Secure remote access offering gains ground among MSPs
Todyl's Secure Global Network, available free for 30 days, aims to help managed service providers protect customers' home-based employees amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Todyl, a New York City company that sells a networking and security platform through MSPs, reported increasing interest in its product as organizations face secure remote access challenges.
"Things have been rapidly evolving over the last two weeks with the COVID-19 response," Todyl CEO John Nellen said. "We have been really busy trying to help existing partners and new partners."
The company offers MSPs -- and their SMB customers -- the ability to consolidate networking and security components into a cloud-based platform. Todyl MSP partners deploy the technology by installing agents on customers' Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android devices. A VPN tunnel then links customers to Todyl's Secure Global Network offering, which incorporates web proxy, firewall, content filtering, intrusion detection/prevention (IDP), malware interception and security information and event management (SIEM) technologies.
The Secure Global Network's points of presence link end customers to multiple network providers. Todyl's platform connects organizations' remote workers, data centers, cloud providers, main offices and branch locations, according to the company.
Todyl is currently offering its platform to MSPs for free for 30 days "to help support the immediate need," Nellen said. Once the offer expires, pricing is device-based with add-on features. Todyl offers pricing for two groups: mobile (Android/iOS) and desktop/laptop/server (Windows, Mac, Linux).
MSP taps Todyl for remote enablement
Infinit Consulting Inc., an MSP based in Campbell, Calif., is selling Todyl as a white-labeled offering. The company has branded Todyl as Infinit Shield Total Defense, which it has paired with its own Infinit Shield security process management platform, according to Jerod Powell, president and founder of Infinit Consulting.
John Nellen
Powell called Todyl "instrumental in helping our customers rapidly enable complete remote workforce capabilities."
Infinit Consulting had previously enabled nearly all of its customers to use cloud services, but the company is currently tasked with helping them significantly expand remote workforces. The expansion sometimes includes moving customers from having 15% of employees working remotely to nearly 100%.
While assisting with remote workforce expansions, Infinit Consulting has run into issues such as licensing and hardware limitations around customers' previous remote work applications, Powell said. He pointed to another issue: Properly securing devices to ensure data integrity, company policy adherence and security, while allowing employees to work remotely -- often from their personal home PC or Mac.
Powell said Todyl lets Infinit Consulting enable remote access in a matter of a few hours in a full-scale deployment. The Todyl offering also lets the company "secure that remote connection 100%, end to end;" bring clients onto the Secure Global Network; and feed data back to the SIEM. The SIEM feature provides the MSP with "the telemetry needed to identify potential security risks [and] enforce corporate policy just as if [remote employees] were on the client's LAN."
Things have been rapidly evolving over the last two weeks with the COVID-19 response.
John NellenCEO, Todyl
He said Todyl also offers IDP and advanced threat protection scanning to flag potentially malicious applications and data before they reach customers.
The demand for supporting customers' remote workforces is "extremely high," Powell noted. He cited a case in which Infinit Consulting rolled out Todyl to a customer that needed to enable more than 500 users to work remotely. The customer's previous remote work product only supported 100 users. Todyl also identified security issues in several of remote workers' home PCs. The MSP was able to resolve those issues before admitting the remote workers' devices onto the network, he added.
Powell said his company has created deployment packages for Todyl that can implement the product in an automated manner.
Waves of demand for secure remote access
Citing conversations with Todyl MSP partners, Nellen said MSPs anticipate two waves of unfolding demand for remote work technology.
The first wave consists of early adopters trying to quickly set up their organizations for newly distributed workforces. The second wave will comprise SMBs that have yet to determine the best way to support remote workers. Those companies will start making decisions, based on guidance from government agencies, in the coming weeks, Nellen said.
"They are expecting this not to be just a single shot, but something that is taking place and evolving over time," Nellen said.
John Nellen
