MSP, VARs, and vendors all gathered in Greenville, South Carolina, this week for the TD SYNNEX Inspire conference, where AI took center stage. If you were there, or just busy running your MSP business, you can catch up below on what’s new from Barracuda, NinjaOne, Sophos, and Hornetsecurity, plus find out the latest research on how AI is making it easier for cybercriminals, and what you can do to protect customers.
Products
NinjaOne Rolls Out AI for Patch Sentiment
NinjaOne, an IT platform for endpoint management, security, and visibility, announced NinjaOne AI for Patch Sentiment, which leverages generative AI to provide sentiment analysis for Windows KB (Knowledge Base) updates.
Features of NinjaOne AI for Patch Sentiment include:
- Detailed insights and community feedback, helping IT teams determine when to deploy or delay patches to reduce the risk of applying updates that could disrupt operations.
- Identification of potentially risky patches, allowing IT teams to avoid security vulnerabilities or compatibility issues before they impact the organization.
- Enables IT teams to quickly understand the potential impact of patches without needing to manually research or test each update.
Hornetsecurity Launches 365 Multi-Tenant Manager for MSPs
Hornetsecurity released 365 Multi-Tenant Manager for MSPs, which enables service providers to configure, manage, and monitor M365 tenants via a convenient multi-tenant cloud platform. The 365 Multi-Tenant Manager uses the Microsoft Partner Center connection to automatically add all discovered tenants into Hornetsecurity’s multi-tenant platform. User-friendly wizards guide MSPs through tenant onboarding, baseline settings, and the monitoring of automated tasks.
Organizations can adopt optimal configurations and set up Entra, Intune, SharePoint, OneDrive, Exchange, and Teams solutions using the product’s best practice templates, settings, and policies. The product’s toolbox approach also enables the creation of custom settings that automate PowerShell scripts, or MSPs can utilize existing PowerShell scripts that they have already created for M365.
Additionally, 365 Multi-Tenant Manager provides MSPs with dashboards for monitoring and reporting purposes. It simplifies and standardizes complex workflows in M365, eliminating the need to manage multiple Microsoft portals. Noncompliance is automatically detected, with built-in remediation and enforcement capabilities ensuring that all tenants remain compliant with settings the MSP defined.
Sophos Introduces New XGS Series of Desktop Firewalls and Updated Firewall Software
Sophos introduced nine new XGS Series desktop firewall appliances for midmarket and smaller-sized businesses, as well as branch offices. The XGS appliances feature a streamlined architecture to deliver double the performance of previous models, but with 50% lower energy consumption. All the new Sophos XGS appliances are available with multiple high-speed connectivity options, and four models are fanless, making them ideal for noise-sensitive environments.
Sophos has also announced updated Sophos Firewall software that provides enhanced protection against cyberattacks, including the ability to integrate third-party threat intelligence feeds. This allows organizations with specific regional or vertical market requirements to customize and apply additional information to strengthen their firewall security. The new software also enhances distributed network scalability and provides a transition for customers on legacy firewalls to upgrade to the latest Sophos XGS appliances. By leveraging the improved acceleration capabilities of the virtual FastPath in the new Sophos Firewall software, along with the new streamlined architecture, the new Sophos XGS firewall appliances can deliver up to three times the performance in IPsec VPN throughput compared to previous models.
In addition, users can now configure Sophos Firewall software to ingest paid and free feeds published by security vendors, MSPs, specific industry consortiums, and Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISACs), or other threat intelligence platforms. The third-party data augments Sophos’ proprietary threat intelligence, which derives from Sophos X-Ops and includes telemetry from SophosLabs, Sophos MDR and XDR technology.
By the Numbers
Keeper Security Research Reveals AI is Driving Advanced Cyberattacks
New research from Keeper Security shows that AI is making phishing and smishing attacks harder to detect, with 84% of IT leaders acknowledging the increased challenge. In response, 81% of organizations have implemented AI usage policies for employees. Confidence in these policies is also high, with 77% of leaders stating they are either extremely or very familiar with best practices for AI security.
Despite these efforts, Keeper’s 2024 Top Data Threats report reveals that 51% of security leaders identify AI-powered attacks as the most serious threat facing their organizations, and 35% feel their organizations are least prepared to combat these attacks, compared to other types of cyberthreats.
To tackle these emerging challenges, organizations are focusing on several key strategies:
- 51% of IT leaders are incorporating data encryption into their security strategies.
- 45% of organizations are focusing on enhancing their training programs.
- 41% of organizations are investing in advanced threat detection systems.
Syncro MSP Benchmark Survey: Most MSPs Expect To Grow Next Year
IT platform provider Syncro’s latest MSP survey finds that 90% of respondents expect to expand over the next 12 to 18 months, despite economic uncertainty and increased competition.
Notably, 71% of MSPs experienced growth in the last 12 to 18 months, with 43% reporting growth between 6-15% and 27% seeing growth of 16-40%.
For the next 12 to 18 months, 73% of MSPs say growth is their primary goal, while 64% are focused on increasing profitability.
MSPs cited cybersecurity threats, sales competition, and profitability as their top concerns.
The survey was conducted by Topline Strategy Group.
People
NinjaOne appointed Joel Carusone to senior vice president of data and AI. Carusone will oversee the research, development, and deployment of secure AI technology practices inside NinjaOne and closely partner on AI-related product development. Previously, Carusone served as CTO at Zeno Technologies, and before that, he was CEO of Radius Intelligence.
