With kids back to school and the new NFL season kicking off this week, it seems summer is officially over. But if you got a chance to catch a few more rays and take a late vaca over the last few days, MSP Success stayed on top of the channel news for you. Check out some new offerings from Auvik, Josys, and HPE. Plus, plus we found some eye-popping info on the cyber insurance industry (hint: potential losses from a cyber incident could top Hurricane Katrina claims). Read more below.
Products
Auvik Adds New Troubleshooting and Alerting Capabilities To Its Network Management Platform
Auvik has rolled out three new capabilities for its Auvik Network Management (ANM) solution.
Northstar is a network troubleshooting tool based on path visualization. It is designed to enhance visibility and management across networks. This enables users to adapt their monitoring strategies based on specific organizational requirements.
The ARM64 collection agent enables deployment on ARM64 architected devices such as Raspberry Pi. ARM64 Collector code automatically detects the underlying architecture and functions accordingly, extending existing deployment options.
Finally, Auvik’s new alerting engine provides customizable features to provide more clarity from network alerts by reducing noise, improving relevance, and managing frequency to only receive relevant messages when they are needed by tailoring notifications to their specific operational requirements.
Northstar, ARM64 Collector, and the new alerting features are all available now to Auvik Network Management customers at no additional cost.
Josys Rolls Out Features To Reduce Wasted SaaS Spend
Josys, provider of a SaaS Management platform, announced new features designed to eliminate wasteful SaaS spending, improve governance of unsanctioned application usage, and enforce policy-based privileged access management.
To help identify SaaS waste, Josys has expanded and enhanced the number of applications it supports. For apps like Slack, Box, Miro, and more, MSPs and IT admins can view key data in one dashboard—covering total licenses, plan types, assigned and unassigned licenses, underutilized licenses, and shadow accounts. In the Josys console, admins can now downgrade users to lower-tier plans when their current licenses are underutilized. Additionally, Josys has refined its app categorization system, organizing SaaS apps into 42 categories to simplify the process of identifying redundant applications.
With the Josys Browser Extension, admins can track which business applications employees are accessing from their Chromium browsers. And Josys recently launched remote activation for the Extension, which allows MSPs to use their existing MDM or RMM solutions or their Google Workspace Admin console for deployment without requiring intervention from end users.
Whether apps are discovered via browser, sign-in activity, or access logs, Josys has engaged with Netskope to instantly assign every app a corresponding risk level and compliance standing to help spotlight risky apps and prioritize them for deeper investigation. Currently, Josys has risk and compliance scoring for over 14,500 apps. Josys has also added a new Status Categories to help streamline the app vetting workflow. Options include unclassified, under review, approved, and unapproved.
In addition, admins can quickly identify misconfigurations and modify roles directly within Josys, without needing to access the native application.
All of the features mentioned above are generally available today.
HPE Private Cloud AI Features One-Click Launch of GenAI Virtual Assistants
Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced that HPE Private Cloud AI is available to order. At the same time, HPE introduced new solution accelerators to automate and streamline artificial intelligence (AI) applications. HPE Private Cloud AI is a turnkey, cloud-based experience co-developed with NVIDIA and introduced as part of the NVIDIA AI Computing by HPE portfolio.
The first solution accelerator, available now, is a GenAI virtual assistant to help developers quickly build interactive chatbots that answer questions asked in natural language, informed by an organization’s private data and powered by open source large language models (LLMs). Businesses can customize their AI applications for multiple uses: tech support, sales quote generation, marketing content creation, and more. The next version of the virtual assistant will support voice, images, and multi-agent support, enabling more advanced content-generation and multi-task execution.
Future solution accelerators will feature commonly-used AI applications for vertical industries.
In addition, HPE launched the Unleash AI partner program. Part of HPE Partner Ready’s Technology Partner Program, Unleash AI will complement HPE Private Cloud AI. Partner solutions, including those based on NVIDIA NIM Agent Blueprints, will be curated and pre-validated to run in HPE Private Cloud AI.
ConnectWise Enhances Its Marketplace
ConnectWise launched a revamped ConnectWise Marketplace, designed to make it easier to learn about and access a wide range of solutions developed by certified and open integrators across all phases of the MSP business lifecycle. The marketplace features new and trending products, as well as verified reviews. And with the new unified interface, MSPs can now seamlessly and more intuitively navigate the ConnectWise Marketplace, according to the company.
