Bitdefender’s award-winning detection and prevention engines, already trusted by more than 20,000 MSPs, now pair with MDR services using our 24x7 security operation in San Antonio, Texas staffed by experts to hunt, identify and neutralize adversaries to protect new and existing MSP partners and their customers. The offering comes amid a sustained increase in highly sophisticated attacks, partly brought on by the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic and the rapid switch to work-from-home regimes for many customers of MSPs. Many of the attacks target MSPs as an efficient means to compromise a large base of managed businesses and organizations. In a June, 2020 security alert, the US Secret Service warned of an increase in the number of bad actors breaching MSPs networks’ to access and gain control over the internal infrastructures of their customers. In many cases, the attackers identify and exploit remote management applications or RDP vulnerabilities to successfully compromise MSPs and pivot to their client's systems. The Coronavirus pandemic has also provided an opportunity for threat actors to exploit fear and misinformation about Covid-19 to craft spearphishing emails that trick users into clicking or opening tainted attachments that potentially allow attackers to plant threats and compromise employee devices. “As the threat landscape has become so complex and the number of attack vectors has grown significantly in hybrid work-from-home and work-from-office environments, IT managed services providers are telling us they need to partner with experts to manage and deliver security to meet their customers’ expectations and properly protect them 24/7,” said Alina Draganescu, Senior Director, Security for Managed Service Providers, at Bitdefender. In fact, a Bitdefender survey of MSP organizations revealed that 52% of them seek to expand their security portfolio with EDR capabilities, while 23% aim to add MDR services to serve their customers. However, “deploying disparate endpoint, network, and cloud security solutions or tools from different vendors increases complexity and drives a high number of alerts which is not manageable anymore,” added Jarret Raim, Senior Director, Managed Services, at Bitdefender. “Moreover, many IT service providers lack experienced analysts and 24x7 capabilities to investigate alerts and respond to incidents. However, they are fully responsible for keeping all their small and mid-sized customers secure."