Top Security Tools & Software for SMBs

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Small businesses generally don’t have time to dip into logs several times a day, monitor every aspect of endpoint security via complex management consoles, or jump from point product to point product to stay on top of security.

Instead, they want a few good tools that do a lot for them and don’t require much in the way of babysitting. At the same time, they don’t want to pay an arm and a leg for security tools that contain every bell and whistle imaginable. They just want them to work, be simple to implement and use, and, of course, be affordable.

With those criteria as a general guide, we examined the cybersecurity market to come up with tools that are well suited for SMBs. Here are the ones that stood out in our research and analysis.

Best SMB Security Tools & Software

Syxsense Enterprise

Purple eSecurity Planet Badge: Best Small Business Cybersecurity Solutions 2022.

Syxsense Enterprise is a Unified Security and Endpoint Management (USEM) solution that delivers real-time vulnerability monitoring and instant remediation for every endpoint in an environment, as well as IT management, patch management and mobile device management (MDM) across all endpoints.

Key Differentiators

  • Breaches can be detected and remediated within one endpoint solution.
  • It can scan for all vulnerabilities on any device, block communication from an infected device to the internet, isolate endpoints, and kill malicious processes before they spread.
  • Can automatically prioritize and deploy operating system and third-party patches to all major operating systems, as well as Windows 10 feature updates.
  • IT and security teams can use it to collaborate on the detection and closing of attack vectors.
  • Offers management, control, and security for any and all desktops, laptops, servers, virtual machines, and mobile devices.

See the Top Endpoint Detection & Response (EDR) Solutions and the Best Antivirus Software

Zerto

Orange eSecurity Planet Badge: Top Small Business Cybersecurity Solutions 2022.

The Zerto platform is a good option for SMBs that want one platform that addresses backup, data protection, data recovery, and the ability to move applications and data across private, public, and hybrid clouds.

Key Differentiators

  • Zerto’s software-only platform is easy for SMBs to implement.
  • It uses continuous data protection to converge disaster recovery, backup, and data mobility, as well as protection from human error, programmatic errors, malicious insiders, external hackers, and viruses or ransomware.
  • Offers backup and recovery for Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Google Workspace, and Microsoft Dynamics 365.
  • Automated, simple workflows for all recovery, restore, move, and failover operations from entire SMB systems to single files.
  • SMBs can use Zerto to failover to another location such as another on-premises site, the public cloud, or to a service provider.
  • Zerto Continuous Data Protection (CDP) eliminates periodic backups and snapshots, bringing always-on replication to perform disaster recovery and data protection.

Trend Micro Managed XDR

Orange eSecurity Planet Badge: Top Small Business Cybersecurity Solutions 2022.

Trend Micro’s integrated package covers a wealth of features that SMBs can use to centralize and simplify security operations. It includes email, endpoints, servers, cloud workloads, and networks as part of overall managed detection and response (MDR or XDR).

Key Differentiators

  • Trend Micro Managed XDR drives improvements in time-to-detect and time-to-respond while minimizing the risks and impact of threats.
  • SMB users can choose to monitor email, endpoints, servers, cloud workloads, and/or network security solutions
  • Continuously sweeps environments for newly identified indicators of compromise (IoCs) or indicators of attack (IoAs).
  • Endpoints protected with Trend Micro Apex One multi-layered endpoint security.
  • Email protected by Trend Micro Cloud App Security for Microsoft Office 365 or Google G Suite.
  • Servers and cloud workloads protected by Trend Micro Deep Security Software or Trend Micro Cloud One.
  • Workload Security (virtual, physical, cloud, and containers).

Also see: Best Cybersecurity Awareness Training for Employees

FortiGate Network Firewall

Businesses need to have security that just works and is easy to manage in order to stop attackers targeting small businesses. Fortinet delivers FortiGate Network Firewalls that are right sized for small businesses to deliver easy-to-use enterprise-level security, good price-to-performance, and offer centralized cloud management that integrates into the larger Fortinet Security Fabric as the business grows.

Key Differentiators

  • FortiGate is the cornerstone of an integrated and automated Security Fabric, with products designed to work together from the beginning to simplify operations and secure growing businesses.
  • Delivers consolidated management of all next-generation firewall (NGFW), software defined wide area network (SD-WAN), switching and wireless policies from anywhere with a single cloud management and analytics platform.
  • Built-in Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) delivers protection and policy flexibility to enable hybrid workforces and work-from-anywhere environments.
  • Easily manage an entire network from a single pane of glass including firewall, SD-WAN, switches, wireless access points and extenders.

See the Top Next-generation Firewalls (NGFWs)

Carbonite

Carbonite Backup for Microsoft 365 offers SMBs the ability to protect their Microsoft 365 suite of productivity apps. It enables small businesses to recover individual files and folders, as well as permissions settings and entire sites rapidly.

