NDSE
The missing layer: how NDSE completed its zero trust stack with browser visibility and control
A compliance-driven MSP had firewalls, IDS/IPS, EDR/MDR, and zero trust in place, and still had no guardrails on the one layer everything tunneled through. Here is how it closed that gap across 2,500+ endpoints.
Browser-level visibility and control now sit alongside NDSE's firewalls, IDS/IPS, EDR/MDR, and zero trust layers, covering the one surface every user touches.
Policies scoped to each client's compliance requirements: maximum protection for the end user, minimum impedance on the business.
From a conference conversation to a full-scale deployment across a rapidly growing client base.
"The browser is the last window to the Internet that does not really get protected. It's been vital to our stack of capabilities to protect the end user from themselves and from the threat landscape."
About
NDSE is a managed service provider supporting well over 2,500 endpoints and growing rapidly. Michael Pfaff, NDSE's Director of Operations, brings 24 years in the MSP industry, preceded by IT and compliance work for the U.S. Coast Guard.
That background shapes how NDSE operates: compliance requirements are treated as the starting point of every client security conversation, and tooling is chosen for what it lets the team see and prove, not just what it blocks.
Challenge
A mature security stack with one gap left.
NDSE is not a security newcomer. The MSP runs a layered stack across its client base: firewalls with IDS/IPS at the edge, EDR and MDR on the endpoint, zero trust network architecture throughout. But Pfaff kept coming back to the one layer all of it tunneled through.
"Every user in the world clicks on a browser and it immediately connects to the Internet. It tunnels through everything we allow, and we don't really have a whole lot of guardrails around it. Nowhere near what it should be, anyway."
For an MSP serving compliance-driven clients, that gap mattered twice over: it was both an unmonitored attack surface and a blind spot in the visibility those clients' frameworks demand.
Solution
A capability set nobody else had put together.
Pfaff first encountered Atakama at Right of Boom, an MSP-focused cybersecurity conference. What stood out wasn't a single feature but a capability set he hadn't seen assembled anywhere else: a browser-native view of what every endpoint is actually doing inside the browser (what it's looking at and for how long, what it's downloading and uploading, what data it's being allowed to display), paired with the controls to act on it.
"Here's everything the browser is doing, here's what it's downloading, here's what it's uploading, here's the information we're allowing it to display. The controls around the browser itself have truly been a step up in securing an endpoint."
NDSE started with a steady rollout, then dove in feet first. The firm is now fully engaged and deploying across its client base.
Deployed strategically, not maximally
For NDSE, the platform's flexibility matters as much as its coverage. Security tooling can impede a business as easily as protect it, and compliance conversations with clients start from what's required, not from what a tool can see.
"You can get into a very deep hole and begin impeding the business versus protecting the business. Atakama gives us flexibility in how deep we want to go. We can strategically deploy and leverage the parts that are necessary to accomplish what's required. Minimize the impedance on the end user and maximize the protection."
That balance shapes how NDSE positions browser security with each client: policies scoped to the client's actual compliance requirements, without drowning the team in noise from data it doesn't need.
Results
A closed gap, stronger client relationships, and a rollout still expanding.
A closed gap in the stack. Browser-level visibility and control now sit alongside NDSE's firewalls, EDR/MDR, and zero trust layers, covering the surface every user touches. "It's been vital to our stack of capabilities to protect the end user from themselves and from the landscape."
Stronger client relationships. Partners are "super happy" with the browser-level data NDSE can now provide, data clients are using to drive their own internal security training.
Compliance conversations grounded in evidence. NDSE can match policy depth to each client's compliance requirements and show its work.
Full-scale rollout. From a conference conversation to deploying across 2,500+ endpoints and growing.
On the Partnership
What cemented Pfaff's confidence in the partnership was the cadence of the product itself: weekly platform updates and a roadmap where, in his words, every item is "an improvement or a step towards something else that we do need" rather than nickel-and-diming.
"The team's been great to work with, super responsive on anything we need. That shows good product development and good visionaries over there. Atakama will be a great partner."
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