Cybersecurity for SMBs: Threats, Challenges and Opportunities for MSPs

Time to read

7 minutes

Author

Harriet Robbins, Cyber Security Practice Manager at Giacom

Date published

November 2026

Cybersecurity for SMBs remains a major priority as businesses face increasingly sophisticated attacks, from credential theft and phishing to AI-enabled impersonation. For MSPs, there is a growing opportunity to help customers strengthen their defences while making security services easier to manage and deliver.

What are the most prevalent forms of cyber attack/threats?

Identity-based attacks continue to be powerful, not only through impersonation and business email compromise but through hijacked sessions and credential theft. The saying still stands: “Hackers don’t break in, they log in” and we’re making it very easy for them with repeated passwords and MFA not being enabled or enforced. Phishing and social engineering remain common ways of getting those credentials in the first place, while increasingly convincing impersonation and deepfake techniques are making malicious communications harder to spot. The human element is still a major part of the risk, which is why good security awareness needs to sit alongside the technology.

For MSPs themselves, there’s also the added supply-chain risk that compromised credentials or systems can potentially provide a route into multiple customer environments.

What can channel partners and their clients do to address the problem?

Education is everywhere you look and most businesses now understand the importance of security, but it’s time to take that to the next level and raise the baseline of adoption across the country. Getting the basics right is still important, but providers should also be helping customers understand where their biggest risks are and build a clear, achievable security roadmap around them. If they’re not already aligned to a recognised security framework, that can be a useful place to start. MSPs are naturally placed in a strong position to act as a trusted adviser on what good protection looks like. If you can’t give credible security advice, the provider next door can, and you’re potentially jeopardising your own growth by not getting involved.

That also means planning for what happens if something does get through, with a tested incident response and recovery plan rather than relying entirely on prevention.

What are the most effective solutions currently available and what role does AI and automation have to play?

AI is embedded in almost everything now, so the role it plays is increasingly an assumption rather than a USP. Automation is the real key to success for MSPs because you can be much smarter about workflows, reporting and threat detection, reducing human intervention until it’s actually needed.

Managed detection and response is a good example of where this is heading. Vendors are also making these services easier for MSPs to deliver, with onboarding, support and 24/7 managed services increasingly available as part of the proposition. This gives providers access to round-the-clock monitoring and specialist response without having to build and staff their own SOC, while automation can reduce the amount of manual intervention required.

There are plenty of effective security solutions available, but if they’re managed poorly behind the scenes or don’t support wider operational efficiency goals, they’re not doing enough. Providers should look carefully at whether the tools they use can be properly embedded into day-to-day operations rather than continually adding the next shiny new product.

That becomes particularly important for businesses looking at a three-to-five-year plan that may include an eventual sale or exit. Being smart about tool adoption and vendor consolidation can help reduce overheads, improve efficiency and strengthen the bottom line.

Reporting is part of that too. Most security products already generate useful data, and providers can use this to show customers what has been detected, blocked or prevented and build that into their managed service reporting. If security is working well, nothing happens, so being able to evidence your value becomes particularly important when budgets or renewals come around.

What are the main barriers to adoption?

There are barriers on both sides. For the end customer, commercial models need to be simple, predictable and scalable. A straightforward cost per user per month makes security much easier for an SMB to understand and budget for. There’s also the challenge that cybersecurity can be easy to defer because it rarely feels urgent until something goes wrong.

Another major barrier is disruption. Some security platforms are designed to work best as part of a wider vendor ecosystem, which can mean replacing tools that are already in place to unlock new capabilities. SMBs understandably don’t want to start again every time they need to improve one part of their security. We’re increasingly seeing vendors respond by developing solutions that complement existing environments rather than requiring customers to replace everything they already use. Huntress is a good example: we added it to our portfolio earlier this year after hearing growing demand from partners, and one of its strengths is that it can work alongside existing antivirus products and Microsoft Defender

For MSPs, time, skills and operational complexity can be barriers too. Many providers don’t have the resources to manage an ever-growing number of specialist tools, so vendors that simplify deployment, provide strong managed support and integrate with what’s already there make it much easier to build security into a wider managed service.

How will the technology evolve over the next 12 months?

We’ll continue to see new vendors come into the market with a relatively low cost of entry. AI-powered SOCs are already doing much of the heavy lifting around monitoring and triage, while capabilities such as AI-assisted penetration testing will make increasingly sophisticated security services easier to deliver and scale without the same level of overhead. For MSPs, that should make advanced security services easier to adopt and build into their propositions.

The strength will still come from supporting that technology with excellent people. AI and automation can analyse huge volumes of data, identify suspicious behaviour and accelerate response, but there will still be an important role for human expertise and judgement.

The technology may actually move faster than the market over the next 12 months. Vendors are already bringing increasingly sophisticated detection and response capabilities to market, but many SMBs are still some way behind in understanding what they need and why. There’s still an education job to do alongside the technology development if those capabilities are going to translate into wider adoption.

At the same time, the volume of attempted attacks isn’t going to slow down. We’re seeing increasing amounts of telemetry signalling attempts on business networks, and cybercrime remains a lucrative business. Attackers will continue to evolve at the same pace as the vendors working to stop them, so the next 12 months aren’t a reason to wait for the next generation of security tools. They’re a reason to prioritise securing your customer base now.

Strengthening cybersecurity for SMBs

As security threats continue to evolve, MSPs have an important role in helping customers understand their risks and take practical steps to address them. By combining effective technology with clear advice, automation and ongoing support, providers can make cybersecurity more accessible to SMBs while developing stronger managed security services.

For more information, explore Giacom’s Cybersecurity Hub for articles, webinars and practical guidance, discover the cybersecurity solutions available through Giacom, or find out how we can help you build and sell your cybersecurity services.

You can also read about our recent partnership with Huntress.