Thrive adds Elastic & Cato to NextGen security platform

Thrive has added security integrations from Elastic and Cato Networks to its NextGen platform, updating its managed security services for mid-market customers.

The investment focuses on two areas of Thrive's security offering: its Managed Detection and Response service and secure remote access. The update is intended to improve visibility across customer systems, sharpen threat detection, and replace older virtual private network-based access methods.

Within Managed Detection and Response, Thrive has expanded Elastic's role in the underlying platform. It says this will strengthen how security data is gathered, analysed, and prioritised across customer environments.

That includes a broader range of data sources across cloud services, software-as-a-service applications, endpoints, networks, and on-premises systems. The platform also uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to identify threats, reduce false positives, and support higher volumes of security telemetry as customer environments grow.

The move comes amid pressure on in-house security teams. Thrive cited Gartner research showing that nearly three-quarters of chief information security officers report their cybersecurity teams do not have sufficient staffing.

Bill McLaughlin, chief executive officer of Thrive, linked the changes to the company's broader platform strategy.

"Building a truly NextGen managed services platform requires us to continually evaluate every layer of the technology stack and invest where we can meaningfully improve the client experience," said Bill McLaughlin, chief executive officer of Thrive. "By bringing together best-of-breed technologies with the expertise we've built across thousands of client environments, we're delivering enterprise-grade capabilities in a way that's simpler to consume, easier to scale, and designed around better business outcomes."

MDR update

Managed Detection and Response services have become a growth area for technology service providers as companies seek outside help to monitor threats around the clock. Thrive says its own 24x7 security teams will use the updated platform to focus on higher-priority activity and improve the speed and accuracy of response.

Elastic described the change as a way to address long-standing limits on how much security data organisations can retain and inspect.

"Security is fundamentally a data problem, but for too long, legacy constraints have forced organisations to make risk-based decisions on budget, dropping critical data and leaving blind spots where adversaries hide," said Mike Nichols, general manager of security at Elastic. "Elastic gives Thrive the high-speed foundation to ingest and analyse security data at scale without compromise, and apply transparent, 'show-your-work' AI to automate away the mundane analyst toil. By combining our open platform with Thrive's managed expertise, we keep a critical 'human on the loop' to cut through the noise, focus on actual adversarial behaviour, and respond to threats at machine speed."

The second part of the announcement focuses on user access. Thrive is adding Cato Networks' Universal Zero Trust Network Access technology to its managed security portfolio as companies move away from traditional VPNs for distributed workforces.

Rather than granting access based on network location, zero trust systems typically verify users and devices continuously and restrict access to specific applications. Thrive says the Cato technology will allow it to offer secure access for employees, contractors, and bring-your-own-device users without relying on legacy remote access tools.

The approach is designed to reduce the operational burden on IT teams while maintaining access controls across users, devices, and applications. Thrive also pointed to its appeal for businesses that need to support staff working across multiple locations.

Access shift

The integration reflects a broader market shift as networking and security functions are brought together in cloud-delivered services. Providers in this area are targeting businesses that want to simplify remote access management while tightening controls on how users reach corporate applications.

Addie Finch of Cato Networks said the model is intended to follow the user rather than the network perimeter.

"Secure access needs to follow the user, not the network," said Addie Finch, vice president of channels for the Americas at Cato Networks. "As security and networking continue to converge, organisations are looking for platforms that apply consistent, risk-based access policies across users, devices, and applications without increasing operational burden. Together with Thrive, we're helping customers simplify secure access with a Zero Trust approach designed for today's distributed environments."

Thrive positions the changes as part of an ongoing effort to modernise the systems behind its managed services rather than launch standalone products. The company provides outsourced technology services across AI, cybersecurity, cloud, and IT operations, and is targeting organisations that want newer security tools without building and running them internally.

The latest platform updates show how managed service providers are adapting their security stacks as customers demand broader visibility across hybrid environments, continuous monitoring, and tighter control over remote access, while many internal security teams remain under strain.