2.1: Tapping into the Cybersecurity Gold Rush for Success

“This is a big opportunity for the MSP community, and we are here to support them”

Whether you’re an MSP or a small tech start-up, one truth remains certain – cybersecurity is the key to establishing a digital fortress around your business.

Hear from cybersecurity expert Dor Eisner on how the cybersecurity industry has evolved over the past two decades, what the future of the space looks like, and of course – why and how MSPs must take advantage of the growing market.

Who’s on this episode

Host: Jillian Ho-Lung
Guest: Dor Eisner, CEO and Co-Founder, Guardz

Dor is a cybersecurity expert with over 20 years of experience in the field and a passionate entrepreneur relentless in his pursuit of creating a safer digital world. By empowering MSPs to secure and insure their small business clients, Dor continues to spearhead innovative solutions and shape the future of cybersecurity.

Episode transcript

Jillian: I’m Jillian Ho-Lung, and welcome to the Season 2 premiere of Workflow, the podcast about growing a happier, healthier, MSP – more profit, less stress.

What does it mean to “build a safer digital world”? This is one of the many questions we try to answer in this episode. And by “we,” I mean me and my guest Dor Eisner – the CEO and Co-Founder of Guardz, a multilayered and AI-driven cybersecurity platform built specifically to empower MSPs.

As the MSP industry becomes more crowded, more competitive, and more cybersecurity-focused, it’s more important than ever for MSPs to continuously adapt to market trends and prioritize cybersecurity expertise.

Staying ahead in this dynamic landscape requires a commitment to a few key things: ongoing learning, cutting-edge solutions, and of course – a relentless focus on providing top-tier security services to safeguard clients in an increasingly challenging digital environment.

In other words, a commitment to helping build a safer digital world.

Dor Eisner: I’ve been in the cybersecurity industry for the last 22 years. I started in the Islamic Intelligence Force as a commander, you know, way before cybersecurity became a big thing. After that, I mean, I worked for the enterprise market for about a decade in cybersecurity as a hands-on expert. And in the last decade, I moved to the start-up world. I’ve been in three startups in the cybersecurity landscape. A long story short, the last company was acquired by Rapid7 about three years ago and just after the acquisition it was a threat intelligence company called Insights. We developed a dark web monitoring platform to monitor the dark web at scale and to see all the threats coming from the dark web targeting big enterprises.

Jillian: So, when and how did Guardz come to be?

Dor: We took the expertise and the team from the previous venture, and we decided to go in to democratize cybersecurity for the MSP community, with the vision and the mission to enable cybersecurity for any small business by leveraging and empowering the MSP community to support and get better cybersecurity for the clients.

Jillian: As someone who has been in the space for over two decades, how did the cybersecurity landscape look when you were just starting in the industry?

Dor: In the beginning, it mainly was government and, you know, big, big enterprises that adopted cybersecurity to understand, you know, how cybersecurity is important for the business. And in the last decade, you started to see any mid-market or enterprise customer adopting cybersecurity at scale. And we believe that in the next decade, in this decade, and the few years to come, we will see any small business adopting cybersecurity.

And, this is a great opportunity for the MSP community because, at the end of the day, most of the small businesses are using some kind of MSP service. So, this is a big opportunity for the MSP community and we are here to support them and to empower this community. And you asked about how it was in the beginning. It was mainly like cables and firewalls. And then then, you know, the market evolved. At the end of the day, the evolvement of cybersecurity protection is basically the evolvement of cybersecurity crime.

“Most MSPs understand the opportunity – but are not executing on the opportunity”

Jillian: What do you mean by that?

Dor: You know, crime evolved very quickly in the last decade or so, especially in the last two or three years. We’ve started to see a big trend in the dark web, mainly with cybercrime evolving. We’ve started to see a big trend around attack-as-a-service tools.

In the beginning, like 10 years ago, the dark web existed, but no one saw the attack-as-a-service tools. And it started like about two or three years ago. And now we see it moving very, very fast. You can see thousands of different attack-as-a-service tools being sold on the dark web these days, and this market shift and the dynamics in the dark web are actually creating this crisis in the SMB market and cyber security.

Jillian: Given these market shifts, what do you see as the biggest area of opportunity for MSPs?

Dor: The need for cybersecurity and the need mainly for cyber insurance. And the combination between the security and the insurance. It’s a big, big change in the market, especially in the SMB market. And because SMBs mainly rely on MSP services, we see this opportunity for MSPs to become the trusted advisors of small businesses around cyber insurance and cybersecurity in general and compliance. Huge opportunity. And we believe that this market is going to be very, very, big in the next year to come.

