Webinar: Addressing Extended Stay-At-Home Challenges For MSPs
Kraft Technology Group’s Don Baham recently took part in a second webinar with the StratoZen team to talk about challenges facing the MSP community in the long-term with the COVID-19 pandemic.
As the novelty of the pivot to the remote workplace wears off, the challenges facing MSPs in delivering support to their clients have changed.
During the mad rush at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, everyone was worried about the same few problems – getting remote access, getting the right hardware to their employees’ homes, and making sure they can keep working. With that part of the process done, what does the next chapter in the pandemic look like for MSPs?
There are a number of key challenges you need to overcome, which is precisely what SratoZen and Kraft Technology Group discussed on a recent webinar:
“Now what we’re seeing is that things have stabilized. There was a big rush to get people working from home, trying to get the right equipment, have questions answered, start to get into a new routine,” says Don Baham, President, Kraft Technology Group. “Folks are settling in, and embracing the new normal as best they can, and continuing to try to move forward.”
Remote Work During The Pandemic – The New Normal
Now that everyone has had a few weeks to transition to remote work and get used to it, MSPs are seeing user support requests decrease. At the same time, now that the primary concern has been addressed, some clients are returning to projects and nonessential IT tasks that were put on the back burner at the start of the pandemic.
“As people have figured out what their day to day routine looks like, and how to get access to the right systems, those user requests have slowed down,” says Don. “On the other side, we’re starting to have those conversations with clients about small projects, or other initiatives that were put on the shelf for a couple of weeks.”
Given that the high priority work has now been accomplished, it’s important for MSPs to start thinking about the next steps. While they have the opportunity to, what should MSPs be focusing their time on the best assist their clients?
“We keep kind of circling back to and returning to security hygiene,” says Karn Griffin, Chief Technology Officer, StratoZen. “It’s time to look now and check email records, check the firewall for denial of service throttling, and for capacity problems on VPN.”
Cybersecurity management is a top priority for MSPs during the pandemic, as there’s both higher risk for users in the remote workplace and increased activity from cybercriminals:
- VPNs: Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) are more vulnerable to certain attack vectors, such as denial of service attacks.
- Endpoints: Increased network complexity due to additional devices connected from remote settings makes for a more vulnerable network as a whole.
- Phishing: CISA has issued a warning to US businesses about the increase in phishing and other social engineering scams over the past few weeks. CNN is reporting a 500% increase in phishing attacks since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As the pandemic continues, MSPs will have to both maintain their clients’ remote environments, and be ready to adapt to new changes as they occur. Be sure to keep an eye out for future collaborative webinars between Kraft Technology Group and StratoZen to stay up to date on the state of the MSP world.
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