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Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP) News: 17 June 2021

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Each business day, MSSP Alert broadcasts a quick lineup of news, analysis and chatter from across the managed security services provider ecosystem.

  • The Content: Written for MSSPs, SOC as a Service (SOCaaS), Managed Detection and Response (MDR), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) and MSP security providers — and those who need to partner up with such companies.
  • Frequency and Format: Every business morning. Typically one or two sentences for each item below.
  • Reaching Our Inbox: Send news, tips and rumors to [email protected].

A. Today’s MSSP, MDR and Cybersecurity News Alerts

1. Cyberattack Policy - U.S. vs. Russia: U.S. President Joe Biden told Russian President Vladimir Putin that certain critical infrastructure should be "off-limits" to cyberattacks, but analysts said Biden's efforts were unlikely to be more successful than previous attempts to carve out safe zones online. Source: Reuters, June 16, 2021.

2. MSSP Launch: ADNET Technologies, a Top 250 Public Cloud MSP, has spun out an MSSP business called MachBlue Defense LLC. The new cybersecurity firm will focus on all types of customers -- though the business will be especially focused on customers that "manage highly sensitive data or operate critical infrastructure."

3. MSP - vCISO Services: Navisite, a Top 250 Public Cloud MSP backed by private equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners, has expanded its cybersecurity services to include a Virtual Chief Information Security Officer (vCISO) offering.

4. Funding - Industrial Cybersecurity: Claroty has raised $140 million in a Series D funding, co-led by Bessemer Venture Partners' Century II fund and 40 North. Additional strategic investors include LG and I Squared Capital's ISQ Global InfraTech Fund. All previous investors, including Team8 and Rockwell Automation, Siemens, and Schneider Electric, have also participated. The round brings the company's total funding to $235 million.

5. Funding - Cognitive Trust:  Elisity, a new platform for identity and behavior-based enterprise cybersecurity, has raised $26 million in Series A funding co-led by Two Bear Capital and AllegisCyber Capital.  Previous seed investor Atlantic Bridge also participated in the round.

6. Research - Ransomware Payments Backfire: Fully 80 percent of businesses that chose to pay a ransom demand suffered a second ransomware attack, often at the hands of the same threat actor group, Cybereason research finds.

7. Research - Business Email Compromise (BEC): Microsoft describes a large BEC campaign here.

8. Cybersecurity Training: Coding Dojo has launched an Online Part-Time Cybersecurity Bootcamp.

9. Risk Management and Compliance: Vulcan Cyber's risk remediation platform can now measure risk compliance via IT asset health scores across logical business groupings, the company says.

10. Threat Detection and Response - AWS Cloud: Vectra AI has launched Vectra Detect for AWS. The cloud-native SaaS solution provides "continuous, scalable agentless threat detection, prioritization, investigation, and response to attacks targeting applications running on AWS, as well as users, compute, and storage instances, including the use on AWS of the control plane itself," Vectra AI asserts.

11. Cyber Espionage: Kaspersky has discovered a "long-running cyber espionage campaign against Persian-speaking individuals in Iran." The group behind the malicious activity, dubbed Ferocious Kitten, has been active since at least 2015, using a custom malware called “MarkiRAT” that steals data and can execute commands on a victim’s machine, Kaspersky says.

12. Cyberattack Hits University: The University of Massachusetts Lowell canceled all classes on Tuesday and Wednesday due to a possible cybersecurity incident, NBC reported.

13. Google Security Risks: A U.S. appeals court revived a lawsuit in which shareholders of Google parent Alphabet accused the company of fraudulently concealing security vulnerabilities, including in its Google+ social network. Source: Reuters, June 16, 2021.

B. Cybersecurity Partnerships, Strategic Alliances and Integrations

1. Microsoft Security Specializations: The software and cloud services giant continues to introduce new Microsoft security specializations for partners and customers.

2. Partner Program & Channel Chief - Cloud Email and Collaboration Security: Avanan has launched a Global Channel Partner Program. Michael Lyons, VP of global channels, is driving the effort.

3. Partnership - Vulnerability Management: Qualys and Deepwatch are partnering by integrating Qualys VMDR (Vulnerability Management, Detection and Response), Policy Compliance, and Web Application Scanning (WAS) into Deepwatch's managed security services.

4. Partnership - Secure Access Service Edge (SASE): Comcast Business has embraced Versa Networks for a software defined networking (SDN) platform. The platform helps "midsize and large enterprise customers secure their networks, devices and employees from a variety of cyberthreats," Comcast asserts.

C. MSSP and Cybersecurity Virtual Events and Conference Calendar

  1. ConnectWise IT Nation Secure 2021 (June 21-23, Orlando, Florida)
  2. Black Hat USA (July 31-August 5, Las Vegas)
  3. CCMC Con 2021 (September 29, Virtual Event)
  4. FireEye Cyber Defense Summit (October 4-8, Hybrid – virtual and face to face)
  5. InfoSec World (October 25-27, Orlando, Florida)
  6. BonusMSSP Alert’s complete event calendar
Joe Panettieri

Joe Panettieri is co-founder & editorial director of MSSP Alert and ChannelE2E, the two leading news & analysis sites for managed service providers in the cybersecurity market.