Rackspace launches Managed Security and Compliance Assistance offering

Cybersecurity is a top priority for Rackspace and its customers. Rackspace Managed Security and Compliance Assistance lets customers leverage Rackspace security experts to help with strategic planning for best practice multi-cloud security, tactical day-to-day security monitoring and threat analysis to deter, detect and respond to potential threats around the clock.

“Every day, businesses are at risk of being affected by a security threat or data breach,” said Perry Robinson, vice president and general manager of Managed Security at Rackspace. “These threats often occur without warning, can be directed at any part of the business, and come from anywhere in the world. Damage from malicious parties can range from lost revenue and recovery costs to potential liability costs and compliance-related fines.”

Rackspace will provide onboarding consultation and deployment to deliver a tailored solution as well as manage customers’ environment on an ongoing basis to help detect and respond to security threats. Rackspace expertise in detection and deterrence can minimise the potential impact of an attack, while significantly lowering the total cost of ownership (TCO) over internally developed security operations centers and comparable managed service offerings.

“Cyberattacks are the new normal for companies and represent one of the realities of doing business today as technology becomes the lifeblood of our organisations,” said Brian Kelly, chief security officer at Rackspace. “Customers trust Rackspace for security expertise because we have 16 years of first-hand knowledge managing IT infrastructure and direct experience with today’s complex threats. Because of the scale and complexity of the technology environments that we manage, security is a top priority for Rackspace and our customers day in and day out.”

Managed Security
The Rackspace Managed Security offering is designed to detect and respond to advanced persistent threats (APTs) and other types of cyberattacks. The offering is tailored to customers’ business needs and backed by a 24/7/365 Customer Security Operations Center (CSOC) at Rackspace. The CSOC is located at Rackspace headquarters and will open in October. The following services will be a part of the Managed Security offering:

Host and Network Protection – Provides advanced host and network protection platforms targeted at zero-day and non-malware attacks as well as traditional compromise tactics.
Security Analytics – Utilises a leading Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) platform paired with big data analytics platforms to collect and analyse security data from the customer’s environment.
Vulnerability Management – Rackspace utilises scanning and agent technologies to understand the customer’s environment and uses this data to tailor our Customer Security Operations Center’s response to threats and attacks in the environment.
Threat Intelligence – Rackspace consumes more than 20 threat intelligence feeds, fusing the information together with our own internal data to respond to the changing threat landscape in real time.

Compliance Assistance
Rackspace Compliance Assistance is a combination of tooling and expertise to help customers achieve and maintain compliance and reporting goals for their environment. Compliance Assistance offers the following capabilities:

Configuration Hardening and Monitoring – Assigns security configuration profiles to hosts based on accepted standards such as those from the Center for Internet Security (CIS), as well as community best practices. Rackspace detects and logs deviations from these profiles in real-time to allow for comprehensive documentation and reduced vulnerability windows.
Patch Monitoring – Rackspace patch monitoring provides an understanding of what threats are applicable to an environment including what Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) are present in the environment.
User Monitoring – Monitors and documents user host access, authentication level, and login times to help ensure that customers can prove compliance with access controls.
File Integrity Management – Detects, reports, and documents changes to files on a host based on customers’ security and compliance requirements.

Given the challenges spanning limited security expertise, budget constraints, rapidly evolving security related compliance requirements and increasing adoption of multi-cloud IT services, Rackspace Managed Security and Compliance Assistance combines deep expertise and leading technology to allow customers to focus on their core business.

“Cloud vendors need to be more proactive and help their customers understand and manage security in the cloud, and with this new Managed Security offering, Rackspace is responding to that need,” said Christopher Wilder, practice head and senior analyst, cloud services at Moor Insights & Strategy. “As organisations increasingly adopt complex cloud environments and cyberattacks become more frequent, customers can benefit from the 24/7 security expertise and support from Rackspace to help them keep their information and data secure. These services are even more important to smaller and mid-sized firms who might not be able to find or afford the top security talent to run their IT organisations.”