Key Differentiators

  • Protects SharePoint, OneDrive, Email, Teams and other parts of the Microsoft 365 family.
  • Protects data from data loss, ransomware attacks, human error, and hardware failure.
  • SMBs can use it to perform site-level rollback or recover individual items including mailboxes, conversations, and files.
  • If desired SMBs, can run backups up to four times per day.
  • Can capture changes in Microsoft 365 applications and replicate them to a secondary instance in Microsoft Azure.
  • Restores can be done based on a number of variables including owner, subject line, and content type.

Arcserve’s OneXafe

OneXafe delivers a flexible and easy to configure storage and recovery solution. It removes the burden of application downtime and configuration changes for storage management tasks. Ideal for SMBs, it can be installed and available to users rapidly without reconfiguration to accommodate various workload requirements.

Key Differentiators 

  • OneXafe supports one or multiple OneXafe nodes in a cluster and a single global file system in a scale-out architecture.
  • Add any number of drives or nodes at any time in any capacity without configuration changes or application downtime.
  • OneXafe’s file system is based on an immutable object store, with every object written only once and never modified. Any modification you make to the file system always results in the creation of new objects.
  • OneXafe continuous data protection (CDP) takes low-overhead snapshots every 90 seconds. Snapshots are the view of the file system at the instant when the snapshot is taken.
  • RAID-less data protection.
  • Inline deduplication and compression.
  • Offers encryption at rest, ransomware protection, multiple copy protection, and multi-site remote replication, as well as fault domain protection.

Also read: Best Backup Solutions for Ransomware Protection

Aruba 9000 Series Gateway

Gateways are the first point of defense, scanning incoming and outgoing traffic to keep your business, employees, and customers safe without slowing down your network. The Aruba 9000 Series Gateways include built-in features like intrusion detection and prevention, unified policy enforcement firewall and web content filtering to provide high-level security across a business.

Key Differentiators

  • Intrusion detection and prevention inspects network traffic for malware or suspicious activity and stops them from spreading.
  • Unified policy enforcement firewall protects the network by defining profiles and automatically enforcing role-based policies to enable the right amount of access for users and devices.
  • Web content filtering defends against cyberthreats and enhances internet security with granular content classification, malicious site and IP reputation filters.
  • Supports thousands of concurrent devices and active firewall sessions across deployments and hybrid ISP links.

See the Best Secure Web Gateways

Cynet

The Cynet 360 AutoXDR platform prevents and detects threats on endpoints, networks, and users and for each identified threat it triggers an automated investigation flow that reveals the attack’s scope and root cause and applies automated remediation.

Key Differentiators

  • SMBs can take advantage of CyOps, Cynet’s 24/7 SOC team of threat researchers and security analysts that can conduct in-depth investigation, proactive threat hunting, malware analysis and attack reports.
  • Adjusts Cynet 360 alerting mechanisms to the customers’ IT environment to reduce false positives and increase accuracy.
  • Cynet Prevention & Detection leverages Cynet Sensor Fusion to provide the integrated capabilities of Next-Generation Antivirus, Endpoint Detection and Response, Network Analytics, Deception and User Behavioral Analytics. 
  • Cynet Response Orchestration includes a set of remediation actions to address infected hosts, malicious files, attacker-controlled network traffic, and compromised user accounts.
  • Includes over 30 threat intelligence feeds.
  • Conclusion of investigated attacks entails concrete guidance to the customers on which endpoints, files, user and network traffic should be remediated.

Barracuda

Barracuda SKOUT Managed XDR provides SMBs with a 24/7/365 monitoring and incident response solution that is easy to use. Barracuda includes access to a fully staffed security operations center to address the latest threats.

Key Differentiators

  • Provides coverage for email, endpoints, log and network security monitoring, and Office 365 security monitoring, as well as integration with major security tools.
  • Notifies at-risk users automatically with instructions to change their passwords and other necessary remediation action for any potential threats 
  • Automatically identifies anomalies within delivered mail, and uncovers instances of phishing attacks.
  • Helps SMBs detect and correlate threats from across multiple vectors, including lateral movement between threat actors.
  • Combines Extended Detection and Response with a SOC-as-a-Service approach to offer a more holistic view of environments and end users.

See the Top XDR Security Solutions

PhishER

KnowBe4 PhishER is designed for SMBs and others. It is an easy-to-use web-based platform that functions as a phishing emergency room to identify and respond to user-reported messages. It prioritizes and analyzes which messages are legitimate and which ones are not.

Key Differentiators

  • Helps SMBs prioritize, analyze and manage large volumes of email messages, fast.
  • Blends incident response with a lightweight Security Orchestration and Automation Response (SOAR) solution to allow SMBs to focus directly on the problems that need to be managed.
  • Automatic prioritization for emails and automated email response templates. 
  • Assesses which messages are legitimate and which are not.
  • PhishRIP is an email quarantine feature that integrates with platforms such as Microsoft 365 and G Suite. It is used by SMBs to remove, inoculate, and protect against email threats so small businesses gain the ability to shut down active phishing attacks as they happen.

Read next: Top MDR Services and Solutions

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