Ascendsys: Multi-Pronged Managed Security Services

“The website has been defaced,”—a sentence that organizational leaders dread, was unfortunately, an undesirable reality for a global company; panic ensued. The bad actors had managed to hack into their portal by manipulating its application and components’ vulnerabilities. To resolve the issue, they brought in Ascendsys, an information security specialist to deploy critical solutions to this complex ICT environments. Through the combination of its value-added information security services and expertise, Ascendsys was able to restructure the client’s website in a quick and seamless manner. Impressed by what Ascendsys could offer, the client further engaged with the company to leverage its Web Server Monitoring services. The result? Not only was the client’s website fully protected, but all the defacement attempts were also countered as well. Such is the prowess that Ascendsys has been delivering over the years by designing, architecting, implementing, and managing ICT security solutions for enterprise infrastructure.

Founded in 1991 as an end-to-end information security provider, Ascendsys has been focusing on a niche segment of the cybersecurity market—Managed Security Services (MSS) that is unique to organizational needs and corresponding ICT landscape. “Through our MSS, we deliver reliable and cost-effective ICT infrastructure and security management services,” says Suryani Md Hanipah, the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Ascendsys.

This ensures 24x7 security monitoring for mission-critical environments with proven technologies, processes and procedures towards round the clock proactive monitoring and alerting, event detection and notification, ticket management, problem escalation, and resolution along with secure web access to performance and reporting features. Ascendsys’ MSS is designed to relieve its clientele the additional security overheads. The company’s delivery model is divided into two segments. The first one is an in-premise Security Operations Centre (SOC), which includes clients’ SOC to be operated and managed by Ascendsys or to be self-operated and managed by the client itself. The second element is a cloud-based SOC, which is a multi-home SOC managed by Ascendsys for a diverse set of customers. The company has always ensured that they provide a personalized service which is specifically tailored towards achieving and meeting clients’ needs and features, and to this end, Ascendsys undertakes a five-step client onboarding programme.

The process starts with assessing the client’s current needs and outlining their desired security objectives. After ensuring that all deliverables can be achieved and everyone is involved in the goal-setting process, Ascendsys initiates a team briefing on new clients and projects. “The main reason for this is that before our team becomes involved with the client, we need to ensure they have a clear understanding of the client, their industry, and the work involved,” states Suryani. The team briefing session is quickly followed by a kick-off call where the clients’ team has to demonstrate that they fully understand the scope of the work and have everything they need to move forward. Finally, the five-step approach ends with post kick-off check-ins, which is conducted after 30 days. “The check-in call is used as an opportunity to build on a relationship with the client and let them know that we value their business,” mentions Suryani.

What differentiates Ascendsys is their strong and competent team who are always finding new ways to improve and enhance the services that are provided to the clients. The company has always kept abreast with the latest cyber technologies that are available in the market. Aligning to this, Ascendsys has embarked on adding more advanced services to its MSS portfolio. These services include Secured Mobile Communication, Employees Activity Monitoring, Data Leakage Prevention, Web Application Firewall (WAF), and Advanced Persistent Threats (APT) protection.