MSP technology news headlines for the week of Sept. 14, 2026
NinjaOne is extending IT operations into browser management and AI governance. Arctic Wolf is rolling out an MDR tier built specifically for MSPs. And Sophos research finds providers are increasingly acting as the de facto CISO for their customers. Meanwhile, GTIA’s acquisition of The ASCII Group reshapes the channel community landscape. Plus, learn about new security tools and research focused on AI agent control, ransomware recovery and the growing risks tied to exposed AI infrastructure.
If you’re ready for more of this week’s MSP news and partner program updates, scroll on down!
NinjaOne adds browser management and AI governance into its IT operations platform
NinjaOne Browser Management adds extension inventory, URL visibility, centralized browser policy and controls for unapproved AI sites and extensions to the Unified IT Operations Platform.
Key quote from the press release:
“IT teams and MSPs don’t want more tools; they want their work to be simpler with more visibility and control across the browsers their employees already use. By unifying Browser Management with our IT operations platform, we’re extending the management model customers already trust to the one layer of the endpoint stack that is still ungoverned. And because employees don’t have to switch to a new browser with NinjaOne Browser Management, organizations don’t have to worry about any change management to implement the solution. That means less risk, less overhead and more time spent supporting their people.” — Rahul Hirani, chief product officer, NinjaOne
Arctic Wolf launches MDR tier built exclusively for MSPs
Aurora MDR Connect gives validated MSP partners an available-now MDR tier with rapid deployment, broad telemetry and Arctic Wolf security operations behind the service.
Key quote from the press release:
“MSPs are one of the most important forces in cybersecurity today as they work with organizations to build resilience in the face of an increasingly complex threat landscape. Aurora MDR Connect gives MSPs a faster way to deliver the proven outcomes of the Aurora Superintelligence Platform across their customer base. Built specifically for how MSPs operate, it helps them scale security services, strengthen customer relationships, and bring enterprise-grade protection to organizations of every size without adding operational complexity.” — Will May, chief revenue officer, Arctic Wolf
Sophos finds MSPs act as the CISO for nearly half of their customers
Sophos’ survey of 800 MSP leaders found rising demand for CISO-level guidance, compliance services and more scalable security reporting.
Key findings from the report include:
- MSPs estimated that 46% of their customers rely on them to act as CISO.
- Eighty-four percent expected demand for CISO services to increase during the next 12 months.
- MSPs estimated a unified security posture, compliance management and reporting platform could save 53% of their time.
Druva brings behavioral intelligence to cyber recovery with new identity and ransomware detection capabilities
Druva added identity attack-path analysis and a ransomware detection pipeline that validates backup findings and identifies clean recovery points.
Key quote from the press release:
“Security teams know they can’t stop every attack. The challenge is knowing exactly what happens when a threat breaks through. AI makes that uncertainty more dangerous. Before you recover, you need evidence of what changed, how far the compromise spread, and what can still be trusted. Druva has years of backup telemetry we use to validate threat signals and turn them into evidence, giving customers a trusted basis for recovery instead of an assumption.” — Yogesh Badwe, chief security officer, Druva
Claude for Small Business adds 43 workflows and 27 integrations
Anthropic expanded Claude for Small Business with sales, finance and operations workflows, 27 new integrations and free U.S. workshops delivered with partners.
Key quote from the announcement:
“Small businesses don’t need more tools. They need more time, more leads and more confidence that the work is moving the needle. With HubSpot in Claude for Small Business, every new lead gets answered, followed up and logged to the CRM, so owners can focus on their customers instead of their operations.” — Kipp Bodnar, chief marketing officer, HubSpot
CyberMaxx acquires Avertium to expand midmarket Microsoft security and GRC services
CyberMaxx acquired Avertium, adding Microsoft security, GRC advisory, security architecture and offensive security services to its midmarket MDR business.
Key quote from the press release:
“Acquiring Avertium furthers our commitment to serving the midmarket. The midmarket deserves a security partner that stands with them on the wall all the way through remediation, and Avertium helps us do that to the best of our ability. We can now walk alongside a customer from their first security assessment through continuous defense, as their single committed partner.” — Brian M. Ahern, CEO, CyberMaxx
HP packs local agentic AI into the ZBook Ultra G3a mobile workstation
The 16-inch HP ZBook Ultra G3a pairs an AMD Ryzen AI Max+ PRO processor with up to 192GB of unified memory, local AI workflows and optional 5G.
Key quote from the press release:
“Professionals need AI experiences that are powerful, reliable and integrated into the way they work. With the HP ZBook Ultra G3a 16-inch, HP is bringing a local AI factory and workflow-ready tools together to help customers apply agentic AI to their most demanding work.” — Jim Nottingham, senior vice president and division president, Advanced Compute and Solutions, HP Inc.
Orca Security links a new partner program to an AI-powered success platform
Orca Security launched a global Partner POD Program and an AI-powered Partner Success Platform for enablement, account analysis, marketing and business planning.
Key quote from the press release:
“AI gives us the opportunity to rethink not only what a partner platform can be, but the partner program itself. We’re moving beyond traditional portals and static resources toward an intelligent experience that can anticipate needs, connect insights and help partners take action. Together, the Partner POD Program and Partner Success Platform create a foundation for AI to become a true growth engine, helping partners uncover opportunities and create more value for customers.” — Gil Geron, CEO and co-founder, Orca Security
Cisco brings Splunk AI on premises and adds agent cost controls
Cisco introduced an AI POD for self-managed Splunk AI, token-spend observability, new agentic SOC capabilities and a multiyear Splunk agreement with AWS.
Key quote from the press release:
“One of the biggest roadblocks to enterprise AI today is that it’s too hard to deploy. Customers want to know: Can I trust it to do the job? Can I afford it? Most importantly, can I secure it? By running Splunk AI on the infrastructure customers already trust, they can move faster to put AI to work in their business with confidence and control.” — Jeetu Patel, president and chief product officer, Cisco
OpenAI creates a framework for reporting model misalignment
OpenAI published a disclosure framework and six reports describing unexpected or concerning model behavior observed during training and evaluation.
Key findings from the announcement include:
- The framework covers qualifying behavior across training, evaluation, testing and deployment.
- OpenAI prioritizes unauthorized action, coordination, oversight evasion and safeguard failures, even when the significance remains uncertain.
- The initial release contains six individual reports and OpenAI cautions that they do not establish how often misalignment occurs.
GTIA acquires The ASCII Group, combining two channel communities
The ASCII Group will become a GTIA community. The move also will extend GTIA membership and resources to ASCII members.
Key quote from the press release:
“We’ve been in the room at ASCII Edge events, collaborating on world-class, vendor-agnostic research and working side by side with this community because we believe in the same things. This is a relationship that’s been building and strengthening for years. This acquisition lets us go further together, and we do it with deep respect for the legacy Alan Weinberger built and the community that legacy created.” — Dan Wensley, CEO, GTIA
Additional ChannelPro Coverage
➡️ ASCII acquired by GTIA: What comes next for members
Vectra AI overhauls its global partner program around services and joint capabilities
Vectra AI launched the Ascent partner program with co-sell, service development and joint innovation tracks across three partner levels.
Key quote from the press release:
“AI is accelerating how attacks unfold, raising the stakes for organizations that need to understand where they are exposed and how to respond before risk becomes business impact. Vectra AI gives us a strong foundation to help customers address that challenge across increasingly connected environments. With Ascent, we can build on that foundation with differentiated services and expertise that help customers reduce exposure, respond faster, and build greater resilience against modern attacks.” — Mark Thornberry, senior vice president of partnerships, GuidePoint Security
Granite puts all 3 major U.S. wireless networks on one managed SIM
Granite SIM360 combines carrier-direct profiles for the nation’s major wireless networks with remote profile switching and automated failover for IoT and fixed wireless deployments.
Key quote from the press release:
“As organizations become increasingly dependent on connected devices and always-on network access, they need greater flexibility and reliability from their wireless services. SIM360 delivers unprecedented control by bringing all three major U.S. wireless networks together on a single SIM. With SIM360, customers can deploy faster, optimize network performance and maintain business continuity through intelligent access to multiple carrier-direct networks.” — Rob Hale, president and CEO, Granite
Lenovo expands virtualization infrastructure, deployment services and validated solutions
Lenovo introduced the ThinkAgile VX850 V4, three infrastructure deployment service levels and expanded validated Express Solutions across major virtualization platforms.
