Managed cybersecurity
Security that someone runs, every month.
North Ark runs the security of your Microsoft environment as part of your managed plan: identity, devices, email, backup and vulnerabilities, with Essential Eight tracked and high-severity alerts paging an engineer day or night. Findings in the managed scope get fixed, not just reported. Included in Managed Secure, from $189 per user per month ex GST.
- Microsoft Partner
- AZ-104 and AZ-305 certified engineers
- Senior engineers only
- Brisbane-based, working across Australia
Security tools don't secure anything on their own
Most organisations already pay for good security tools. Microsoft 365 Business Premium and E5 Security include endpoint detection, email protection, Conditional Access and more. The gap is usually the work around them:
- Policies were set up once and have drifted since.
- Alerts arrive in a portal nobody checks.
- Vulnerability scans produce a long list and no owner.
- Backups report success, and nobody has tried a restore.
- The insurer's questionnaire asks for evidence nobody has.
Managed cybersecurity closes that gap by making it someone's job, every month.
What we manage
- Identity: MFA for every user, Conditional Access designed for how you work, admin roles reviewed, risky sign-ins investigated, break-glass accounts set up and tested.
- Endpoints: endpoint detection and response managed through Microsoft Defender, devices kept compliant through Intune, patching tracked to completion.
- Microsoft 365: Secure Score worked through, external sharing controlled, audit logging on, Defender for Office 365 tuned.
- Email: phishing and malware protection configured and tuned, with suspicious messages investigated.
- Vulnerabilities: regular scanning, findings ranked by real exposure, and remediation of what sits inside your managed scope.
- Backup: Microsoft 365 backed up and restore-tested. In Managed Complete, servers and infrastructure too.
- Infrastructure (Managed Complete): servers, firewalls and network devices hardened and patched, and privileged access controlled.
- Monitoring: high-severity identity and endpoint alerts page an on-call engineer, day or night. Broader monitoring with Microsoft Sentinel is available through our security operations centre.
How a month of managed security runs
- Watch. Alerts are triaged as they arrive. High-severity events page an engineer at any hour.
- Fix. Findings inside the managed scope are fixed as part of the service: a policy that drifted, an exposed admin account, a missing patch.
- Hold the baseline. Your security configuration is kept as a documented baseline. Drift is detected and corrected.
- Report. Each quarter you get a security review: what changed, what was found and fixed, where you stand against the Essential Eight, and what we recommend next.
Essential Eight, tracked and improved
Many organisations are asked for an Essential Eight maturity level by customers, insurers or boards. Managed Secure tracks your position against the controls we manage and improves it as part of the service, with the evidence kept as you go.
If you need a formal maturity assessment first, or a major uplift to reach a target level, those are fixed-fee pieces of work.
When something happens
If a high-severity alert fires, an on-call engineer is paged and starts work, day or night. Our phone is answered day and night.
The incident response retainer is included in Managed Complete and available as an add-on for the other plans. It means a prepared playbook and agreed rates, so in an incident you call us and we start, without negotiating terms first.
Security in each plan
| Security in each plan | Managed | Managed Secure | Managed Complete |
|---|---|---|---|
| MFA for every user | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Conditional Access | Baseline | Enhanced, risk-based | Enhanced, risk-based |
| Endpoint protection | Baseline configuration | Managed EDR | Managed EDR |
| Email security | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Microsoft 365 security management | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Identity security and admin reviews | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Vulnerability management | ✓ | Including servers and network devices | |
| Microsoft 365 backup | Managed, restore-tested | Managed, restore-tested | |
| Server and infrastructure backup | ✓ | ||
| Alerts on high-severity events, day or night | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Essential Eight tracked and improved | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Security remediation in the managed scope | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Infrastructure security | ✓ | ||
| Incident response retainer | Add-on | Add-on | ✓ |
| Quarterly security review | ✓ | ✓ |
What is a security project
The managed service holds and improves your security. Projects make larger changes to it, and are quoted separately:
- A Microsoft Sentinel deployment
- A large Essential Eight uplift, such as application control across the fleet
- Penetration testing
- Identity redesign or a privileged access overhaul
- Purview data classification and data loss prevention rollout
Questions buyers ask
Do we need new security software?
Usually not. We build on the Microsoft security stack, so if you have Microsoft 365 Business Premium, or E3 with E5 Security, you likely have most of what's needed. If something is missing, we tell you at quote stage and show the licence cost separately.
Is someone watching our environment overnight?
High-severity alerts page an on-call engineer day or night, and our phone is answered day and night. For broader monitoring with Microsoft Sentinel, add our security operations centre.
Will this help with our cyber insurance questionnaire?
Yes. We keep the evidence insurers ask for (MFA coverage, EDR coverage, backup and restore results, patching) and help you answer the questionnaire each year.
Can you get us to Essential Eight Maturity Level 2?
Managed Secure improves your position over time. Reaching a specific level by a specific date is usually a project; we'll tell you which after looking at where you are.
Can you do our security if we keep our existing IT provider?
Yes, through the co-managed option or a security-only engagement through Security Engineering.
Start a conversation
Make security somebody's job.
Tell us what you run and who is asking about your security. We'll recommend a plan and give you a monthly price.
Talk to an Engineer