News in the Channel - issue #44

MSPs AS CISOs

58% currently offer full compliance program management. However, just 6% offer the full range of compliance services evaluated in the research, highlighting a gap between broad participation in compliance and the delivery of a comprehensive service stack. “MSPs have an opportunity to become indispensable strategic partners to their customers, but scaling that role requires a more unified operating model,” adds Scott. “Bringing security posture, compliance management and reporting together can help MSPs spend less time manually consolidating information and more time helping customers reduce risk, strengthen resilience and make informed cybersecurity decisions.” Sophos’ report also found that compliance influences 50% of customer cybersecurity purchasing decisions on average, with 33% heavily or decisively influenced by regulatory demands. This creates an opportunity for MSPs to connect compliance requirements with broader security priorities. In addition, only 33% of MSPs are ‘completely confident’ in their ability to continuously monitor, manage, and document compliance across multiple customers, highlighting a gap between the certainty customers need from their partners and what MSPs can consistently deliver. So MSPs must be mindful of the evolving compliance landscape. “With legislations on the horizon, such as the Cyber Security & Resilience Bill, which aims to introduce financial penalties for non-compliance,” says Myles. “MSPs need to be prepared to guide customers through these new changes, while helping them achieve a lower risk profile that can also secure better insurance coverage and premiums.” Jamie agrees: “The changing role of MSPs is only going to become more important as cyber threats grow in volume and complexity, particularly for smaller

Contributors

Scott Barlow

sophos.com

Myles Bray, CEO of CyberSentriq, adds that with IT outages and cyber incidents increasingly linked to financial losses, businesses are relying more heavily on MSPs. “Hybrid working, decentralised teams and rapid adoption of technologies such as AI are expanding security risks,” he adds. “MSPs are also now expected to go beyond protection, guiding digital transformation and helping customers adopt emerging technologies securely.” This shift in the market means there are opportunities for MSPs. “As customer risk profiles become more complex, MSPs can expand their service offerings to include things like consulting, auditing and legacy system migration to reinforce the idea that customers are buying access to their expertise, not just the security products themselves,” says Myles. “This allows MSPs to move further up the chain of command where they can make cybersecurity a board-level priority rather than an operational line-item.” Compliance Compliance is also central to this expanding role. Nearly all MSPs surveyed, 99%, provide at least one cybersecurity compliance service, and

Jamie Akhtar

cybersmart.co.uk

Myles Bray

cybersentriq.com

00 21 CONTINUED