The challenge of whether resellers and MSPs can deliver true digital transformation including cyber resilience is becoming easier to resolve by the day, says CyberLab CTO Ryan Bradbury.
Ignoring the cybersecurity imperative is not an option for MSPs who are trusted by customers to manage and support their technology environments. This is because there is a critical link between tech and cyber, making it vital for resellers and MSPs to provide security in order to maintain those trusted relationships. This is particularly important because end users are becoming far more cyber-aware.
“Over the past two years organisations have become better educated and now want to proactively manage their cybersecurity posture,” said Bradbury. “This has resulted in a huge increase of products that are now available to MSPs and resellers.”
The availability of channel offerings, such as Cyberlab’s addition of white label functionality to its flagship Control portal, enables partners to deliver automated cybersecurity tools with minimal onboarding and little if any ongoing effort, providing a readymade entry for MSPs into cyber. “We’re seeing huge interest in the programme and are speaking to new partners from a range of industries every week,” said Bradbury.
Cyberlab’s channel partners are able to resell every product and service it offers, removing the barrier to cyber-entry Bradbury often sees preventing resellers and MSPs from embracing a security play. “The biggest challenge I hear from MSPs is their struggle to break into the cybersecurity space with a lack of cyber expertise within their business,” he stated. “The biggest opportunity for MSPs is to partner with a specialist cyber vendor and bring security into their portfolio, enabling them to add more value, realise more revenue and increase customer stickiness.”
Bradbury is witnessing growing interest from end clients in training and phishing simulation, often due to it being a requirement for insurance companies. Furthermore, the Managed Detection and Response (MDR) market is experiencing considerable growth against a backdrop of attack vectors such as ransomware, phishing and supply chain vulnerabilities continuing to compromise organisations.
MSPs must also fully assess the impact of AI on security postures, believes Bradbury. “AI will shape and define what the security space looks like and how MSPs protect their customer environments, but it will also enable attacks to become more sophisticated and targeted allowing the criminals to deploy, iterate and evolve much more efficiently,” he stated.
Not surprisingly, security is now the primary concern for customers, so MSPs would be doing themselves, as well as their customers, a big favour by ensuring they can deliver and meet existing and new client requirements. “It is unlikely that new customers will not already have security tools in place, but we can’t be afraid to displace these by evidencing a best-of-breed set of solutions that will add value and reduce risk,” added Bradbury.