Liongard CEO Joe Alapat: New Endpoint Visibility Platform Brings ‘New Level’ Of Trust

“When we think about endpoint visibility, we think not only about the endpoint, but what‘s the connectivity, what’s around that device and how is it getting to the internet,” says Joe Alapat, Liongard co-founder and CEO. ‘To know what actually has changed in a system, and to know that readily when it does happen, is so critical.’

IT automation company Liongard Tuesday launched its Endpoint Visibility platform that creates unified visibility across the entire stack and gives MSPs more peace of mind.

“We responded and we built what our partners have asked for,” Joe Alapat, co-founder and CEO of Houston-based Liongard, told CRN. “Our partners have said, ‘We have a large number of these endpoints and we have endpoint management platforms, but none of them give us the level of visibility, depth and timeline that Liongard does. We want that on these machines as well because we’re entering a new landscape of security concerns. We need to know what’s going on at those endpoints. We need to know what changed on that endpoint.”

The platform offers deeper access to mission-critical data and insight that MSPs need to help their end customers. Endpoint Visibility combines Windows Workstation, Windows Server and Linux Server information with data from all the systems MSPs manage, all in one place.

Partners have given positive feedback on Endpoint Visibility and how it’s helping security landscapes.

“Not only did [Windows Workstation Inspector] give me that visibility, but it let me see that change over time, so if a user came to me and said, ‘Something stopped working,’ I can easily go back and see what changed since it was last working,” Tyson Wilcox, IT operations manager at San Jose, Calif.-based ACTenviro, told CRN.

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The platform allows partners to go back 18 months to look at a device and see how it was configured if a security issue arises. It’s also paired with same capability across the complete stack.

“That’s what’s so delightful for our partners—they can go to one place and trust that there’s one source of information about all the systems in the stack,” Alapat said.

Customers also wanted lease privileges with read-only access, he said.

“This brings a whole new level of trust around the endpoint visibility product and not creating additional risk on being another highly privileged agent sitting there running that has the capability to potentially do damage,” he said.

MSPs are increasingly talking about reducing their own risk, he said, because if they have privileged capabilities and a customer’s environment gets compromised, “that means they’re on the docket for that and so that‘s something that keeps them up at night.”

With work being remote across so many devices and networks and applications being added and/or removed every day, Alapat said it’s key to see what’s happening on those devices.

“When we think about endpoint visibility, we think not only about the endpoint, but what’s the connectivity, what’s around that device and how is it getting to the internet,” he said. “We’re just entering the security landscape that’s just getting riskier and riskier. To know what actually has changed in a system, and to know that readily when it does happen, is so critical.”

One common step in a cybersecurity breach is called an escalation of privileges, according to Alapat. The attacker will get in, gain a foothold and take over or create a user that has higher privileges. That user then wanders around the environment, he said.

Endpoint Visibility catches those users and gives visibility into their whereabouts in the environment.

“I’ve heard of so many of our partners, they tell stories about how they can watch a ransomware attempt actually in progress using our platform,” he said. “They can see the point of entry.”