Summary
For Colby Rogness, CTO at Complete Network Integration, it was important to find a security partner he and his team could rely on for holistic security from beginning to end. In Blackpoint, they found a complete package to fill their gaps that fits with any existing stack, and a partner they can rely on for security expertise that’s just a phone call away. What’s more, Blackpoint’s continuously expanding ecosystem allows Complete Network Integration to deepen customer relationships and explore new channels. All in all, Blackpoint is the key to success in detecting and remediating a breach, Rogness says.
Transcript
My name is Colby Rogness, and I am the chief technology officer at Complete Network Integration. We’re a managed services, managed security services provider headquartered in Richmond. We work very closely with partners and clients in the D.C. metro area especially, despite being headquartered in Richmond. So mid-Atlantic is really our area of focus, clients large and small.
How do you evaluate prospective partners?
When we began the process of evaluating our security partnerships, it was really important to us to be able to find a partner that we could trust and rely on fully. One of the things that really stood out to us about Blackpoint is their transparency and willingness to engage with us really at all levels of the of the client security posture, from left of boom to right of boom, and every step in between.
We evaluated a number of different partners. You know, we’re really thankful today that the ecosystem has a number of options to choose from, which can make it really hard to identify a partner to work with. One of the most important criteria for us is to be able to, like I said, trust and rely on our partner for all elements, beginning to end.
And we felt that the Blackpoint package was really the complete package. Blackpoint presents well, it covers a number of what we feel are gaps, and quite frankly, the experience of the SOC stood out above and beyond all the rest, head and shoulders above some of the other partners we evaluated.
How did you decide to use Blackpoint?
Blackpoint offers one of the most holistic packages available. One of the reasons we turned to Blackpoint is because no matter the existing security stack in place today, yours or your client’s, Blackpoint fits and provides 100% coverage in the areas we need it.
The Blackpoint portfolio has only grown. We’ve loved to see that as new capabilities, products, features are offered into the ecosystem, which only serves to deepen our relationship with our existing clients and enables new go-to-market strategies to bring Blackpoint out to new channels, which is really exciting for us.
What makes Blackpoint unique?
One of the things that differentiates the Blackpoint SOC from the other SOC options available is the ability for us to be able to call in and remediate and threat hunt time in real time. It’s really important for us to feel like we have access to security professionals’ expertise, where maybe art or team lacks that, in real time.
And we’ve made use of that in client relationships too. In some cases we’ll actually allow our clients to engage Blackpoint directly, where we don’t—so clients don’t feel like we have to sit in-band in an incident response lifecycle. And that’s proven really valuable a number of times, putting clients at ease, making sure they feel equipped not just through us, but through all elements of their security portfolio.
How does Blackpoint support you?
Blackpoint is sort of the cornerstone for us of our security framework. Blackpoint serves a role of being able to be our overwatch, be our eyes and ears to see all the things we don’t see. As a service provider, we’re really motivated to see our clients’ security posture lift, both on the preventative and on the reactive side.
There’s nobody I’d rather have in my corner than Blackpoint. On top of Blackpoint, we typically pair Blackpoint services with a number of preventative tools and elements of the stack, things like EDR, email security policy, security awareness training, all the sorts of things you’d expect to prevent breaches from occurring. But at the end of the day, Blackpoint’s the key to our success in detecting and remediating a breach.
How is Blackpoint as a partner?
Blackpoint has been a phenomenal partner to work with as we look to expand our own team’s knowledge and understanding of incident response planning and security assessment. They’ve also helped directly educate our clients. I find that incredibly valuable and it’s the best way to build trust and credibility with our clientele and prospects.