It was another incredible week in MSP channel news. We now bring you the hottest MSP news to keep you informed and empowered. Plus, you can also see the key benefits these may offer for your MSP. It’s always good for IT pros to stay on top of trends, industry news, and cutting-edge tech. It helps you make smarter decisions, serve your clients better, and lead with confidence. Let’s get you prepared for the weeks and months ahead.
ConnectWise Accelerates Next Generation of Data Protection and Cybersecurity for MSPs with Acquisitions of Axcient and SkyKick
These deals significantly enhance ConnectWise‘s offerings for MSPs, reinforcing data protection as the last line of defense against cyber threats.
Key benefits for MSPs from the press release:
- Enhanced Data Protection for MSPs and SMB Clients: Data protection is critical to MSPs. Axcient’s business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) solutions and SkyKick’s Microsoft 365 Cloud Backup empower MSPs to fortify cybersecurity and data resilience.
- Comprehensive Technology Offering: MSPs gain access to a complete suite of purpose-built solutions from a single proven provider. This includes PSA, RMM, cybersecurity, and data protection underpinned by generative AI and RPA.
- Seamless Integration: The integration of Axcient and SkyKick into the ConnectWise Asio platform will streamline management, reduce operational complexity, and enable MSPs to focus on growing their businesses.
- Ongoing Innovation and Commitment: ConnectWise is dedicated to driving innovation across its expanded portfolio while maintaining strong support for Axcient and SkyKick partners, ensuring an enhanced customer experience.
Read more in the ConnectWise blog post by Ameer Karim.
Secureframe Introduces Free Gap Assessment Tool to Empower Service Partners in Uncovering Security and Compliance Opportunities
Innovative tool simplifies gap assessments, enabling Service Partners to quickly identify and address client needs while driving business growth.
Key quote from the announcement:
“The primary objective of this tool is to make the gap assessment process easy and effective for our Service Partners. The tool automatically generates a report that showcases the outcomes of the gap analysis, both at a high-level summary and in detailed form. This report highlights the discrepancies or “gaps” in the client’s security posture or compliance status, providing clear insights into areas needing improvement.”
SonicWall Reveals Details on a New Malicious POC targeting Security Professionals
This has become a growing threat to cybersecurity professionals from threat actors to achieve their motives, such as crypto mining, data exfiltration and backdoor installation.
Key insight from the SonicWall blog post:
“We have dissected an instance we encountered and felt it important to share to help bring awareness to this problem. While security researchers are often very well equipped to handle and detect this situation, it is easy to become overconfident, leading to compromise.” — Hasib Vhora, senior threat researcher, SonicWall
Boom Success Story Continues With Major North American Distribution Deal
Video conferencing manufacturer Boom Collaboration celebrates a new milestone after partnering with TD SYNNEX, a leading global distributor and solutions aggregator for the IT ecosystem.
Key quote from the press release:
“TD SYNNEX sits at the center of the technology partner ecosystem with access to a wide variety of customers. They represent a major milestone in our expanding worldwide reach and we are very excited by the huge potential this partnership represents.” — Fredrik Hörnkvist, founder, Boom Collaboration
Todyl Launches Revamped Partner Program to Strengthen MSP Security
The Project Phantom virtual browser easily detects phishing activity hiding behind CAPTCHAs and other obfuscation techniques commonly employed by threat actors.
Key stats from the press release:
- Assigned Customer Success Manager: Every partner will be assigned a dedicated customer success manager who will align Todyl’s technical capabilities with the partner’s business objectives
- Assigned Account Manager: Partners will also have a dedicated account manager focused on driving security-led business growth, acting as an advocate, strategic advisor, business planning consultant, and sales resource to help protect more clients faster
- Assigned Security Manager: Partners leveraging Todyl MXDR get an assigned Detection & Response Account Manager providing tailored support via regular meetings to help partners strengthen their security posture as well as direct access 24×7 to Todyl’s SOC via Teams, Slack, or email
- Comprehensive Sales and Marketing Support: As a channel only company, the program offers a variety of tools, including marketing collateral, campaigns-in-a-box, custom webinar planning and execution, and end user leads to help partners grow their business and enhance their market presence
- Exclusive Todyl University Access: All partners have access to Todyl University, which provides comprehensive, self-paced learning with tailored use-case paths to help partners deepen their understanding of Todyl’s platform
MSP Unplugged Community Hosts 5th Annual TechCon Unplugged 2024 Event, Empowers IT Business Owners in Resource-packed Weekend
ChannelPro’s Joel Zaidspiner (left) and MSP Unplugged’s Paco Lebron
Held Sept. 12-14 at the Arundel Hotel in Baltimore, TechCon 2024 was a comprehensive experience empowering IT business owners and professionals to overcome challenges and achieve sustainable growth.
