MSPs Must Better Educate Clients Against Cyber Threats

Cyber threats are a part of daily business reality. MSPs are out to seek ways to safeguard their clients’ digital assets.

Walt Czerminski, partner, Fortium Partners, led a panel discussion at MSP Expo 2024 featuring Ragav Khosla, manager, channel solutions consultants Americas, LastPass; Melton Littlepage, chief marketing officer, 1Password; and Glen Shok, vice president, marketing, Netgate, where they discuss this reality.

To kick things off, Czerminski asked the panel, “How do your clients know what today’s threats are, especially with the tsunami caused by AI? How do we get that message across?”

Companies are getting good at locking down their clouds,” said Littlepage. “However, breaches are occurring because of stolen and weak credentials, and not enough work has been done to support the workers in the process. It will only get worse with AI targeting people with more advanced phishing attacks.

Shok adds to the last point there.

“Folks are taking LLMs and training them on ransomware. You get AI that is trained to mess with humans and deploy code once they click on something, and it is all automated," said Shok.

To better prepare clients against AI attacks, Khosla says to make sure clients already have MFA, etc.

“But don’t fear-monger your clients. Give them the education and material," said Khosla.

Also, AI can be used in the same manner that hackers use it to counter their attacks.

“AI security tools are very early stage, but they can detect phishing emails better than employees, a good start,” said Littlepage. “It will prove itself in the upper markets first before going down to SMBs.”

SMBs are a prime target for hackers. Sure, the bigger organizations will pay the ransom, but they will follow with a death squad. A SMB typically doesn’t have that luxury.

That is why it is important for MSPs to always educate their clients no matter what size the organization is.