Entering the second half of the decade, communications providers and other businesses continue to face significant threats from cybersecurity breaches.
Security-wise, they also face challenges from the burden of regulatory changes and the increasing expectations of their end clients, while needing to balance resource and cost constraints. That puts the onus on them to develop new solutions and take a rounded approach to security across their full set of digital assets.
However, this can be a challenge as attacks increase in sophistication. Supply-chain attacks, for instance, have been on the rise, with estimates suggesting that over a third of global businesses have experienced a data breach exceeding US$1 million in the past three years. In the UK, the Telecommunications Security Act that came into force in 2022 exerts extra pressure, calling for enhanced security.
“As the threat landscape increases, channel resellers and service providers are having to think differently about how they build and market their products to cope,” says Ashley Butcher, director of strategic partners for cloud and security at UK wholesale provider PXC. “They’re seeing more complexity when it comes to managing these services.”
Robust posture
PXC is in a good position to help, having long worked on security to protect its own and customers’ networks and services. “We’ve created a robust security posture internally over the last 10 years,” says Butcher.
With a range of products to strengthen customers’ defences, the company is also moving to the next level in 2025 by transitioning towards a more complete protection suite and managed security services, as well as the concept of zero-trust architecture. “It’s important that we support our partner community and help them evolve their security strategy,” says Butcher.
For one thing, PXC has developed penetration testing for customers, simulating cyberattacks to pinpoint vulnerabilities and providing comprehensive post-test reports to then help them plug any gaps. While these are being provided as one-offs at present, the capability will soon be offered as a managed service to enable them on a more regular basis. “Identifying any gaps and weaknesses is the first port of call for robust security, and it’s crucial for our partners to offer products that can do this in a customer’s environment,” says Butcher.
The company will also develop more managed detection and response services. In addition, it plans to soon bring out new versions of its managed DDoS mitigation services, including carrier-grade and emergency offerings. “The aim is that all these moves will ultimately culminate in outsourced security services for partners,” says Butcher.
Developing learnings
He adds that as the company went through change last year, following its rebrand from TalkTalk Wholesale Services and Virtual1 in March, it took many learnings for how to build on its security services with further capabilities relevant to its partner community.
The boosting of its security strategy this year will help expand on the company’s existing offerings. Apart from services like DDoS mitigation, PXC has a partnership with Acronis on the company’s Cyber Protect Cloud platform, which meets the increasing need for protecting cloud-based environments while enabling the consolidation of tools, cost savings and the streamlining of operations through APIs.
PXC has also partnered with F-Secure, enabling security, scam, privacy and identity protection in a modular offering within a single app.
Furthermore, the company plans to launch an end-user-facing version of the 1Portal that it offers to resellers later this year, helping to improve automation of services including its security offerings. Within the portal, it is also developing a centralised marketplace to help customers access backup capabilities via APIs.
In future, Butcher believes AI will make attacks even more sophisticated, while further lowering the cost of making them. That will mean an even greater need for comprehensive, managed protection – which he believes PXC is in the perfect place to handle for customers.
“We have a lot of highly skilled individuals to make sure that we have one of the most robust security environments in the industry,” he says. “Protecting ourselves and our partners in an increasingly uncertain world is paramount for us.”
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