Event highlights from the press release:
- 25-plus Educational Sessions: Industry experts were featured in over 25 in-depth sessions covering the latest trends, tools, and strategies to propel attendees’ businesses.
- Networking Events and After-hours Entertainment: MSPs in attendance had the chance to build valuable connections with like-minded professionals and potential partners while enjoying dynamic networking events and entertainment after hours.
- Concrete Action Items to Take Your Business to the Next Level: Event-goers were set up to leave TechCon 2024 with inspiration and actionable steps tailored to their business needs.
New Ivanti Research: 93% of Security Professionals Say Prioritizing Digital Employee Experience Positively Impacts an Organization’s Cybersecurity Efforts
While 69% of leaders deemed optimizing digital employee experience a high priority, fewer than half of the companies surveyed were actively engaged in essential DEX activities.
Key features from the press release:
- IT Workers Are Skeptical of DEX: Among IT professionals, 60% consider “DEX” a buzzword with no practical application at their organization. Prioritizing the implementation of DEX for IT teams is crucial, considering their current workload, stress, and risk of burnout. Addressing their own experiences should take precedence for individuals accountable for executing DEX across the organization.
- Tech Friction Impacts Productivity and Security: 60% of office workers report frustration with their tech tools, which can have significant ripple effects beyond just employee productivity and retention. This frustration can lead employees to bypass security protocols – Ivanti research shows nearly two in three (61%) people use unsafe shortcuts at work.
- CIOs Elevate their Role by Supporting DEX: More than three out of four leadership executives agree that CIOs who prioritize DEX earn greater influence with other organizational leaders.
Editor’s Insight: With many SMBs struggling with employee retention, many MSPs are thinking about offering digital employee experience as a service. That could mean bundling proactive IT monitoring, improved cybersecurity, and employee retention services in a package that boosts productivity and job satisfaction for hybrid workforces.
NetSuite Announces Innovations to Help Businesses Increase Efficiency and Accelerate Growth
New embedded AI capabilities, product offerings, integrations, and user experience innovations help businesses gain insights, improve productivity, and promote collaboration.
Key features mentioned in the press release:
- AI updates embedded across the suite: Help organizations increase efficiency, mitigate risk, and reach their goals faster. The suite offers financial exception management, a new digital assistant in NetSuite SuiteAnalytics, and tools to enhance the quality of AI-generated content and embed generative AI in NetSuite extensions.
- NetSuite SuiteProcurement: Helps organizations streamline indirect procurement processes, control costs, and gain access to preferred pricing and benefits from suppliers, including Amazon Business and Staples Business Advantage.
- NetSuite Connector for Salesforce: Helps joint customers automatically share data between NetSuite and Salesforce. With real-time data flow, customers can align data in both applications to expand visibility into order and fulfillment details and financial, customer and contact information, accelerate order-to-cash and revenue recognition processes, and make more informed decisions
- NetSuite Analytics Warehouse: Helps organizations accelerate data analysis and gain contextual insights with new embedded AI capabilities. With updates that enable business driver identification, scenario predictions such as customer churn and inventory stockouts, and custom machine learning models, customers can uncover opportunities to improve efficiency and drive growth
Druva Announces Dru Investigate, a Gen AI Product Revolutionizing Data Investigations and Incident Response
The new generative AI tool helps IT, security, legal, and privacy teams investigate, understand, and address data risks in natural language.
Dru Investigate simplifies cyber investigations and helps users uncover data threats, even when they don’t know what to look for. (Graphic: Business Wire)
Key quote from the Druva press release:
“During cyber investigations, security teams know what data they need, but often don’t know where to find it. [Meanwhile,] IT teams know their data but not what the security team needs. Druva connects these teams with the insight and centralized access to the right data at the right time. Built on Druva’s experience helping customers respond to incidents, Dru Investigate helps guide teams through investigating and analyzing protected data using a natural language interface so customers can take action sooner to remediate and recover from threats.” — Stephen Manley, CTO, Druva
Ontinue Releases 1H 2024 Threat Intelligence Report
Ontinue’s Advanced Threat Operations (ATO) team provides a detailed analysis of the shifting cyber threat landscape.
