New cybersecurity category CCAPS to keep families, small business safe

CCAPS cybersecurity
What's their safety worth?

We’re increasingly reliant on our networks to keep us working, entertained and connected to our loved ones. Networks ensure our kids get an education and have smart new toys to play with. But it’s hard enough keeping your laptops and mobiles secure, without having to worry about cybercriminals targetting everyday objects such as your fridge, your child’s smart teddy, your baby monitor, your partner’s watch or even the family fish tank. In fact, more and more households are struggling to protect their identity, privacy and personal data, as well as ensure their connected experience is as expected. This has created an opportunity for a new kind of cybersecurity service – Connected Customer Assurance & Protection Services (CCAPS).

Independent analyst firm Omnisperience has published a new paper (‘Unleashing new revenue streams and boosting digital confidence with CCAPS’) that outlines the risks facing households, homeworkers and small businesses in today’s increasingly connected world. Omnisperience argues that these customers have been left behind when it comes to enjoying a safe, connected experience, lacking time, expertise and resources meaning they remain exposed to ever-more sophisticated cyberattacks.

“While large enterprises have the means to protect themselves, households and small businesses remain vulnerable, risking their own safety and security but also providing a back door that can be exploited and poorly secured devices that can be utilised in large-scale cyberattacks. It’s in everyone’s interest to fix this problem,” explains Teresa Cottam, Chief Analyst, Omnisperience

This is a problem that a new type of cybersecurity service has evolved to solve. Connected customer assurance and protection services (CCAPS) eliminate the gaps between siloed security applications, remove customer effort, and provide unobtrusive but effective protection for all devices, connections, personal data and activities. Importantly, they also add performance assurance to ensure connected experiences meet evolving customer expectations.

CCAPS are a new type of value-added service provided by communications service providers (CSPs) that enhance the customer experience, add value to the core network offering and deliver a critical new revenue stream to CSPs.

Unlike many new CSP revenue streams currently being discussed by industry commentators, demand for CCAPS is proven, not theoretical. CCAPS address critical customer concerns and remove the burden of maintaining and securing household networks, data and devices. This makes them something that customers are prepared to pay for today. In fact, CSPs that have launched initial CCAPS see immediate uplifts to their ARPUs in the region of EUR1-2 per month. And with CCAPS set to become more sophisticated, research from Coleman Parkes suggests households are willing to pay even more – up to USD5 per month1. For a typical Tier 1 CSP, this represents hundreds of millions of euros in much-needed and immediately-realisable new revenue.

“Connected Customer Protection & Assurance Services are one of the low-hanging fruits for CSPs currently looking for new revenue streams,” says Cottam. “They’re vital both as a direct source of much-needed revenue, but also because they boost digital confidence, making them essential to the success of the digital economy.”

DEFINITION OF CORE CONCEPT

CCAPS services are cybersecurity services delivered through the network, as a service, providing holistic protection and assurance for connected customers. These services are a hybridisation and evolution of B2C and small businesses solutions. They aim to provide better and affordable cybersecurity by automatically protecting devices, connections, activities, applications, data, identity and privacy, as customers navigate the connected world.

CCAPS sit alongside enterprise cybersecurity solutions and plug the gap between the smart lifespace and smart workspace, protecting individuals, households, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), microbusinesses, nanobusinesses, and home workers. They’re an example of what Omnisperience calls a ‘network-plus service’, a specialist form of value-added service delivered by the network provider that adds a monetisable and differentiated element to a quality network experience.

HOW ARE CCAPS DIFFERENT TO ENTERPRISE CYBERSECURITY SOLUTIONS?

CCAPS differ from enterprise cybersecurity solutions in 4 key aspects:

  • they’re a specialist form of MSSP service delivered by the network provider, not a third-party vendor;
  • they’re effortless and fully automated;
  • they’re targetted at, and affordable for, small businesses, individuals and households;
  • they combine the traditionally separate domains of cybersecurity, network assurance and privacy protection.

Examples of CSPs that have recently launched CCAPS services include:

  • Yoigo – an ID protection service incorporating insurance against losses (see here)
  • MEO (Altice Portugal) – a cybersecurity service including malware, phishing, ransomware and cryptomining protection, as well as parental controls (see here)
  • IBASIS launched a wholesale CCAPS service to ensure MNOs are delivering assured and secured services to end customers (see here)

A complimentary copy of ‘Unleashing new revenues streams and boosting digital confidence with CCAPS’ is available to download here.

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