ConnectSecure has launched Version 4.0 of its ConnectSecure Vulnerability Management for MSPs, which CEO Peter Bellini describes in a conversation with MSP Success as a “soup to nuts” code rewrite “that is going to result in a pretty significant performance increase.”
“One of the big new features that we can get from that performance increase is totally customized reporting, more intuitive reporting,” he notes. “A lot of MSPs use this as a sales tool to get their foot in the door and then they use it for continuous vulnerability management and the net of that is where the rubber meets the road.”
Version 4.0 has been in beta for the last 60 days, Bellini says, and is generally available today. According to the company, the cornerstone of Version 4.0 is its shift to a global governance-risk-and-compliance (GRC)-centric view, providing MSPs with a comprehensive, real-time overview of all client assets, both networked and cloud-based, from the login screen.
“One of the big things that we’re really bringing to the table now is to automate your compliance measures. At least for the IT controls, we’re automating a lot of that to help MSPs deliver compliance on the environments that they manage,” Bellini says.
Specific new functionalities of v4 include:
- Multi-perspective views including global, company, and asset-category
- Enhanced problem and solution views for driving operational efficiencies
- Timeline views for detailed asset history for compliance and audits
- Fully customizable reports with versatile data export options
- New Dashboard Engine
- Improved scalability
- Advanced bandwidth optimization through smart compression and incremental sync
- Top-tier U.S.-based support from the Tampa, Florida, headquarters
ConnectSecure is also revising its pricing tiers for 2024, Bellini says. Users with less than 1,500 devices will continue at current rates, while tiers for larger networks will see an increase of $99 per month.
“The vast majority of our partners will see no difference in their bill,” he says. “A couple of them will see an increase and a chunk are actually going to see a decrease in their bill.”
Founded in 2020 by Srikant (Sri) Sreenivasan and Shiva Jagannathan as CyberCNS, the company rebranded to ConnectSecure in 2022 when Bellini, who had come on board as vice president of operations and made an investment in the firm, was named CEO. Peter Bellini is the son of ConnectWise founder Arnie Bellini, and a portfolio manager at Bellini Capital. In addition to ConnectSecure, Bellini Capital has invested in other channel companies such as Compliance Risk, which provides policy documentation as a service (PDaaS) and compliance as a service (CaaS), and AI company Nine Minds, founded by Robert Isaacs, another ConnectWise alumni who served there as chief software architect.
ConnectSecure is an employee-owned and MSP-community driven company, Bellini says, with a cadre of MSPs who meet weekly with the company and effectively act as product managers. ConnectSecure gave a core group of 60 of these MSPs a small percentage of stock in the company, too, Bellini says.
Today, ConnectSecure has 60 employees and over 2,000 MSPs using the platform, he notes.
On the roadmap through Q2 of 2024, Bellini says ConnectSecure will be adding Mac and Linux patching, first-party patching, website scanning, SharePoint and OneDrive scanning, “and we’re going to be increasing the number of applications that we patch for pretty dramatically over the year.”
Through 2024 Bellini says they’ll continue expanding the platform beyond vulnerability management. “What we really want is to take that and amplify it so that it’s on par with some of these big legacy enterprise players … and, of course, have it built specifically for the MSP business model and price it so that it is affordable for MSPs to get into this particular type of business.”
As for his father, whose noncompete ends at the end of February, five years after the sale of ConnectWise to private equity firm Thoma Bravo, Peter Bellini expects him to continue mentoring and guiding ConnectSecure, but not be directly involved. “He’s taking his windfall from ConnectWise and investing it back into the community to bring new, innovative affordable solutions to market for MSPs to solve some of these gaps and particularly focused on automation and cybersecurity. … He’ll sort of be orchestrating a symphony of multiple companies’ background.”
