https://www.channelfutures.com/wp-content/themes/channelfutures_child/assets/images/logo/footer-new-logo.png
  • Home
  • Technologies
    • Back
    • SDN/SD-WAN
    • Cloud
    • RMM/PSA
    • Security
    • Telephony/UC/Collaboration
    • Cable
    • Mobility & Wireless
    • Fiber/Ethernet
    • Data Centers
    • Backup & Disaster Recovery
    • IoT
    • Desktop
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Analytics
  • Strategy
    • Back
    • Mergers and Acquisitions
    • Channel Research
    • Business Models
    • Distribution
    • Technology Solutions Brokerages
    • Sales & Marketing
    • Best Practices
    • Vertical Markets
    • Regulation & Compliance
  • MSP 501
    • Back
    • 2022 MSP 501 Rankings
    • 2022 NextGen 101 Rankings
  • Intelligence
    • Back
    • Galleries
    • Podcasts
    • From the Industry
    • Reports/Digital Issues
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
  • Channel Futures TV
  • EMEA
  • Channel Chatter
    • Back
    • People on the Move
    • New/Changing Channel Programs
    • New Products & Services
    • Industry Honors
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Advisory Boards
    • Industry Organizations
    • Our Sponsors
    • Advertise
    • 2022 Editorial Calendar
  • Awards
    • Back
    • 2022 MSP 501
    • Channel Influencers
    • Circle of Excellence
    • DE&I 101
    • Channel Partners 101 (CP 101)
  • Events
    • Back
    • CP Conference & Expo
    • MSP Summit
    • Channel Partners Europe
    • Channel Partners Event Coverage
    • Webinars
    • Industry Events
  • About Us
  • DE&I
Channel Futures
  • NEWSLETTER
  • Home
  • Technologies
    • Back
    • SDN/SD-WAN
    • Cloud
    • RMM/PSA
    • Security
    • Telephony/UC/Collaboration
    • Cable
    • Mobility & Wireless
    • Fiber/Ethernet
    • Data Centers
    • Backup & Disaster Recovery
    • IoT
    • Desktop
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Analytics
  • Strategy
    • Back
    • Mergers and Acquisitions
    • Channel Research
    • Business Models
    • Distribution
    • Technology Solutions Brokerages
    • Sales & Marketing
    • Best Practices
    • Vertical Markets
    • Regulation & Compliance
  • MSP 501
    • Back
    • 2022 MSP 501 Rankings
    • 2022 NextGen 101 Rankings
  • Intelligence
    • Back
    • Galleries
    • Podcasts
    • From the Industry
    • Reports/Digital Issues
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
  • Channel Futures TV
  • EMEA
  • Channel Chatter
    • Back
    • People on the Move
    • New/Changing Channel Programs
    • New Products & Services
    • Industry Honors
  • Resources
    • Back
    • Advisory Boards
    • Industry Organizations
    • Our Sponsors
    • Advertise
    • 2022 Editorial Calendar
  • Awards
    • Back
    • 2022 MSP 501
    • Channel Influencers
    • Circle of Excellence
    • DE&I 101
    • Channel Partners 101 (CP 101)
  • Events
    • Back
    • CP Conference & Expo
    • MSP Summit
    • Channel Partners Europe
    • Channel Partners Event Coverage
    • Webinars
    • Industry Events
  • About Us
  • DE&I
    • Newsletter
  • REGISTER
  • MSPs
  • VARs / SIs
  • Agents
  • Cloud Service Providers
  • Channel Partners Events
 Channel Futures

MSSP Insider


Shutterstock

Cloud security

IT Facing Major Security Issues, But Cloud Security May Be Most Immense

  • Written by Kelly Teal
  • February 12, 2021
A number of reports point to security problems within client environments, but cloud could be the biggest.

No surprise: IT leaders continue to cite environment-wide security as one of their biggest challenges. Cloud security ranks among the most pressing of those issues. But of course, it’s not the only one.

For 72% of people responding to Snow Software for its 2021 IT Priorities Report, ensuring overall security presents significant obstacles. And they said fears around security grew when considering technology that IT either doesn’t know about or doesn’t manage.

That’s not a shock. Ever since COVID-19 struck last year, organizations have faced more IT and cloud security problems. The pandemic spurred a sudden, global shift to remote work and simultaneous, unplanned cloud adoption. In fact, by last September, total cloud spending among many organizations had risen 19.3% over April, the first full month of pandemic-related restrictions. That’s according to VMware and its report, How 2020 Changed the Way We Use the Cloud.

Meantime, employees newly working from home often realized they did not have the tools they needed to do their jobs well. So, they downloaded, sometimes on the sly, cloud resources for collaboration that might not have been IT-approved.

