Trellix underlines MSP cyber threats

The managed service provider (MSP) community is well aware that it is in the sights of cyber criminals, but more evidence has emerged to underline the evolving threat.

The recent attack on SHI International was a reminder that the channel are targets and research from Trellix has put some numbers to what is happening in the market.

Adding the SHI attack to those targeting Kaseya and SolarWinds starts to paint a picture of an industry that is a growing target for criminals.

Trellix’s summer 2022 Threat report found that the channel was directly in the sights of cyber criminals, seen as a way to gain access to multiple companies through one target.

Firms selling services and consulting were being targeted more often, with business services accounting for 64% of the total US ransomware detections and globally it was the second most targeted sector.

Ransomware has also evolved to become harder to defend against and MSPs are also dealing with increased email security threats.

“With the merging of our digital and physical worlds, cyber attacks cause more chaos in our daily lives,” said Christiaan Beek, lead scientist and senior principal engineer at Trellix.

“Adversaries know they are being watched closely, and the absence of new tactics observed in the wild during the war in Ukraine tells us tools are being held back. Global threat actors have novel cyber artillery ready to deploy in case of escalation, and organisations need to remain vigilant.”

The advice for MSPs is to make sure they have an incident response plan in place to enable them to react to, and fend off, an attack.

Elsewhere in the channel, Tech Data has taken steps to beef up its email security portfolio by widening its relationship with Proofpoint.

Alison Nixon, business unit director – security, UK and Ireland at Tech Data, said it would support the vendor with a strong team of experts to help partners looking to add to their security offerings.

“Email protection is a vital element of perimeter defences for all organisations now – from the largest global enterprise to small businesses with just a handful of workers – and we see huge potential for our security partners to grow with Proofpoint,” said Nixon.

“We have sales and technical resources primed and ready to support partners, so we are ready to hit the ground running. We will be looking to work with existing partners and to bring new partners on board.”

The distributor will also work with the vendor to provide training and will make its enterprise portfolio available to partners.