The ConnectWise ecosystem has open APIs with a catalog marketplace that includes integrations from over 400 vendors, including ConnectWise Invent-certified integrations, that are security reviewed and approved by ConnectWise.
Veeam’s New Backup for Microsoft 365 v8 Delivers Immutability And Enterprise-Scale Capabilities
Data resilience vendor Veeam Software released Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 v8, which combines immutable backups with existing immutable copies. Backup data can be stored on any object storage, including Azure Blob Storage, Amazon S3, IBM Cloud Object Storage, or S3-compatible storage. Additional features include private and shared Teams channels, Linux-based backup proxies, and MFA access to the UI.
By The Numbers
Searchlight Cyber: Active Ransomware Groups Are On The Rise
Dark web intelligence company Searchlight Cyber’s new report, Ransomware in H1 2024: Trends from the Dark Web, found a 56% increase in the number of active ransomware groups compared to H1 2023. The findings indicate a diversification of the ransomware landscape.
For instance, RansomHub emerged in February and quickly established itself as the third most prolific ransomware group, according to the report. Other new entrants in 2024 include APT73 and DarkVault. LockBit retains its top position, with Play, RansomHub, BlackBasta, and 8Base filling the other top slots.
Notably, the most active groups are predominantly using the ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) model.
There is some good news, though. The report found a decline in the overall number of listed ransomware victims compared to H2 2023, indicating that law enforcement operations may be beginning to curb ransomware activities.
“As we’ve seen in the first half of 2024, the ransomware landscape is not just expanding, it’s fragmenting,” said Luke Donovan, head of threat intelligence at Searchlight Cyber, in a press statement. “With over 70 active ransomware groups now in operation, the ransomware landscape is becoming more complex for cybersecurity professionals to navigate. The diversification we’re witnessing means that smaller, lesser-known groups can emerge rapidly and execute highly targeted attacks. This report underscores the need for organizations to continuously monitor the ransomware ecosystem, identify the groups that pose the greatest risk to them, and use threat intelligence to inform their defensive strategies.”
Cyber Insurance Eye Popper: Cyber Peril Larger Than Hurricane Katrina Claims
CyberCube, an analytics provider that quantifies cyber risk, says cyber insurance will grow exponentially, projecting that the U.S. standalone cyber insurance market could reach $45 billion in premium by 2034—a five-fold increase from today.
The market is being driven by increasing digitization of the global economy and rising concerns about cyber risk.
CyberCube also predicts that cyber will become a peak peril, with the potential for losses from U.S. standalone cyber to exceed Hurricane Katrina—the largest insurable natural catastrophe to date.
The report concludes that the cyber (re)insurance market will need to substantially increase capital to enable this growth potential, with increases needed from multiple sources including insurers, reinsurers, capital markets, and potentially private-public partnerships.
What does that mean for your MSP business’ policies and coverage? We will have to stay tuned.
Acquisitions
Absolute Security Acquires Syxsense
If you’re an MSP partner of automated endpoint and vulnerability management Syxsense, you are now part of the Absolute Security family. With the acquisition. existing Syxsense customers and partners will continue to receive full support for existing deployments, according to Absolute.
The integration of Syxsense enables Absolute customers to receive automated patch management, vulnerability remediation, and custom workflow automation.
People
DNSFilter has hired Mike Okoth as chief financial officer and Chris Smith as chief marketing officer. Previously Okoth was with SaaS firm Crownpeak, where he served as CFO, and Smith had recent stints with Delinea and Thycotic. In addition, DNSFilter promoted Mandy Cole to chief people officer and Lauren Romer to chief legal officer…TD SYNNEX announced that Reyna Thompson will be appointed president of North America on December 1, following the departure of Peter Larocque, who plans to transition to an advisory role on November 30. Thompson joined TD SYNNEX in 1993 and most recently led the North America Advanced Solutions business unit focused on cloud, security, data/AI, and data center solutions….NinjaOne promoted Andre Schindler to senior vice president of global sales. He will also continue his duties as General Manager, EMEA, and oversee all EMEA operations and growth….Egnyte, a provider of cloud-based content collaboration and governance solutions, appointed Prasad Gune as chief product officer. Gune brings more than two decades of product development experience to his new role, most recently as senior vice president of product at Udemy, and prior to that at Signifyd, OpenTable, and LinkedIn…..Kaseya promoted CMO Mike Sanders to chief revenue officer. Prior to the CMO duties, Sanders was EVP-Account Management at Kaseya, and before that was GM at Unitrends.
