Overview

As a rapidly growing New York–based managed service provider (MSP), with high-touch customer service to over 4,000 endpoints, Nerds That Care was particularly relieved it had a solid partnership with Trend Micro when COVID-19 hit. Their customers were significantly impacted by the economic shutdown, and Trend Micro worked with Nerds That Care to ensure that they continued to have the highest level of security protection available. Nerds That Care is one of the first MSPs to deliver Trend Micro™ Worry-Free with Co-Managed XDR, a new offering that extends security beyond the endpoint.

Challenges

Nerds That Care provides a wide variety of IT products and services, including network design, multi-platform integration, network support, and web design, to its small and medium-sized business customers. Their success relies on their ability to protect customers from security breaches, especially small businesses that don’t have the infrastructure to deflect today’s sophisticated cybersecurity threats. “About 70% of our customers would go out of business if they had a security breach, as they can’t handle the repercussions. We are always trying to find the best security solutions available to protect them,” says James Rocker, CEO at Nerds That Care. “We can’t take chances. Our customers rely on us to make sure they are protected, and that their security is handled,” says Rocker.

Why Trend Micro

In 2019, Nerds That Care leaders conducted a review of their existing security offering. The company considered staying with its incumbent security provider. However, after networking with Trend Micro at an event, Rocker was convinced Trend Micro products could provide the next level of security he needed. “It’s hard to fool me as an engineer. When I saw Trend Micro’s security solutions, I knew they were better than others we considered. Compared to what we were using at that time, it was night and day,” says Rocker. “The greatest decision that we made in 2019, was switching to Trend Micro. The company is purely focused on security.”

Trend Micro’s customer service was another differentiator. “The people at Trend Micro made the difference. Trend Micro was focused on us, and we could tell they were dedicated to our vision. People need to be educated to work with a great partner, one that advocates for us and educates our customers,” says Rocker. “The whole solution and the people in the SOC behind the scenes are the real heroes.”

"Worry-Free with Co-Managed XDR has blocked ransomware at least a dozen times over a five-month period."

James Rocker
CEO, Nerds That Care

Solution

Nerds That Care chose Trend Micro™ Worry-Free XDR to bring holistic threat visibility and correlation across its company. Designed specifically for small and medium-sized businesses, Worry-Free XDR is the only solution that correlates email and endpoint protection—and beyond—to supply end-to-end protection. In 2020, Nerds That Care moved to Worry-Free with Co-Managed XDR, enabling proactive containment and intelligent response by Trend Micro’s in-house threat experts.

“Worry-Free with Co-Managed XDR is seamless to use and organize. Deployment and configuration were super easy, and the portal is simple to navigate,” says Rocker.

“From a technology perspective, the root cause analysis report is like a spider web of activity that has blown our team away—we used to spend up to five hours writing reports. It shows you every single thing that the threat touched,” says Rocker. “It was a huge burden for us as an MSP, but Worry-Free with Co-Managed XDR now handles all of that for us. You can’t protect something that you can’t see. This is 110% visibility from what you get on a network.”

"XDR provides the visibility, confidence, and level of sophistication we need to protect anything."

James Rocker
CEO, Nerds That Care

Results

Having Worry-Free with Co-Managed XDR, Trend Micro’s threat experts now proactively scan the company’s customers to find and eliminate malicious issues. “That level of protection means less work for us. We don’t have to go clean up any messes. I estimate it saves us at least 40 hours a month of labor, which our employees now use to work on more strategic tasks,” says Rocker.

“Peace of mind is huge for an MSP like Nerds That Care. There’s nothing worse than being a security engineer and wondering if your security is working properly. We’ve already had several events where a client clicked on something malicious and Worry-Free with Co-Managed XDR did what it was supposed to do and stopped it,” says Rocker.

That peace of mind extends to ransomware, a constant concern for Nerds That Care customers. “Worry-Free with Co-Managed XDR has blocked ransomware at least a dozen times over a five-month period. With Trend Micro, we know our customers are protected, and if there is a ransomware attempt, we don’t have to do any investigative work,” says Rocker.

Visibility has also been a game changer for Rocker. “If you have a leak behind a wall on the third floor of your building and the leak appears in the basement, it’s going to be difficult to track where that leak came from because it’s behind a brick wall. You can’t defend what you can’t see. With Trend Micro, we get full visibility, as everything is behind a glass wall,” Rocker says. “XDR provides the visibility, confidence, and level of sophistication we need to protect anything.”

During the COVID-19 crisis, one of Nerds That Care’s customers was forced to layoff over 200 people, and that customer’s leaders had to make a difficult decision to reduce costs by removing Worry-Free with Co-Managed XDR. “Trend Micro told us to keep Worry-Free with Co-Managed XDR for our customer and deduct the cost from our bill. That saved jobs for us, and we were able to pass that discount on to our customer to help them during these difficult times. We were so grateful that Trend Micro supported us on that. It was a wonderful demonstration of collaboration between partners,” says Rocker. This dedication makes Trend Micro the top choice for Rocker, as Nerds That Care continues to grow and expand its services into the future.