Key findings in the report:
- 105% increase in attacks against manufacturing and industrial sectors, accounting for 41% of cyber incidents in the first half of 2024
- An uptick in cyber operations originating from China, driven by the nation’s ongoing military and cyber reorganization
- A lag in patch adoption – 50% of the top 10 trending vulnerabilities this year were from 2023
- New information was found on emerging threats, such as LOLSites, Racoon Stealer, and PlugX RAT.
IT By Design Introduces and Solidifies Cost Plus Pricing Model for Large-scale MSPs at Build IT LIVE 2024
The model is a game changer for transparent and scalable MSP staffing solutions.
Key MSP benefits noted in the press release:
- Transparent Pricing: Know exactly what you’re paying for, with full visibility into the cost breakdown of your staffing.
- Scalability: Easily scale your teams without the uncertainty of fluctuating costs, ensuring that your business can grow and adapt as needed.
- Quality Assurance: Receive top-tier talent, with IT By Design ensuring that all engineers are highly skilled and regularly trained to meet the latest industry standards.
- Operational Optimization: Hire and onboard operational resources in any division of your company, offering a new level of cost-optimization in your operational resources model.
ColorTokens Acquires PureID to Strengthen Xshield Microsegmentation Platform with Powerful Identity-Based Segmentation
PureID’s AI-based identity engine to power ColorTokens’ next-gen security enhancements for IoT/OT, cloud, container, and user environments.
Key benefits for customers from the press release:
- Cloud and Containerized Environments: Traditional microsegmentation uses infrastructure attributes like IPs, which are changeable in dynamic environments. Identity-based microsegmentation ensures effective policy enforcement by relying on strong identities agnostic to infrastructure changes.
- IoT and OT Environments: Distributed infrastructures with firewalls and NATs complicate traditional identification. Identity-based microsegmentation ensures accurate policy enforcement with strong identities, fully securing these environments.
- User Environments: Traditional user policies fail as users move between locations and share infrastructure. Identity-based microsegmentation enforces user-specific policies, maintaining security across diverse environments.
Read more in the PureID blog post.
Proofpoint Sets New Standard for Human-Centric Security with Powerful AI-driven Intelligence, Insights and Integrations
Expanded platform capabilities broaden human-centric risk protection to stop threats across a wide range of applications and more.
Key quote from the Proofpoint press release:
“From ransomware to business email compromise to data loss, the most damaging cyber risks all center around humans and their identities. But human risk is difficult to tackle as we all work across email, collaboration apps, the cloud, and the web, creating threat risk, identity sprawl, and data exposure in new ways. Proofpoint pioneered human-centric security, and now we’re redefining it by bringing together previously disparate processes and technologies into one unified platform to protect new digital channels, reduce risk for organizations, and better guide users in real-time, every day.” — Sumit Dhawan, CEO, Proofpoint
GoTo Introduces GoTo Connect CX: the Most Complete and Affordable AI-Powered Multichannel Customer Experience Offering for Businesses
GoTo’s new solution provides a competitive suite of customer communications tools and award-winning phone system.
Key benefits for customers from the press release:
- Multichannel Communications: Engage with customers on their favorite platforms, including WhatsApp, SMS, web chat, Facebook, and Instagram. Schedule personalized SMS outbound campaigns with AI Messaging Assistant.
- Powerful AI Capabilities: Streamline admin tasks and effortlessly find answers to queries with GoPilot virtual assistant to support admins. Unlock actionable reporting insights from every customer’s entire interaction journey. Enable data-driven business decisions and a better customer understanding with AI Call Summaries and AI Call Transcriptions.
- Shared Inbox: Centralize all two-way customer communications in one easy-to-use shared inbox.
- Business Phone, Meetings, and Messaging: Elevate customer experiences with an award-winning, cloud-based business phone system. It’s packed with hundreds of powerful features, including an Attendant Console, 99.999% uptime, and an easy-to-manage unified admin system.
