How MSPs manage cybersecurity safety at scale

Show Notes for Series 03 Episode 19

This podcast is produced in conjunction with ConnectWise.

From a background in software programming, today’s guest Sydney-based Leon Friend specialised in cyber security, landing at ConnectWise a few years ago. Keen listeners will know the company from a previous episode of the Tech Means Business podcast: ConnectWise’s local remit is to help ANZ’s MSPs (managed service providers) protect their many clients from the dangers that lurk on the internet in the form of hackers, bots and malware like ransomware.

We talk about whether MSPs are best-placed to be the cybersecurity experts the market needs (after all, they get plenty of experience working in multiple verticals) and what the differences are between cybersecurity tools designed for MSPs and most others conceived with only one organisation in mind.

“The biggest challenge is education,” Leon says, and it’s a challenge managed service providers have to take head-on, taking their clients on the journey to better working practices. One of ConnectWise’s capabilities is to give MSPs the tools and the materials they’ll need to pass on – after all, most companies haven’t grown up as cybersecurity experts. Most are, Leon says, “mom & pop shops that have grown from being good at fixing people’s computers.”

With the numbers of ransomware cases on the steep increase (not just in Australia and New Zealand) alongside similar rises in the costs of those attacks, getting cybersecurity right is absolutely paramount, whether or not you run, work in, or are a client of an MSP.

The State of SMB Cybersecurity Report 2022 is available here:
https://www.connectwise.com/resources/smb-research-2022

More information at ConnectWise’s website here:
https://www.connectwise.com/

Leon Friend on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonfriend/

Joe Green’s LinkedIn profile is here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephedwardgreen/