Survey shows MSPs gaining ground with SMEs
A survey of 1,007 IT decision makers at small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) in the U.S. and United Kingdom suggests that managed service providers (MSPs) are now being viewed as more essential than ever before.
Why MSPs need a robust patching program
A robust patching regimen is a pillar of “Cybersecurity 101.” “But sometimes, believe it or not, that is such a basic task that it gets overlooked. For instance, checking the oil in your car frequently is a must, but that...
Why MSPs choose Barracuda SKOUT Managed XDR
As cyberthreats continue to get more invasive and damaging, managed service providers (MSPs) and their clients are searching for better ways to protect and defend against them. One of the most effective and popular solutions in the market today is...
Healthcare supply chain increasingly vulnerable
There has been plenty of awareness generated about the vulnerability of healthcare organizations to hackers. Hospitals and biomedical facilities have been ramping up their efforts in fortifying their cyberdefenses.
Sales & Marketing
Why MSP cold-calling needs a makeover
“The purpose of my call is to set up an introductory meeting with our MSP.” “How about next Wednesday or Thursday?” This is the moment when a prospect feels pushed and are ready to slam the phone down. Unfortunately, this...
MSP Sales: Here’s how to let prospects sell you
One of the many things I’ve learned from decades of sales experience is that salespeople are too focused on “selling.” They are typically set on meeting sales quotes and getting that next big bonus check. But they usually forget about...
Why is lead generation for MSPs challenging?
“We had a marketing vendor for six months and we didn’t get a single qualified lead!” “We hired a sales guy, but he didn’t last long.” “Our PPC gets leads but most are just emergency buyers.” MSPs are understandably frustrated...
Security
Key cybersecurity trends to watch in the homestretch of 2022
Believe it or not, we are now halfway through 2022. Where has the time gone? Before we know it, we’ll be talking about Thanksgiving and Christmas. But right now, let’s pause, take stock of where we’ve been and make some...
Cybersecurity Threat Advisory: Apple Safari arbitrary code execution vulnerability
Apple has had an existing arbitrary code execution vulnerability in their MacOS, iOS, iPadOS, and Safari in their past 3 zero-days known as CVE-2022-22620. Google and Barracuda MSP researchers are making sure users don’t forget this. The vulnerability could allow...
Cybersecurity Threat Advisory: FastJson versions vulnerable to deserialization
A new version of FastJson has been released and has patched a vulnerability which allows malicious actors to utilize “AutoTypeCheck” mechanism and achieve remote code execution in FastJson. All Java applications that pass user-controlled data to either the JSON.parse or...
Better Business
Are you portraying yourself as a strategic partner?
Being an MSP has changed markedly over the years. In the early days (going back as far as being an application service provider or ASP), it was a given that most of the business would come from a web search....
SMB cybersecurity confidence creates a challenge for MSPs
A survey of 600 SMBs (small-to-medium businesses) with revenue between $1 to $40 million, conducted by Provident Bank, finds that about half of the respondents believe their organization is fully prepared for a cyberattack. An equal percentage of respondents, however,...
An overlooked way to boost MSP proposal acceptance rates
To improve their MSPs profitability, most firm leaders focus either on increasing sales volume or reducing fixed costs. Sadly, a one percent of sales volume increase adds only 3.2 percent, and a one percent fixed cost reduction adds only 2.3...
Tech Insight
Salaries for IT pros with cloud expertise present MSP challenge
As the number of workloads shifting to the cloud continues to accelerate, one of the biggest limitations in terms of the addressable market for managed service providers (MSPs) is now the salaries of the IT professionals that have the expertise...
Tech Time Warp: Did you forget about the first iPhone?
As ubiquitous as the iPhone is today (and as many competitors as it has inspired), it can be difficult to think back to June 2007, when the first iPhone went on sale. Disrupting the Blackberry world, the iPhone of 2007 was...
Tech Time Warp: The Early Days of IBM
The monolith we know today as IBM got its start June 16, 1911, when the forward-thinking Charles R. Flint merged the International Time Recording Company, Computing Scale Company and the Tabulating Machine Company—all “computing and tabulating enterprises”—into the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company,...