One year: That’s how long ConnectWise is giving MSPs to close the gap between customers’ cybersecurity threats and their preparedness. It was a key message in the opening address at the ConnectWise IT Nation Secure conference, which opened Monday night in Orlando, Fla.
ConnectWise executives laid out the offerings and updates that could help the over 1,400 attendees become more proactive. Patrick Beggs, chief information security officer, pointed to ConnectWise’s collaboration with the Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative (JCDC), an initiative of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
“By understanding the tactics, techniques and protocols used by attackers, we can proactively identify and mitigate potential threats before they become serious,” said Beggs. The intelligence could eventually be used to train machine learning to identify patterns human analysts might miss.
In the meantime, Beggs said ConnectWise is building up its counter threat unit, including continuous internal penetration testing, red-teaming, “to undercover the weaknesses in our defense.”
Raffael Marty, executive vice president and general manager of cybersecurity, shared improvements to Asio, the company’s IT management platform. They include the ability to automatically patch detected threats and vulnerabilities, and new detailed reports that give MSPs and their customers insights into constant cyber defense activities.
In addition, ConnectWise RMM will now offer network monitoring and management capabilities through an expanded partnership and seamless integration with Auvik; helping MSPs to easily see and manage their client networks
ConnectWise also announced a collaboration with Proofpoint to help protect MSPs from email-borne attacks as well as a partnership with Axcient as a strategic backup vendor for ConnectWise Co-Managed Backup.
“Cybersecurity has reached a tipping point,” said CEO Jason Mage in the opening keynote. “This appears to be breeding a culture of fear among many small businesses—the companies many of you all support.” Magee said 83% of businesses surveyed were somewhat or extremely worried they would be targeted for an attack within the next six months. Yet, only 14% felt prepared to defend themselves.
As a result, cybersecurity is getting more attention in company boards and budgets, Magee said. He then yielded to IT Nation member Peter Melby, founder and CEO of Denver-based Greystone Technology. Melby said the gap between threat and preparedness has been touted as the biggest threat and opportunity year after year. So, he asked, “What does it take to make 2023 the breakthrough year, not just for the industry, but for the entire cybersecurity landscape?”
He said the biggest obstacle is MSPs themselves.
“The ugly secret is, for as much as we love technology, we really don’t like change,” Melby said. That’s because responding to customers’ evolving needs forces stressful shifts in how MSPs do business. So, in a world where threat actors are forcing change with increasing speed, MSPs too often take a reactive posture, Melby said. Instead, they should take the lead. He credited his own company’s growth in large part to becoming, “change makers, not change responders.”
ConnectWise’s upgrades might help MSPs accomplish another one of Melby’s directives. He said MSPs should give customers a clear, unapologetic understanding of the business case for cybersecurity, and the ongoing investments threat defense now requires.
“Invite your clients into the never-ending journey of cybersecurity—and tell them that it’s never-ending,” Melby said.
