Why MSPs Need to Shift from Cyber Security to Cyber Resilience

If your critical systems, website or customer data were suddenly inaccessible due to a cyber attack, how soon would you be able to get back up and running? That’s a question that should be on every business leader’s mind. We’ve written before about cyber resilience and why it’s so important, but in today’s increasingly disruptive threat landscape, it’s more important than ever for managed service providers (MSPs) and small to midsize businesses (SMBs) to embrace cyber resilience so they can mitigate disruption.

Threats such as hacking, phishing, ransomware and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks are only the tip of the iceberg and have the potential to interrupt critical business operations and cause reputational damage to organizations of all sizes. With attacks such as the SolarWinds security breach making headlines, as well as increasing threats targeting remote workers and taking advantage of COVID-19, MSPs and SMBs must concern themselves with threats that were once a concern only for much larger organizations. To stay resilient, it’s essential that leaders understand how to protect their businesses using a multi-layered approach.

What’s Driving the Need for Cyber Resilience?

Cyberattacks are, unfortunately, a matter of “if,” not “when.” Being cyber resilient means that a company has both the ability to prevent attacks, and also to mitigate damage and maintain business continuity when systems or data have been compromised. Where cybersecurity focuses more on protecting an organization before an attack has occurred, cyber resilience encompasses an end-to-end approach that keeps the business operating even in the midst and aftermath of an attack.

Without a holistic approach to security and recovery, catastrophic failures can occur. For example, many SMBs rely only on free cyber security solutions or eschew security all together. Our data shows only 26% of SMBs deploy enough layers of security to cover their users, networks and devices.

Complicating matters further is the digital disruption that stems from the rapid shift to remote work. The challenge for both MSPs and SMBs is in securing a remote workforce and new, unsecured perimeters–especially across home networks and personal devices, which are already at increased risk for an attack.

SMBs Will Look to MSPs to Achieve Cyber Resilience

Business leaders have a significant opportunity to bolster confidence in the business through cyber resilience, especially as employees look to management to protect them against increasingly sophisticated threats. According to data from a recent report, only 60% of office workers worldwide believe their company is resilient against cyberattacks. Nearly one in four (23%) admit to not knowing whether their company is resilient, while nearly one in five (18%) flat-out think it isn’t. What’s more, only 14% of office workers worldwide consider cyber resilience to be a responsibility all employees share, meaning that the burden of championing resilience starts with leadership. These statistics indicate a clear gap, and it’s safe to say that many SMBs are grappling with how to keep their businesses safe from cyberattacks.

As prominent attacks and the flow of threats continue, SMBs will look to MSPs to protect their businesses and help them achieve cyber resilience. This creates a unique opportunity for MSPs to guide customers through the maze of cybersecurity and data protection solutions and ensure they are receiving relevant education on protecting the business. MSPs can ensure that customers have defense in depth by offering ongoing security awareness training as well as endpoint protection. Those looking to transition to managed security can lean on Webroot’s training modules and phishing simulations to provide world-class training and monitoring.

It Can Take a Village to Prevent Cyber Threats

While getting support from MSPs is a great stride toward keeping businesses safe, a big piece of the cyber resilience puzzle is teamwork. There’s no single solution or approach that can protect a business, and it really does take a village to protect against today’s cyber attacks. Just as SMBs look to MSPs to become cyber resilient, MSPs can rely on security expertise to fill in the remaining gaps.

Cyber resilience solutions can be custom built for MSPs and their SMB customers, and further tailored to each individual business. By partnering with Webroot and Carbonite, you can offer a customizable set of solutions including endpoint protection, ongoing end user training, threat intelligence, and backup and recovery.

To learn more about cyber resilience and stay up to date on security tips and industry topics, follow our Hacker Files and Lockdown Lessons podcast series.

Nick Emanuel is senior director, product management.

This guest blog is part of a Channel Futures sponsorship.