Managed Service Providers Are Increasingly Falling Victim to Cyberattacks
Many small and medium businesses are turning to managed service providers for their IT support. Their IT infrastructure is delegated to these MSPs. These service providers remotely manage their networks, data storage, cybersecurity, and any other aspect that is concerned with day to day business operations. Consulting managed service providers has also helped companies lower overall IT costs by outsourcing administrative and maintenance roles to a team of highly-trained experts for a fraction of the actual cost. The fixed monthly fee has also enhanced the company’s cost predictability.
As a result of this delegation, MSPs have become attractive targets to cybercriminals. According to a report by Armor, a global cloud-security solutions firm, by the end of October 2019, a total of 13 MSPs had been targets of ransomware attacks. According to Huntress labs, MSPs have become malware targets that use a complex mixture of strategies that can go unnoticed. The report stated that the attacks were more complicated than initially thought. The investigation found out that cybercriminals have orchestrated several tricks to hide malicious footholds in plain sight, including masquerading them as existing scheduled tasks, renaming legitimate files, and using malicious payload stored in a file to make it look like an error log.
These criminals have realized that if they manage to compromise the MSP systems, they could easily use their remote access tools to access their numerous clients’ networks. This way, they can easily infect hundreds of companies and thousands of computers all at once. When an MSP becomes susceptible to a cyberattack, all the clients that the MSP supports also easily become vulnerable.
How can MSPs protect themselves from cyberattacks and ensure that they quickly recover? The following are ransomware tips MSPs need to follow:
- You Should Implement Data Backup And Recovery Solutions: Cloud-based computing services offer secure data storage and backup solutions. With cloud-based backup solutions, your MSP can quickly recover data and restore operations in the case of a data breach. It’s also essential to have offline data backups.
- You Should Continuously Monitor Your File Integrity: It’s vital to monitor your IT environment 24/7/365 for changes to your operating system, files, and applications. Doing this will help you mitigate potential risks in advance.
- You Should Encrypt Sensitive Data: Encryption of sensitive data stored on tablets, computers, laptops, and mobile devices will ensure that only authorized persons with the encryption key or password have access to the information.
- You Should Implement Endpoint Protection Solutions: You should install antivirus, intruder protection, and antimalware software to laptops, computers, and mobile devices to counter cyberattacks. They should also quickly detect and remediate any malicious activity.
- You Should Plan Continuous Security Awareness Training: It’s significant to educate employees about the emerging and current cybersecurity risks. Effective training will actively engage your employees and include policies stating the correct response to suspected cyber attack attempts.
- You Should Have Cybersecurity Liability insurance: Your MSP should assess its systems to determine its risk to cyberattacks and take out adequate cyber insurance as part of its overall cybersecurity risk mitigation strategy.
With Cyberattacks at an all-time high, an MSP’s risk of being breached is higher than ever before. This demands that all MSPs focus on early detection, prediction, quick response, and continuous monitoring of their systems to keep their data and that of their clients safe.
Managed service providers that have multiple clients have become prime targets for various forms of cyberattacks. To better protect your clients’ sensitive information and maintain privacy in an increasingly digital world, MSPs should implement cybersecurity measures and maintain security standards that prevent them from falling prey to cyberattacks
