The International Association of Cloud & Managed Service Providers (MSPAlliance) leadership council has unveiled a new vendor council to tackle managed services supply chain risk.

The leadership council has formed Vendor Verify, a new certification. It will raise transparency and cybersecurity resiliency among supply chain vendors commonly used by MSPs.

The group will mitigate MSP supply chain risk through transparency, education, business continuity planning and managed services channel certification.

The leadership council includes hundreds of certified MSPs globally. It has acted to secure its own supply chain. It works with hardware and software vendors who deliver products and services to MSPs and their customers.

The Vendor Verify Council includes senior level executives with PC Matic, WatchGuard Technologies, LastPass by LogMeIn, Tigerpaw, Axcient, Loop Communications, CryptoStopper, bvoip, Intotoware, Vultr and Inky.

Celia Weaver is MSPAlliance president.

MSPAlliance’s Celia Weaver

“We are honored to see this level of support from the vendor community,” she said. “We, along with all of the MSPs working with this new council, see this as a big win for the industry.”

Vendor Verify Objectives

The MSPAlliance said the objectives of Vendor Verify include:

Corey Nachreiner is WatchGuard‘s CSO.

WatchGuard’s Corey Nachreiner

“Collaboration among MSPs and vendors is a vital step in meeting our ultimate goals of securing the shared infrastructure and systems we use to provide the best possible cybersecurity for our customers,” he said. “WatchGuard is proud to join with the MSPAlliance, and the other participating vendors, to bring the Vendor Verify certification to life.”

While Vendor Verify is still being developed, completion of the project is expected to occur before the end of the year.

Patrick McCue is LogMeIn‘s global vice president of channels.

“MSPs are an important part of the LogMeIn and LastPass partner ecosystem,” he said. “The MSPAlliance’s Vendor Verify Council will be a valuable tool for MSPs. I’m confident that LastPass will continue to be the right choice to meet MSPs security requirements.”