The number of cyber crime actors is growing and attacks are becoming easier, thanks to the widespread availability of ransomware tools.
This is according to Markus Bauer, senior technology evangelist at Acronis, who was addressing a webinar for MSPs on emerging risks and how to counter them.
Bauer said: “The number of cyber crime players is growing in total, with more smaller ‘troops’ emerging.” AI such as ChatGPT can also be used to write harmful scripts and ransomware for users, he said. “It has been so easy to get ransomware builders on the dark web and now you also have free AI capable of writing ransomware for you,” he said.
“Attackers are now going beyond simple data encryption and launching double, triple or even quadruple extortion attacks. Attackers typically know their targets and have adapted their techniques to use sleeper backdoors in backups, change passwords, encrypt from VMs and sign the malware.”
Bauer noted that companies of all sizes, in all sectors, were being targeted. He cited recent attacks on organisations as varied as T-Mobile in the US, the Fire Rescue service in Victoria, Australia, the Royal Mail in the UK, the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany and Solar Industries in India.
“Attackers don’t care about the size of the target, they just care about the data or credentials they can steal, and the rise of independent access brokers is driving up attack numbers,” he said.
He said the risk landscape had driven cyber security to be a top priority for organisations, presenting an opportunity for managed security providers to offer comprehensive solutions to improve their security posture.
In order to do so, MSPs need to value and present their cyber security services effectively, to maximise their strategic importance to clients and prospects, Bauer said.
“MSPs need to re-examine their cyber security value proposition to ensure it resonates with today’s business decision-makers and make it consistent throughout their marketing and sales collateral, website and social media.”
Often, MSPs present the range of tools available but fail to focus on the strategic use of the tools, he said. In many cases, too many tools and too many vendors were being offered, complicating management and the packaging of a value proposition. He suggested reducing the number of solutions being offered and bundling offerings in levels, such as a basic security bundle, a mid-range bundle and a top tier bundle.
Bauer also recommended that MSPs establish a minimum security bundle all customers should have, including security assessments, e-mail threat prevention with anti-phishing, anti-malware and anti-virus, URL filtering, core endpoint security monitoring and patch management, firewall management, password management, disaster recovery, data backup and restoration, cloud application data loss prevention, security service management, zero day vulnerability prevention and response, dark web scanning, phishing simulation testing, end-user security awareness training, security report generation and maintenance of compliance for cyber liability insurance policies.
He outlined the granular Acronis security packs to support basic and advanced security, management, backup, disaster recovery, e-mail security, data loss protection and file sync and share in a consumption model, with integration and APIs for business systems. Acronis delivers new security features while eliminating complexity and keeping costs down, allowing MSPs to manage all clients from one console from just one vendor.
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