Key quote from the press release:
“Organizations are focused on modernizing virtualized infrastructure to improve efficiency and resilience while maintaining flexibility in an increasingly complex IT landscape. Lenovo is helping customers modernize the infrastructure they rely on today with greater choice and control, while building an AI-ready foundation that can evolve as their requirements change.” — Scott Patti, vice president, Infrastructure Solutions Group, Lenovo
DigiCert gives AI agents cryptographic passports and a kill switch
Generally available DigiCert AI Trust Manager discovers AI agents, assigns portable cryptographic identities, limits permissions and revokes authority when trust changes.
Key quote from the press release:
“For more than two decades, DigiCert has provided the cryptographic infrastructure that helped the internet scale. We are now bringing that proven trust model to AI agents so organizations can verify who they are, who owns them and what they are authorized to do.” — Amit Sinha, CEO, DigiCert
Netskope adds pre-execution controls for risky AI agent actions
Netskope Skylight Agent Action Control classifies agent actions by intent and risk, then blocks, allows or alerts before execution through the existing Netskope platform.
Key quote from the press release:
“AI agents tend to act first and explain later, and most security teams only learn what happened after it is done. Agent Action Control puts a decision in front of every action an agent takes, so a team can say yes to agentic AI without saying yes to the one action that could cost them a production system.” — John Martin, chief product officer, Netskope
Nureva adds an AI room assistant to its device management console
Nureva’s beta Room Assistant adds natural-language access to product guidance inside Nureva Console, with room data, diagnostics and optimization planned later.
Key quote from the press release:
“IT and AV teams are under pressure to keep every collaboration space performing reliably, but traditional room-management tools often leave them to interpret data and search for answers on their own. Room Assistant is an important first step in bringing AI-powered room intelligence to Nureva Console, giving teams faster access to trusted knowledge today while laying the foundation for more intelligent, connected and automated experiences across Nureva Console, the Nureva App and our audio systems.” — Nancy Knowlton, CEO, Nureva
Mailprotector creates a Partner Success team for MSP onboarding and growth
Mailprotector formed a Partner Success team to provide MSPs with customized onboarding, technician education and guidance for expanding email security services.
Key quote from the press release:
“We’ve spent more than 25 years working with MSPs, and that experience has taught us how important it is to grow alongside our partners. Email security keeps evolving, and so do the needs of the MSPs responsible for protecting their customers. Partner Success is an investment in that relationship, giving our partners even greater access to people who understand not only their business but also this technology to help them stay prepared for what comes next.” — David Setzer, CEO, Mailprotector
Huntress documents Settra ransomware abuse of MeshAgent RMM
Huntress analyzed two Settra ransomware incidents that used legitimate remote management tooling, disabled recovery options and attempted to erase forensic evidence.
Key findings from the threat report include:
- Huntress investigated two Settra incidents since July and observed a closely similar operational pattern.
- Attackers deployed MeshAgent for persistence, encrypted files, cleared Windows event logs and disabled Windows recovery options.
- A misspelled command failed to clear the Windows Defender event log in one incident, preserving evidence of the activity.
Mysterium counts 36,769 self-hosted AI endpoints exposed online
Mysterium VPN used a third-party internet scanning index to count publicly reachable model servers, agent builders and vector store interfaces.
Key findings from the report include:
- The scan counted 36,769 reachable, self-identifying AI endpoints and only 741 returned an HTTP authentication challenge.
- A total of 6,935 Ollama servers returned the anonymous “Ollama is running” API banner.
- The dataset included 5,223 agent-builder and workflow endpoints that can store credentials.
NetDiligence finds ransomware and BEC dominate small-business cyber claims
NetDiligence analyzed 10,309 cyber insurance claims from incidents spanning 2021 through 2025 and documented rising ransomware losses.
Key findings from the report include:
- The study analyzed 10,309 claims, including 4,825 new or updated claims collected in 2025.
- Small and midsize enterprises represented 97% of claims while large companies represented 56% of total incident costs.
- Ransomware and business email compromise touched nearly 64% of SME claims in 2025, with ransom demands reaching $500 million and payments reaching $90 million.
As ChannelPro’s online director and tech editor for over a decade, Matt Whitlock has spent years blending sharp tech insight with digital know-how. He brings more than 25 years’ experience working in the technology industry to his reviews, analysis, and general musings about all things gadget and gear.
Images: Sophos, HP, Cisco, GTIA, DigiCert, Huntress, Mysterium, NetDiligence
