If you live in the South, hopefully you’re done shoveling out from the unprecedented snow that hit the region this week. Weather never stops the channel, though, which saw announcements from ScalePad during Ignition 2025 and Cavelo’s appointment of a new channel chief. We’ve rounded up the rest of the news you might’ve missed here, including new cybersecurity offerings, an initiative to advance responsible use and development of AI, what MSPs have been on a buying spree, new leadership appointments at ConnectWise, and more. Happy reading!
Products & Services
Guardz’s New ‘Ultimate Plan’ Embeds SentinelOne
Guardz unveiled its “Ultimate Plan,” a new offering that combines AI-native unified detection and response capabilities from Guardz with embedded SentinelOne endpoint protection. The platform ensures automated threat detection, mitigation, and remediation across identities, endpoints, emails, cloud, and data—all managed from a single user-centric interface. MSPs benefit from real-time protection and simplified workflows, eliminating the need for multiple security solutions, according to Guardz.
The solution automates critical security functions, including threat detection and mitigation, alert management and prioritization, and threat resolution, reducing the burden of false positives and operational noise while minimizing manual intervention. It also facilitates direct, real-time engagement with a team of Guardz security analysts for actionable responses, including quarantining endpoints, blocking threats, and isolating risky users. In addition, it links endpoint activity with other security layers, including cloud behavior, employee awareness, leaked credentials, and email activity, to provide MSPs a complete view of customer risk.
The Ultimate Plan also allows access to tools for MSPs to personalize client communications, monitor endpoint health proactively, and access global security insights for comprehensive incident analysis.
The Guardz Ultimate Plan is available now.
Zyxel Networks Launches Outdoor PoE Extender/Splitter
Networking provider Zyxel Networks launched the PoE12-3PD 802.3bt Outdoor PoE Extender/Splitter. This cloud-managed plug-and-play solution extends the range for connection to PoE devices such as IP cameras, VoIP handsets, IoT devices, sensors, PoE switches, and wireless access points, beyond the 100-meter cable distance limitation. It provides up to an additional 100 meters of PoE connectivity. Featuring a 45W power budget, PoE12-3PD incorporates four RJ-45 Gigabit Ethernet ports, which include one PoE++ input port with up to 60W power input, and three 802.3at PoE+ output ports that deliver up to 30W per port to provide both data and power to deployed PoE devices over a single Ethernet cable.
Partnerships & Integrations
Stellar Cyber Partners With LastPass To Deliver End-to-End Credential Protection
Stellar Cyber, the open AI and automation-driven security operations platform powered by Open XDR, and LastPass, an identity and password manager, announce a new integration. Through this integration, Stellar Cyber leverages the LastPass API to ingest and correlate critical security events—such as login attempts and credential changes—across cloud, on-premises, and multitenant environments. Now, security teams and MSSPs can more effectively respond to threats involving compromised credentials and gain end-to-end visibility into user activities without added complexity.
Stellar Cyber calls this integration “MSSP-ready,” with simplified reporting and improved client outcomes to scale security services.
Cloud Security Alliance and Whistic Partner to Advance Secure and Responsible Gen
The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), an organization dedicated to defining and raising awareness of best practices to help ensure a secure cloud computing environment, and Whistic, a platform for comprehensive third-party risk management, announced a strategic partnership to further the responsible and secure development, use, and management of artificial intelligence technologies. A key element of the partnership will be Whistic’s participation and support of the CSA AI Safety Initiative, with a specific focus on the development of an AI-extension to CSA’s STAR certification and the Compliance Automation Revolution (CAR), which will be unveiled later this month.
“The use of artificial intelligence has already become ubiquitous in cloud and SaaS provider offerings. Simultaneously, other business types are leveraging it as a tool to make their daily operations more efficient while looking for ways to incorporate it into their products and services. Given AI’s widespread use, it’s critical that enterprises leveraging this transformative technology are able to provide evidence that their solutions and services can be trusted,” said Jim Reavis, co-founder and CEO of CSA, in a press statement. “We’re extremely pleased to partner with Whistic in furthering a responsible AI future.”
As part of the agreement, CSA members will be eligible for a 3-month free Whistic trial, which will allow them to leverage Whistic AI to measure vendors’ security documentation against CSA’s Consensus Assessment Initiative Questionnaire (CAIQ) and CAIQ-Lite frameworks. Participating CSA members will also have access to the Whistic Trust Catalog, which will enable them to quickly assess a company’s posture. The Trust Catalog features thousands of profiles containing vendor security and compliance documentation, including over 3,500 profiles with CAIQ and CAIQ-Lite.
Additionally, both CSA members who have completed CAIQ or CAIQ-Lite profiles and non-member enterprises on CSA’s Security, Trust, Assurance, and Risk Registry can add their documentation to a Whistic Trust Center and use Whistic AI to automatically respond to ad-hoc security questionnaires.
M&A – MSPs
New Charter Adds ProTech IT Solutions to Its Portfolio
New Charter Technologies, a portfolio company of Palo Alto-based private equity firm Oval Partners, added ProTech IT Solutions, an MSP founded in 2012 with offices in New York, Connecticut, and Minnesots, to its platform of companies. “I started ProTech with a clear mission: to bring enterprise-level IT solutions to small and mid-sized businesses,” said Johnson Abraham, president of ProTech IT Solutions, in a press statement. “Joining the New Charter platform allows us to continue that mission while tapping into an incredible network of like-minded IT providers across North America. This partnership enhances our ability to deliver the best possible solutions to our clients while maintaining our personal touch.”
Cyberlink Completes Acquisition of Cosentus Technology Services
Dallas-bsed CyberlinkASP (“Cyberlink”), a cloud and managed IT service provider for small and midsize businesses, acquired Cosentus Technology Services, an MSP in Springfield, Missouri. Private equity firm Seaport Capital acquired Cyberlink in 2023. The acquisition extends Cyberlink’s solution offering beyond hosted cloud infrastructure to serve customers operating in an on-premise network environment.
“We’re thrilled for Cyberlink on their first acquisition and their partnership with CTS,” said Drew Meyers, partner at Seaport Capital, in a press statement. “We think the enhancement in service offering, ability to support on-premise customers, and opportunity to cross-sell solutions across a wider customer base make CTS a great strategic fit and growth driver for Cyberlink. M&A has long been a growth avenue for Seaport Capital investments, having completed over 130 add-on acquisitions to date, and we will continue to work with Cyberlink on growth through acquisition.”
People
ConnectWise appointed Joe Mercurio as chief revenue officer. Previously, Mercurio was SVP of sales and channel for Mimecast. ConnectWise also appointed Robert Reid as senior vice president of go-to-market operations.
Distribution/Marketplaces
Proofpoint, a cybersecurity and compliance company, announced an expanded go-to-market relationship with Ingram Micro. Channel partners can now deliver Proofpoint’s security solutions at scale through Ingram Micro’s Xvantage digital experience platform, which provides automated quoting, ordering, provisioning, and purchasing. Proofpoint is an early adopter of the Xvantage platform’s full capabilities, with full end-to-end API integration with Xvantage, including intelligent automation and self-service capabilities.