Bottom line: The MSPs that are supporting those businesses will need to transform from just an MSP or IT shop into a security shop. Otherwise, they will lose business.

Jillian: In your opinion, do you think MSPs understand how big of an opportunity this presents for their businesses?

Dor: I think that most MSPs understand the opportunity but are not really executing on the opportunity, or not really executing in the market in the right way. Most of the solutions, most of the cyber solutions for the MSP community, are mainly point solutions like protecting the devices like antivirus or email protection or, awareness training. And there are dozens of point solutions in the market, and the market is highly fragmented. And because of the cost – not just the cost of the tools, the cost of the implementation, the cost of the integration, and the cost of maintenance of all those point solutions – this is a missed opportunity for MSPs right now in securing small business clients.

We are coming with a different approach to the market. We are coming with the approach of: platform. Get everything that you need to secure your clients in a holistic, cost-effective approach in a single pane of glass. And, automated detection and response in a way that, before Guardz, you should hire a team of cyber experts to do it for you. But now you have a platform that we are offering as a subscription. No commitment. You can start with five users. You can scale to 5,000 users in a week. So that’s the beauty of a platform approach. And we believe that because this is the market’s future for cybersecurity, especially for MSPs targeting small businesses.

Jillian: What other trends do you see emerging in the market?

“We decided to democratize cybersecurity for the MSP community”

Dor: So the market is going after cyber insurance. And businesses need to qualify for cyber insurance because the carriers are selling cyber insurance for a few years now. But they lost a lot of money in the last two to three years and they decided to change the game. And now the qualification process is not easy. We are bringing the MSPs into the game by helping them to qualify the business, but also helping them to streamline insurance coverage.

So, from the Guardz platform, once the customer of the MSP is secured by Guardz, we also streamline cyber insurance coverage to these clients [by providing] better coverage, better pricing, saving time and money for the MSP by maintaining all this coverage and qualification processes. And this is one trend that we are seeing in the market evolving very, very quickly in the last year or so.

And the other trend is about compliance. We are not playing in the compliance [space], but we are helping MSPs to secure their clients to become compliant by different regulations. There are other companies that are focusing on the compliance. We are not there, but we are seeing this trend also as part of the market trends that are coming into the SMB industry.

Jillian: Can you talk a little bit about what “building a safer digital world” means to you, and to Guardz?

Dor: Yeah. So, if we think about the future and we think about the SMB market and connect the dots, we are securing the digital economy. We are making sure that businesses are more secure. And that’s that’s part of the mission and the vision of Guardz. And it’s not just a statement. This is what we are doing morning to night, making sure that our clients are secured. We are on guard 24/7 to make sure that the clients of our MSP partners are secured.

Jillian: Speaking of the future, how is the advancement of technologies like AI and ML impacting cybersecurity and specifically, cybersecurity within the MSP landscape?

Dor: So, first of all, those technologies are playing very well for the bad guys. The bad guys are leveraging AI and creating advanced phishing campaigns. The bad guys are leveraging machine learning and creating more sophisticated ransomware attacks. So the bad guys are already leveraging those technologies in the last few years and now it’s just scaling because it’s more accessible for even junior cyber threat attackers. So that’s a market shift that we are seeing in the dark web, many tools coming with AI-automated phishing and stuff.

Obviously for the defenders, for companies like Guardz, it’s helping us to develop faster, to scale faster, and to provide a better security detection response. And we are leveraging a lot of AI in the platform because it’s accessible now and it’s easy to develop with those technologies.

Just to give you an example, we recently launched two new features. One of them, it’s a phishing simulation that is powered by AI. So as an MSP, you can generate a phishing simulation that is tailored to your client’s industry, tone of voice, way of doing business, content type, and everything in between that is generated on the fly and can be shipped into the customer environment to check that the users are aware of phishing. So we are doing phishing simulations in the platform.

And the other thing is a prospecting tool that we launched recently that is leveraging a lot of AI to do external risk and recall, analyzing the digital footprint of the business automatically, and making sure that the business is secured from the outside in.

“We are securing the digital economy”

Jillian: What’s the key to success for small businesses trying to build a cybersecurity fortress around their organization, but doing so with limited resources?

Dor: It’s definitely partnering with the right MSP.

Jillian: And, what advice would you give to these SMBs about what to look for in an MSP when they’re researching which one to partner with?

Dor: Yeah, I think for small businesses, the key point is to understand, first of all, to ask them, what is my external exposure? Show me. what you can tell me about my business from from external perspective. That says a lot about the business and that says a lot about the MSP capabilities in this market.

