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establish trust with their victims and expect a reply to their emails, and the lack of a URL makes it harder to detect the attack. We take a similar approach to how we treat endpoint and network security – always noting how threats evolve and looking at ways that we can adapt our own security tactics. CV: What does the recent Fyde acquisition mean for security partners? BB: We have seen, and will likely continue to see, evolution of how users work and access data, which means we will also see innovation in how we secure those users. By now, it is clear that remote work is here to stay, cloud migrations are accel- erating, and secure access is criti- cal. Businesses and the MSPs that service them need ZTNA to verify every access attempt to data and resources. With the acquisition of Fyde, and in turn, the introduction of Barracuda CloudGen Access, we are able to offer an innovative ZTNA solution that provides secure access to appli- cations and workloads from any device and location. CloudGen Access continuously verifies that only the right person, with the right device, and the right permis- sions can access company data or apps, or any infrastructure. Having ZTNA deployed at the endpoints will also help reduce the exposure of your infrastructure, as it will provide access control for your SaaS applications and remove the need of long-living connections. With employees using more resources beyond the corporate laptop, MSPs and security partners need to protect outside of the VPN-connected world. The multi- tenanted version will allow MSPs to not only keep their customers safe, regardless of where their customers’ employees are working or what devic- es they are using, but will allow them to monetize devices they previously were unable to. CV: What’s in store for Barracuda in 2021? How are you helping MSPs remain profitable? BB: MSPs are now seeing more opportunities centered around their IT expertise and ability to make remote workers productive and secure. The threat landscape hasn’t materially changed over the recent months; the susceptibility of our systems and people has. What’s clear is that MSPs will not thrive this year without becom- ing security-centric service provid- ers. This means protecting the users themselves, not just the devices MSPs have traditionally had under management. Customer calls will transition from device-related issues to compromised cloud-based file sharing accounts, or that a mailbox was hijacked. MSPs need to start getting ready for the user and data world, and Barracuda is here to help. This transition offers an oppor- tunity for MSPs to maximize on this bring your own network (BYON) world and offer solutions to monitor and protect their customer users, devices, and networks, wherever they may be. Security-centric MSPs are looking for ways to continuously improve the security posture of their customers, while still growing their business. One specific way we are helping MSPs to scale profitably is by supple - menting their internal resources with our partner services. With these, we deliver services to end users on an MSP’s behalf in order to enable them to provide security expertise without incurring the costs and burden of hiring, training, retaining security staff to deliv- er that service in-house, for example. CV: How are remote teams handling security challenges heading into year two of the pandemic? Do you anticipate many breaches and security incidents coming to light in 2021? BB: Each industry will be affected differently by the pandemic. Business- es that have embraced and continue to embrace the opportunity and trans- form to meet the new realities will survive. At the center of this is cloud- based applications and services. Earlier this month, for example, SMB Group released a report showing that more than 80 percent of SMB respondents said cloud-based business applications have been valuable in sustaining their business, and 37 percent noted that the pandemic has made them more likely to choose a cloud solution for new application investments. Unfortunately, where there is opportunity for businesses, including MSPs, there is also opportunity for bad actors. Attackers tend to prey on the vulnerable, and those who are in transition have found themselves in that state, in many cases. For example, schools transitioning to remote learning, restaurants transi- tioning to online ordering, etc., have found themselves targets. The cyber risk created by this shift to cloud computing is an obligation MSPs should welcome in an effort to aide their clients in business trans- formation. And, according to the SMB Group study, top security challenges SMB’s face in managing remote workforces include: • home/public Wi-Fi network security (64%); • employees accessing apps and data from personal, unmanaged devices (56%); • lack of visibility and control (50%); • securing sensitive company data (48%); • user awareness and training (42%); • added costs for security solutions (21%); and • non-compliance with regulatory requirements (19%) We expect to see this continue, but it’s worth emphasizing that the cyber risk created by a shift to cloud computing is a manageable obligation. MSPs should welcome this to aide their clients in business transformation. o CYBER PATROL 58 CHANNEL V ISION | January - February, 2021