet usage across the organization.

Workstation and server patches applied as required with Client engagement.

Protect devices against data loss and theft with full-disk encryption & encryption management.

Next-Generation Firewall capabilities including security, visibility, and control, made available at the endpoint level.

INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT (NOC)

Manage your day-to-day Azure cloud and Office 365 operations.

Proactive Server/Virtualization monitoring and initial event triage.

Proactive Network monitoring and initial event triage.

Proactive SAN/NAS monitoring and initial event triage.

Proactive Backup monitoring and initial event triage for Backup job success and failures.

Proactive Infrastructure Application Monitoring and initial event triage.

Authentication and authorization for your AD-dependent workloads, AD server maintenance and security configuration.

SERVICE DESK

Ensures that all workstations are operating efficiently, involving regular updates, maintenance, and troubleshooting to maximize system performance and employee productivity.

Focuses on the security and functionality of workstations by consistently applying the latest software patches to protect against vulnerabilities and ensure software is up-to-date.

Involves monitoring and managing employees’ mobile devices to secure access to corporate networks and protect corporate data on these devices, including enforcing security policies and installing necessary updates.

Provides round-the-clock support to address IT issues and queries, ensuring minimal downtime and maintaining continuity in IT operations for all users.

“Private equity backed lower middle market portfolio companies have emerged as the new targets for ransomware and government sponsored hacking, we are seeing many of our clients shift their position on risk tolerance in the cybersecurity arena. We advise our private equity partners to defer public announcements on new portfolio company acquisitions until the appropriate capabilities are implemented as they are a prime target of threat actors. These companies have typically under-invested in this area and having appropriate cybersecurity protection on day 1 and beyond is paramount to preservingthe valuate of their investment. . Our Fortify solution provides the resources, expertise, tools and capabilities tolevel the playing field against the evolving cybersecurity threat landscape.”

Michael FilliosFounder & CEO, IT Ally

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For more information about Ascend Technologies, please visit teamascend.com.