If the MSP can actually tell you that you have like open ports, SSL certificate DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication Reporting & Conformance) is missing, SPF (Sender Policy Framework) is missing a lot of things that you can just see from the outside in. That’s even before you come into my network and start to do stuff in my network. You can just tell me what is my security posture from the outside in.

And by the way, that’s the reason that we launched this prospecting tool for our MSP community to help them show the value even before they go to the meeting or even before they start trying to work with this client. So that’s what, from the other side, the small business owner should ask his MSP partner. Can you tell me what is my security posture? Can you tell me what is the situation of my business and what is the risk that I am facing? And that’s a good question. You know, to start when you are evaluating a new MSP and when you want to partner with an MSP.

There is a crucial role for the MSP community to leverage the demand or to capitalize on the demands of the small business market and going after small businesses with the right messaging, with the right, you know, value proposition. It’s not about selling the tool. It’s about selling the service. It’s about showing the value that you can bring to the table. It’s not about you, and it’s not about the tools that you have in-house and in your tech stack. It’s about what you can bring to the table, how you can help the customer to be insurable, to be compliant, to sleep good at night, whatever is the challenge of your client. Make sure that you address the challenge and you address what you can bring to the table.

Jillian: Speaking of challenges – do you think communicating the value of their business to prospects and customers is a challenge for MSPs?

Dor: Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that’s the main challenge of the MSP community right now. It’s about showing the value, bringing the value to the table and before even the customer is the client. Just prospect. Show the value. Show what you can do. Show, show how you are going to solve the problems of this client from a few different angles you know. We believe that this is the key selling point and this is also the key value proposition.

“It’s not about selling the tool. It’s about selling the service. It’s about showing the value that you can bring to the table.”

Jillian: Why do you think this is such a pressing and ongoing challenge in the industry today? What sort of market shifts or trends have compounded this issue for so many MSPs?

Dor: If you can think about, you know, like the hotels experience or the entertainment experience like 10 years ago when wanted to go for a vacation. You would ask your travel agent, can you, can you recommend me for a nice hotel? Now, you want to go to 10 different websites, you want to see lots of different pictures before you make the decision. And that’s the same thing, you know, with the way technology’s evolved. As a small business client and they want to see what you can what you can provide me, what is your value proposition, how you can be better than your competitors in the market. And the MSP market is a highly competitive market. And if you want to grow your business, you should know what you are providing.

Jillian: So, as competition within the space continues to intensify, what strategies or tactics do you recommend MSPs pursue to stay in the game?

Dor: I feel like at the end of the day it’s about what the customer needs. Just ask the customer: What are you facing? What are your business challenges? And from that point, you start to discover what you can bring to the table.

And the key point is to understand also the market trends. And the market trend right now is a multilayered approach. Because, if you can just protect one vector, one attack vector, it’s not good enough. Your customer will be at risk if you just put in the best antivirus, even if you go with the best-of-breed antivirus or best-of-breed email protection. That’s not good enough anymore. It was good like three, four, five years ago; it was the best way to go. But now, the market’s changed, and also the bad guys changed the way they are attacking businesses. So MSPs should evolve and should look at protection as a multilayered approach. What do I need to do in order to protect my client from phishing? It’s not just scanning the email. It’s knowing if there is an SPF or DMARC missing. It’s knowing if the employees are aware. It’s creating a continuous phishing simulation. It’s knowing to scan the inbound the outbound traffic, north, east, west. It’s a lot. And if you know if you know what you are doing, that’s great. If you can take a few point solutions and integrate them and build a value proposition, that’s great. But if you want to go the easy route, you can definitely partner with Guardz and we can help you do it at scale.

Jillian: What does the future look like for the cybersecurity industry and what does that mean for MSPs?

“We see this [as an] opportunity for MSPs to become the trusted advisors for small businesses”

Dor: The future is the evolvement of MSPs into the cybersecurity market. It’s booming. It’s definitely booming. And, we believe the right MSPs that think about the future and think about growing their business is the right way to go. And tied with this offering with cyber insurance I think that’s the that’s the key value proposition.

Jillian: That was Dor Eisner, cybersecurity expert and CEO and Co-Founder of Guardz, the ultimate cybersecurity and insurance platform built for MSPs.

I’ll include a link to Guardz, as well as Dor’s contact info and a full transcript of today’s show in the show notes at syncromsp.com/podcast/201 for season 2, episode 1.

If you liked this episode, tell an MSP friend about the show! The more the merrier.

Until next time, this is Jillian Ho-Lung. Thanks for listening.

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