IT Nation Secure: MSPs and the Intersection of AI and Cybersecurity

This week’s IT Nation Secure is focused on what’s happening at the intersection of AI and cybersecurity, both the good and the bad.

That’s according to Ameer Karim, ConnectWise’s executive vice president and general manager of cybersecurity and data protection. He said IT Nation Secure, unlike other cybersecurity conferences like RSA, is focused on cybersecurity from the MSP’s point of view.

ConnectWise's Ameer Karim

“With AI, there’s the good,” he said. “It’s driving efficiency, you can write scripts, you can patch faster and your reaction time can be potentially reduced. But at the same time, it can be used in a bad way. So the challenges are how do we make sure that the MSPs and the partners out there are prepared. If they don't have the right tools in place, the right systems and the processes, then they could put themselves at risk because AI is being embraced by the hackers as well, and their intentions are not the same as the rest of the industry. So they can be more sophisticated, more targeted, more focused. And they're getting faster with phishing, social engineering, all kinds of things.”

‘Core Essence’ of IT Nation Secure

The core essence of IT Nation Secure is how can partners embrace both the good and bad of AI, Karim said.

“They have to embrace AI to continue to help drive automation and acceleration of their business to help them grow,” he said. “But they've got to be mindful of putting the right systems in place, the right processes to prevent any major disaster or risk to the business.”

Related:ConnectWise MSP Threat Report Warns of Windows 2012, New Ransomware Dangers

ConnectWise's Gregg Lalle

Gregg Lalle, senior vice president and general manager of IT Nation, said cybersecurity and AI are two train tracks that are becoming one. Just as MSPs are “getting their arms around” cybersecurity, here comes an “acceleration engine that is AI.”

“You haven't even quite got that out the door and now it's happening faster,” he said. “We all know the bad actors aren't sitting around worrying about frameworks and any compliance, or anything that they have. They're taking the latest tool off the shelf. They're jamming it through and are using it to their advantage to make everybody worse off. So it's more about action and starting now, and opening your eyes. Sometimes we're slow to react in the IT space. People look and see [and] wait until somebody does something. You don't want to be standing on one of those tracks either. You have to bring this together because of the acceleration.”

Scroll through our slideshow above for more on this week’s IT Nation Secure.