Guardz, the cybersecurity company empowering MSPs and IT professionals to deliver comprehensive, AI-powered cyber protection for small businesses (SMBs), today shared that 65% of Managed Service Providers (MSPs) are juggling between 4-9 different cybersecurity point solutions to protect their SMB customers, and a further 12% use 10 or more. In doing so, MSPs must contend with vast volumes of security data, unending alerts, interoperability issues, and more, all while striving to grow their businesses. These findings were uncovered by a new Guardz survey of US-based MSPs providing IT and cybersecurity services to multiple SMB customers.
In the age of computing, remote work, and bring-your-own-device policies, keeping up with the evolving cyber threat landscape is the biggest challenge facing any business. As a result, SMBs, who often lack the expertise and personnel to handle cybersecurity issues in-house, are increasingly turning to MSPs. Tasked with managing the security of numerous customers at once, MSPs then face their own challenges in providing the best possible services and steadily acquiring new clients.
The Guardz survey revealed that MSPs believe data leakage, phishing attacks, and ransomware are the biggest threats to their SMB customers’ security (in descending order). In turn, 60% of MSPs report that keeping up with the evolving threat landscape is their biggest challenge in securing SMBs, and 42% report that implementing advanced threat detection technologies is also a major challenge.
Over half of MSPs (54%) report that customizing the various cybersecurity solutions they use is a top challenge, and 47% report that coping with large volumes of security data is a main technological issue, bolstering claims of industry-wide alert fatigue. MSPs also face financial and logistical issues in handling so many platforms at once, with 58% reporting high costs are a major issue, 56% saying they suffer from integration issues, and 41% bemoaning the lack of training for each platform.
Additional findings from the survey include:
-
52% of MSPs struggle with the high costs of implementing new technologies on a regular basis, and 51% struggle with their compatibility and interoperability with legacy systems.
-
MSP employees often bear the brunt of these challenges, and 44% of MSPs report resistance to change from their staff as a result.
-
53% of MSPs believe their SMB clients underestimate the threat landscape, and 50% report their SMB customers are over reliant on a single security solution.
-
36% also believe their customers fail to recognize the need for cyber insurance, and 49% report that these SMBs assume compliance equals security.
“In the MSP community, it’s widely known that – despite the challenges of utilizing multiple different point solutions – there are very few individual cybersecurity solutions that can do it all. Especially because so many are enterprise solutions retrofitted for these smaller companies, most existing options simply fail to account for the specific, various needs of an SMB or are too complicated and heavy to manage effectively, leaving these crucial businesses massively vulnerable,” said Dor Eisner, CEO and Co-Founder of Guardz. “This is why we at Guardz work diligently to ensure that SMBs are not lulled into complacency, and that MSPs are best equipped to not only serve their customers, but also to grow their businesses for the sake of a safer digital world.”
The survey was conducted by Guardz in October 2024 in collaboration with Pollfish. The sample consisted of 260 US-based MSPs providing IT and cybersecurity services to multiple SMB customers.