Cybersecurity Awareness Month is your most underrated growth opportunity
Every October, managed service providers (MSPs) fill inboxes with cybersecurity tips, awareness campaigns, and phishing reminders. Most customers appreciate the information, but few take meaningful action. The MSPs that get the most value from Cybersecurity Awareness Month take a different...
AI investments are raising the stakes for MSPs
The saying that two opposite things can both be true appears especially relevant for channel partners today. A survey of 400 decision-makers at IT solution providers in North America and Western Europe conducted by Futurum Group found that more than...
MSP owners: Sell more, build less with AI
If you still own sales at your MSP, you probably already have a 40-plus-hour work week before you open Claude, ChatGPT, or another AI tool and start building something. So if you’re going to work another 10, 20, or 80...
Why MSPs need a unified IAM platform to scale securely
With identity becoming the new security perimeter, many MSPs are looking for ways to simplify identity and access management (IAM) while delivering stronger protection to their customers. Consolidating essential identity security capabilities into a single platform can help reduce operational...
Sales & Marketing
Automate MSP lead follow-up and win more deals
Key takeaways Every uncontacted lead represents potential lost revenue. Calculate what’s at stake using your average contract value and lead close rate. Faster follow-up and consistent nurturing help MSPs convert more marketing leads into qualified sales opportunities. A structured lead...
How MSPs should measure the real ROI of AI in sales and marketing
AI sales and marketing tools love to tell you how much time they save. That number is usually based on the happy path: how long the task took before AI versus how long it takes after AI produces an output....
The MSPs who built on word of mouth are now in trouble
There’s a quiet crisis happening in the MSP space right now that doesn’t get talked about enough. I’m seeing it with more clients every year. An MSP owner calls me. They’ve been in business 20, sometimes 30 years. They’ve done...
Security
Cybersecurity Threat Advisory: Critical PHP2Shell RCE vulnerabilities
PHP recently shipped an out-of-cycle emergency release fixing two critical remote code execution flaws, CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619, collectively dubbed PHP2Shell. Both are rated 9.2 on CVSS v4.0 and can allow unauthenticated attackers to run code on vulnerable web servers. The...
Cybersecurity Threat Advisory: Trojanized PuTTY installers target IT admins
Threat actors are using malicious Google Search ads to distribute weaponized PuTTY installers that target IT administrators. These ads direct victims to fake websites that mimic legitimate PuTTY download pages. Once installed, the trojanized software deploys malware that enables remote...
Your clients are already using AI, you just don’t know it yet
What better way to mark Cybersecurity Awareness Month than by talking about one of today’s most overlooked workplace risks: AI. AI is now woven into most workplace IT environments. Employees use ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, and dozens of other AI tools...
Better Business
Why many MSPs aren’t seeing returns from AI
A survey of 153 decision-makers at managed service providers (MSPs) that manage Microsoft 365 and Azure cloud services found that 32 percent use AI internally. However, only 12 percent reported measurable productivity gains. The survey, conducted by market research firm...
The industries driving managed services growth are changing
A report from Information Services Group (ISG) suggests that managed services growth remains steady year over year, but demand is shifting across industry sectors. ISG tracks new managed services contracts worth more than $5 million that are awarded each quarter....
The need for human intervention in AI governance
Around the 1st century CE, the Roman poet Juvenal posed the relatively well-known question, “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” This literally translates to, “Who will guard the guards themselves?” At the time, it was aimed at those in power and the...
Tech Insight
Tech Time Warp: The long goodbye to Windows XP
Windows XP turns 25 this Oct. 25 — a fitting moment to remember that even beloved software eventually reaches its “end of life.” This week’s AI-driven discovery of a PHP vulnerability reinforces the lesson: Keep software updated, apply patches, and...
Tech Time Warp: Duqu, the malware spy disguised as a Word doc
Fifteen years ago this month, reports of a new type of malware — Duqu — were opening the cybersecurity community’s eyes to the possibility of computer virus as tradecraft. Initially thought to target industrial control systems, Duqu was later discovered...
Pioneers in Tech: Remembering Dado Banatao, designer of the first PC chipset
You probably haven’t thought about your chipset lately—but if you were missing it, you would notice. Dado Banatao, who was born in 1946 in a Filipino farming village that lacked electricity, was the designer behind the first PC chipset. (For...