- Advanced Integrations: Boost productivity and simplify workflows with cohesive integrations, including Microsoft Dynamics, Salesforce, Zoho, HubSpot, ServiceNow, and Zendesk.
Visionet and Alkira Partner to Simplify Digital Transformation for Enterprises Via Managed Networking
Alkira’s Network Infrastructure on Demand strengthens Visionet’s global IT solutions portfolio.
Key quote from the press release:
“By integrating Alkira’s Network Infrastructure on Demand into Visionet’s global IT solutions portfolio, a new set of enterprises gain access to a secure, scalable, and easy-to-manage solution that seamlessly connects any environments. This partnership aligns perfectly with our mission to deliver innovative, secure networking products and services that accelerate digital journeys and fuel business success.” — Doug Houghton, director of channels, Alkira
Cribl Expands Stream’s Telemetry Pipeline Capabilities for Microsoft Azure Customers
Company expands support for Cribl Stream service to Microsoft Azure customers globally; adds performance enhancements that give users more value of their IT and security data.
Key quote from the press release:
“With this release, we’re giving our customers what they need by enabling them to deploy Stream’s data plane capabilities as a service managed by Cribl, easily onboard and process data in Azure — or across clouds — choose their region, and get the benefit of the reduced overhead of a managed cloud service.” — Ledion Bitincka, co-founder and CTO, Cribl
Zerto-sponsored Research Finds Backup-only Recovery Solutions Are Failing Organizations One-third of the Time
Report highlights the need for “unified solution” to DR/CR challenges.
Key quote from the press release:
“It’s unfortunate to see organizations funneling resources into backup processes only to realize that it was all for naught — paying the ransom money and losing the data. What’s clear is that only a holistic approach can eliminate these negative outcomes and keep organizations safe. In particular, Continuous Data Protection (CDP) will prove increasingly central to unified data protection efforts in months and years to come.” — Phil Goodwin, research vice president, IDC
Tufin’s Latest Release Makes Network Security Easier with Unparalleled Automation and Compliance on Azure, GCP, and VMware Clouds
Tufin orchestration suite R24-2 improves security efficiency across hybrid and multicloud environments with faster device coverage.
Key quote from the press release:
“With our latest release, teams gain advanced automation capabilities for the leading cloud vendors, enhanced compliance capabilities, and improved network change management processes for all environments.” — Shay Dayan, senior vice president of products and engineering, Tufin
Fortinet Opens New Company-owned Innovation Hub in Chicago
Fortinet‘s new facility will include an R&D center, Fortinet Cloud Point of Presence, and more.
Key features of the new space from the press release:
- Fortinet Cloud Point of Presence (POP): The POP is powered by Fortinet appliances and enhanced by Fortinet’s proprietary ASIC technology for higher performance. It also offers improved energy efficiency, lower costs, and will expand the company’s global cloud footprint. Thus, the company can meet more needs of its customers through the delivery of services, SaaS products, and SASE. It also will provide customers with a superior user experience while enabling a strong security posture and significant cost savings.
- Research and Development Center: The new space was designed to facilitate the company’s high-impact research and development activities. This will foster interdisciplinary collaboration among employees including engineers and developers. It also will advance development of Fortinet’s industry-leading cybersecurity technology with the contribution of local talent.
- Executive Briefing Center: The new EBC will feature collaborative meeting spaces. It is poised to become a pivotal venue for driving business growth and cultivating long-term relationships with key stakeholders.
- Cybersecurity Training Facility: Furthering Fortinet’s commitment to closing the cybersecurity skills gap, the new building provides an in-person learning environment. This is where the company will deliver the Fortinet Training Institute’s award-winning certification program curriculum.
- Customer Support Expansion: A local services and sales team will bring the region a wealth of expertise and knowledge. This will enhance customer support and satisfaction.
ThreatCaptain Launches Financial Cyber-risk Platform Designed Exclusively for MSPs
The multitenant platform is light-weight but powerful. This allows MSPs to take control of their clients’ financial security with precision and confidence.
Key quote from ThreatCaptain LinkedIn post:
“Our platform allows your clients and CFOs to see, taste, and smell how your security stack is mitigating cyber and business risk. We put MSPs at the helm to deliver top-tier financial cybersecurity analysis. We can’t wait for you to experience the difference it makes!” — Brad Powell, co-founder and captain of revenue, ThreatCaptain
Images: Adobe Firefly
