CompTIA has published the 2024 State of Cybersecurity report (available here) – and it’s got great insights from over 600 cybersecurity professionals. It goes deep on the changes happening in the realm of cybersecurity due to larger attack surfaces, AI and ML, talent shortages, updated compliance frameworks, and the ever-growing number of faster-scaling cyber threat actor groups.

We speak to leaders of  Managed Service Providers (MSP) or Managed Security Services Providers as partners and prospects daily, and we know they are all staying informed about cybersecurity trends and best practices and how crucial it is to safeguard their clients’ interests. 

With the daily news coverage of cyber attacks, data breaches, outages, and data leaks, MSPs/MSSPs are managing clients who have customers and boards that are also very concerned and want to know more about how the managed services providers are protecting their organizations. 

The CompTIA report found that the same concerns are also held by the on-site IT teams that MSPs/MSSPs provide co-management for – with just 25% of IT staff and 21% of business staff feeling that the overall state of cybersecurity in the economy is improving.

Cybersecurity Framworks Bind Security, Technology and Business Goals

MSPs/MSSPs are also adopting more security frameworks – like NIST 2.0, CMMC, NIS2, and others. These frameworks are also being requested as a baseline for cyber insurers and by client’s customers during 3rd party cybersecurity audits. They can be used as a common ground and enable all parties to communicate strategies, controls and processes in place to reduce risks and detect and block/stop attacks and the associated downtime and costs for clients.

One of the other big trends that is tying business operations to cybersecurity strategy is risk management. This is likely due to the close tie between cybersecurity spending and outcomes that can be measured more efficiently than ever. It’s now easier for MSPs/MSSPs to:

• Identify various risks
• Assign the probability of cyber incidents
• Determine the potential costs
• Propose incident response plans.

The MSP and MSSP Cybersecurity Technology Stacks are Merging

More and more MSPs are realizing that their stack needs to evolve beyond the legacy stack that “protect the perimeter” approach and now a need to push further into prevention through better, faster detection. The only real way to do that across today’s wide attach surfaces is to implement more sophisticated monitoring, metadata telemetry ingestion, threat intelligence, and vulnerability assessments.  We here at Seceon were happy to see growth in the use of SIEM, Log Management, DLP,  SaaS monitoring and management, EDR, XDR. 

MSP/MSSPs – Save your seat today for for this webinar today.

AI’s Emergence as a Powerful Force for MSPs and MSSPs to Leverage in their Cybersecurity Stack

The 2024 CompTIA Cybersecurity Survey report also covers the AI possibilities for cybersecurity.

The team at Seceon was excited to see the high number of responders indicating these uses of AI in cybersecurity:

• Monitoring network traffic and detecting malware
• Analyzing user behavior patterns
• Automating response to cybersecurity incidents
• Automating configuration for cybersecurity infrastructure
• Predicting areas where future breaches may occur
• Generating tests of cybersecurity defenses

CompTIA 2024 State of Cybersecurity Report 

Seceon’s AI/ML- powered automated threat detection and response platform is able to ingest, enrich, detect, alert and when configured to do so, automatically block and stop attacks before they cause downtime or data leaks. We see it everyday, there is just no way even the largest teams can detect threats and attacks at scale across attack surfaces from cloud and on-premises infrastructure to applications to users.

Summary:

In summary, as an MSP or MSSP leader, equip your cybersecurity operations teams with the tools and processes they need to navigate the evolving threat landscape while supporting your clients’ digital ambitions.

Don’t miss CompTIA and Seceon Panel Discussion

If you want to hear from CompTIA and learn how top MSSPs are growing profits and reducing risks for their clients, be sure to save your seat in the next CompTIA webinar with Seceon: Unlocking New MRR With Advanced Security Services. In this panel discussion featuring two MSP leaders Grigoriy Milis CIO at RFA, Joshua Skeens of Logically, Ron Culler from CompTIA and Seceon’s partners, you’ll learn how these leading MSSPs launched advanced security services without adding a lot of overhead or complicated licenses from several cybersecurity vendors.– Register here!