All this has led to a security crisis within IT. COVID-19 opened the door for hackers worldwide to exploit new security gaps. And they continue to take advantage of those holes.

The Human Factor

Yet managed security service providers know external threats aren’t the only ones they have to worry about on customers’ behalf. Clients’ employees threaten the integrity of the work environment, too, even if they don’t mean to do so. Insider breaches remain a big problem for IT. This year alone, enterprises and SMBs can expect insider incidents to reach 33%, up from 25%, per Forrester Research.

“The overall number of insider threats will also be pushed higher as firms get better at identifying and attributing incidents to insider activity,” analysts wrote in the company’s Predictions 2021 report.

Of course, while insider threats may not necessarily be intentional, that does not reduce their impact. As Guru Pai, CEO of Privafy, said last year, “the human being will continue to be the most vulnerable part of cybersecurity. Either consciously or unconsciously, that’s going to be the place where compromise happens.”

Combined – and even separately – internal and external threats qualify as giant security problems. But if new findings from Infrascale offer any indication, MSPs and MSSPs benefit. Three in four (74%) respondents told the data protection vendor they turn to MSPs for help with their security needs.

Meantime, and at the risk of sounding repetitive, most of these organizations are moving workloads into the cloud. Or they have already moved them. They are doing so for better efficiency and, often, improved security. The question is whether partners are ready to handle the specific security challenges that accompany cloud.

Cloud Security Strategies for MSPs/MSSPs to Embrace

Infrascale's Russell Reeder

Infrascale’s Russell Reeder

“MSPs need to bolster their cloud migration and cloud security capabilities – especially for finance, education, health care, and manufacturing – so as to be prepared for the ultimate need of digital transformation and successful cutovers to the cloud,” said Russell Reeder, Infrascale CEO.

Brian Allison, vice president of global channels and alliances at Snow, agreed.

Snow Software's Brian Allison

Snow Software’s Brian Allison

“Those MSPs that already specialize in providing cloud services and support may be seeing exponential gains compared to those who may be early in their journey to add cloud into their offerings,” he told Channel Futures. “For ‘born in the cloud’ MSPs, there seems to be a real opportunity to increase the potential for growth by adding support for more than one public cloud provider and embracing multicloud services. For those MSPs who primarily still focus on legacy enterprise technologies, now is the time to accelerate your organization’s own transformation.”

A key way to do this, Allison added, is to hire people who know cloud and security in depth.

“The opportunity provided by the cloud has created a double-edged sword for MSPs,” Allison said. “While there are huge growth opportunities, the market value of cloud talent has also gone up. The talent that MSPs may have in their organization is also being sought after by the public cloud providers like AWS, Microsoft and Google. And to develop a cloud expert, certain corners cannot be cut.”

Partnering with Other Partners

Another recommendation? Consolidate or partner with other MSPs and/or MSSPs.

“Bringing together a shop with AWS experience and another with Azure, for example, would certainly help diversify offerings and provide additional opportunities for growth,” Allison said. “Or acquisitions of boutique MSPs known for their unique skills by larger MSPs may be in order.”

Aptum's Craig Tavares

Aptum’s Craig Tavares

Along the way, MSPs/MSSPs must keep in mind that a cloud environment is only as secure as the polices and controls that oversee it. Managed hosting provider Aptum discovered in a recent survey that 82% of IT professionals face this dilemma as they expand and diversify their cloud infrastructure.

“Although no single solution on its own can guarantee 100% security, especially in a multi/hybrid cloud approach, experienced partners can assist organizations in choosing the right combination of security technologies that complements their workloads no matter where they are hosted and ensure visibility across disparate environments,” said Craig Tavares, global head of cloud at Aptum.

Tags: MSPs Business of Security Channel Research Cloud and Edge Endpoint MSSP Insider Security Specialty Practices

Most Recent


  • Zero Trust
    In a World Where Security and Network Have Converged, ZTNA Is Key
    Align ZTNA with SD-WAN to give maximum level of secure access but still offer optimized experience.
  • Black Hat expo hall 2022
    The Gately Report: Black Hat USA Edition with Cisco, IBM, CISA, More
    Black Hat USA has come roaring back since the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • Making Waves
    7 Channel People Making Waves This Week at Microsoft, Rackspace, RingCentral, Avaya
    Hackers targeted one UCaaS firm by impersonating the company's IT department.
  • Welcome Mat
    Okta Names Splunk Vet New Global Channel Chief
    Okta's global channel chief left the company in June.

