Channel partner programs, Content, Security Program Controls/Technologies

Area 1 Security Unveils North American Partner Program for MSPs, VARs

Area 1 Security, a cloud email security company, has launched a North American partner program for MSPs, VARs and solution providers. The program enables channel partners to offer Area 1 security solutions that protect against business email compromise (BEC), credential harvesting, ransomware and other threats that secure email gateways (SEGs) sometimes miss.

Key features of Area 1's partner program include:

  • Pay-per-phish pricing model
  • Joint/co-sell go-to-market strategies
  • Sales and technical enablement

Optiv, Guidepoint, Sada and Synnex (among others) have already joined the Area 1 partner ecosystem. In addition, Area 1 has launched a partner community in combination with its partner program.

Area 1 Security CEO: Partner Focused

The partner program surfaces only a few months after the security company hired Patrick Sweeney as CEO and raised $25 million in new funding.

In a July 2020 interview with MSSP Alert (below), Sweeney described his first priorities as CEO -- and the company's commitment to MSSPs (managed security services providers) and other types of channel partners. Sweeney also described how Area 1 differentiates its business from rival email security providers:

Video link

A Closer Look at Area 1's Email Security Cloud Service

Area 1 offers Horizon, which detects and disables phishing attacks before they cause damage, the company said. Horizon protects organizations against the following types of phishing attacks:

  • Email: Guards against phishing attacks that use cloud-based mail transfer agents or cloud APIs/connectors.
  • Network: Guards against phishing attacks that can shut down an organization's network.
  • Web: Guard against phishing attacks that use a globally distributed, recursive DNS service.

Furthermore, Horizon provides preemptive discovery of phishing infrastructure via web crawling, link crawls, sandboxing, user impersonation and computer vision-based detections, Area 1 stated. Horizon also detects ransomware, malware, spoofs, BEC messages and other types of phishing attacks.

Dan Kobialka

Dan Kobialka is senior contributing editor, MSSP Alert and ChannelE2E. He covers IT security, IT service provider business strategies and partner programs. Dan holds a M.A. in Print and Multimedia Journalism from Emerson College and a B.A. in English from Bridgewater State University. In his free time, Dan enjoys jogging, traveling, playing sports, touring breweries and watching football.