With cyberthreats on the rise and affecting businesses around the world, managed services providers (MSPs) view cybersecurity-as-a-service as the major technology trend that will impact their market in the next three to five years. However, with two-in-three MSPs suffering from a shortage of qualified cybersecurity staff and other challenges, the industry may soon struggle to meet customer demand. This is one of the key findings of a new report by Kaspersky Lab into the current realities and trends in the global MSP market.

As the global managed services market is expected to reach $245 billion by the end of 2022, cybersecurity is no longer seen as a separate or optional function among MSPs. Instead, it has become an integral part of the IT services they deliver — with customer satisfaction, and the ability to keep security incidents to a minimum, among key performance indicators. The report found that 92% of MSPs now include cybersecurity as part of their portfolio of services and over half (51%) cite it as essential to their customers’ operational continuity. Offering protection from cyberthreats is therefore expected to a top priority for MSPs in the future.

Cybersecurity is expected to boost MSP business in several ways. MSPs with smaller customers (up to 50 end-user workstations) believe thatexpanding their security portfolio should give them a good reputation among their peers (78%) and help them attract new customers (77%). Meanwhile, service providers working with larger businesses consider cybersecurity, among other things, to be a way of keeping their current accounts (78%).

However, the study also reveals that MSPs face a number of challenges when it comes to investing in the expansion of their cybersecurity offering. Two thirds of MSPs, serving both the large enterprise market 

(60%) and smaller businesses (58%) agree that a shortage of qualified IT security professionals for hire contributes to the challenge of ramping up their cybersecurity offering. In addition, around half have difficulties with the remote deployment and management of their solutions (51% and 54% respectively). To overcome these challenges, MSPs should select cybersecurity products that are easy to manage and use but also offer high quality protection.

This is especially relevant in light of the recent ransomware outbreaks around the world. The quality of cyber protection remains the top requirement for MSPs as the cybersecurity solutions they use should be able to effectively detect and block ransomware - one of the fastest growing threats of 2016–2017. The report proves that this threat has been a high-profile scourge on businesses of all sizes – 54% of MSPs with enterprise customers said this was their customers’ main concern, followed by 49% of MSPs with smaller customers.

“For service providers, it’s not enough to simply have cybersecurity services in their portfolio. One damaging incident such as ransomware infection can undermine their reputation and affect relationships with customers,” commented Vladimir Zapolyansky, head of SMB Business. “That’s why they need the most powerful security solutions and we at Kaspersky Lab are committed to this approach by offering the most tested and awarded protection for endpoints, mail servers and virtualised environments, so that MSPs can deliver as many cybersecurity services as they want to boost their businesses.”

Kaspersky Lab’s offering helps MSPs address the growing demand for IT security services and attract new customers that want to outsource their protection to a trusted third party. The portfolio includes Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Business, Kaspersky Endpoint Security Cloud, Kaspersky Security for Virtualisation and Kaspersky Security for Mail Server, allowing MSPs to cover key security functions such as remote monitoring, managed security, virtualisation security and mobile device security and management.