Leave a comment Cancel reply

-or-

Log in with your Channel Futures account

Alternatively, post a comment by completing the form below:

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Content

  • College classroom
    Community College Ransomware Attack Wreaks Havoc
  • White House
    White House to Private Sector SMEs: Get Serious About Cybersecurity
  • zero trust security
    Leveraging Partner Expertise to Build a Zero-Trust Strategy
  • Security Vulnerability
    Older Fortinet Vulnerabilities Lead to Attack on Local Government Office

Upcoming Events

View all

MSP Summit

September 13, 2022 - September 16, 2022

Channel Partners Conference & Expo

May 1, 2023 - May 4, 2023

Galleries

View all

The Gately Report: Black Hat USA Edition with Cisco, IBM, CISA, More

August 12, 2022

7 Channel People Making Waves This Week at Microsoft, Rackspace, RingCentral, Avaya

August 12, 2022

Oracle Cloud & AT&T, AWS Lead Cloud News Roundup

August 12, 2022

Industry Perspectives

View all

How to Take Shared Responsibility for Securing Cloud

August 11, 2022

Seize the Application Modernization Opportunity

August 2, 2022

A Growth Mindset: Your Organization’s Strategic Differentiator

August 1, 2022

Webinars

View all

Outsmarting RaaS: Implementation Strategies To Help Your Clients Before, During, and After a Ransomware Attack

August 23, 2022

Why it is Important to Upgrade Aging Servers and How to use Live Optics to Upgrade Efficiently

August 25, 2022

Executives at Home are Not Alright: An Intro to Digital Executive Protection

September 8, 2022

White Papers

View all

Work Goes Remote – (and Other Top ITOps Trends)

May 25, 2022

The New Bottom Line: How MSPs Can Meet the Healthcare Crisis While Evolving Their Businesses

April 19, 2022

How to build a Security Operations Center (on a budget)

April 4, 2022

Channel Futures TV

View all

ThreatLocker Preaches Zero Trust, Addresses Industry Competition

ScienceLogic Debuts New Partner Portal

August 9, 2022

Vonage a ‘Single Communications Stack Provider’ for Partners, Customers

June 27, 2022

IBM, Partners and the $1 Trillion Hybrid Cloud Opportunity

June 26, 2022

Twitter

ChannelFutures

.@splunk vet Bill Hustad named @Okta's new #channelchief. dlvr.it/SWXmws https://t.co/ILQesul0Cz

August 12, 2022
ChannelFutures

The Gately Report: #BHUSA edition with @Hacker0x01, @Cisco, @SaltSecurity, @CISAgov, @ExtraHop, @IBMSecurity, more.… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

August 12, 2022
ChannelFutures

Channel People Making Waves Include: @kencarnesi, @szebenisz, @vasujakkal, @brettsmith52, @DaveMichels… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

August 12, 2022
ChannelFutures

Nancy Henriquez, VP of Sales & Marketing at MSP 501 award-winning @synetek, touches on the importance of gathering… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

August 12, 2022
ChannelFutures

.@Equinix's new hire is a familiar face in the telco channel. dlvr.it/SWXV6v https://t.co/jIg0LrZ4DO

August 12, 2022
ChannelFutures

Missed the news this week from @OracleCloud and @ATTBusiness? We've got it here. Plus, news from @AWSCloud and… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

August 12, 2022
ChannelFutures

Huge channel-impacting acquisitions in the past month. We've got details on @IBM, @nokia, @GoTo, @EnsonoIT,… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

August 12, 2022
ChannelFutures

Boost privacy by design with #shiftleft mindset and add #security to cloud deployments from start, says… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

August 12, 2022

MSP 501

The industry's largest and most comprehensive partner awards program.

Newsletters and Updates

Sign up for The Channel Report, Channel Futures Update, MSP 501 Newsletter and more.

Live Channel Events

Get the latest information on the next industry-leading Channel Partners event.

Galleries

Educational slide shows and images from live events.

Media Kit And Advertising

Want to reach our audience? Access our media kit.

DISCOVER MORE FROM INFORMA TECH

  • Channel Partners Events
  • Telecoms.com
  • MSP 501
  • Black Hat
  • IoT World Today
  • Omdia

WORKING WITH US

  • Contact
  • About Us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter

FOLLOW Channel Futures ON SOCIAL

  • Privacy
  • CCPA: “Do Not Sell My Data”
  • Cookie Policy
  • Terms
Copyright © 2022 Informa PLC. Informa PLC is registered in England and Wales with company number 8860726 whose registered and Head office is 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG.
This website uses cookies, including third party ones, to allow for analysis of how people use our website in order to improve your experience and our services. By continuing to use our website, you agree to the use of such cookies. Click here for more information on our Cookie Policy and Privacy Policy.
X