The Gately Report: Cybersecurity Shines at Channel Futures Leadership Summit

Last week's Channel Futures Leadership Summit shined a spotlight on all the latest cybersecurity trends, and how MSPs and MSSPs can protect themselves and their customers.

In addition, the expo hall included numerous cybersecurity providers showing their latest tools and solutions for MSPs and MSSPs.

"Cybersecurity continues to be at the forefront of all conversations we had at Channel Futures Leadership Summit," said Kelly Danziger, VP and general manager of Informa Tech Channels. "We all expect technology advancements that accelerate our productivity and efficiency in both our business and personal lives. The rate of speed at which these advancements are happening can at times expose us to security breaches. We read about these every day and many of us have experienced them in our personal lives as well. We must continue to educate ourselves and our employees on the areas where we’re at risk, and how and where we need the various security protocols in place to provide comfort and protection as we embrace the incredible technology advancements that are critical to running a successful business."

Cybersecurity Must-Haves for MSPs, MSSPs

During the Channel Futures Leadership Summit, a panel of heavy hitters in cybersecurity provided guidance for assessing gaps in coverage and finding the right tools to fill gaps in a cost-effective manner.

Panelists included:

For MSPs and MSSPs to stay informed about the most recent and emerging cyber threats, "you've got to be part of the collective, industry-driven organizations and teams that are aggregating this level that also has government involvement," King said.

"There are tons of sources as we slowly evolve from a bunch of individual organizations with individual budgets, talking of us as well as our customers, trying to protect ourselves against nation-states and other events, into gathering data that is being aggregated or tapping into sources that are already aggregating the data from a government perspective and from an industry perspective ... and have that information available at your fingertips so you know what's going on," he added.

Channel Futures Leadership Summit: Leveraging Vendors Helpful

Leveraging vendors is also important, Barlow said.

"A lot of the vendors will syndicate their threat feeds to other vendors as well, but to you, you can actually take that and integrate that into your website," he said. "The other recommendation I would make is to join an ISAO or ISAC, I like the ISAO better, and that's just an information-sharing organization. There are a couple in this industry. CompTIA has a fantastic ISAO where I think a lot of the vendors actually will share the threat intelligence, so if you have a question about a piece of malware or a suspicious piece of file or attachment, you can actually upload it and test it on your own."

In addition, MSPs and MSSPs, as well as resellers, need to do tabletop exercises, Barlow said.

"That continues to keep you in tune with absolutely everything that's going on in the world that's out there," he said. "And stay with the fundamentals as well. There's so much complexity around malware that the majority of organizations cannot do it themselves, which is why I think we all have managed detection and response (MDR) solutions and security operations centers (SOCs). So just stay with the fundamentals. The stuff that we see getting through is crazy. And why does it get through? Compromised credentials or an exploited vulnerability. So keep up with the threats that are out there, but also get back to the fundamentals."

Scroll through our slideshow above for more on cybersecurity at the Channel Futures Leadership Summit.