Learn about Kaseya 365, a revolutionary new cybersecurity and IT management subscription service for MSPs that is changing the unit economics of the industry.
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Kaseya wins Silver in Innovation at the 2021 Cybersecurity Excellence Awards for focus on development, automation & improvement.
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Wishing you and yours a safe, healthy, and joyous holiday season!
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We’re proud to congratulate 2 of our partners, LAN Technologies and Pinnacle Treatment Centers for their big wins at the 2020 Techie Awards!
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A couple weeks ago, I received an email from Matt Solomon, our VP of Business Development, that caused me to stop what I was doing and take a moment to reflect… with a big smile on my face. The email was addressed to ID Agent’s Management Team and simply stated, “As of today, we’ve officially crossed the 2,000-Partner mark!” For some vendors in the channel, this number is comparatively small, but we reached that number in just over two years, as a self-funded startup in a new industry. I think that is pretty amazing! To say I am proud and grateful would be an understatement. We’ve been welcomed into the channel by MSP Partners who value protecting their small and midsized customers’ credentials as much as we do. We’ve used Dark Web ID™ to keep their customers’ data off the Dark Web, and we are so appreciative that each one has trusted our solution. We’re dedicated to helping MSPs grow their businesses and Dark Web ID is a crucial part of that process. As of today, our platform monitors roughly tens of thousands of domains and has reported nearly 10 million compromised records on behalf of our partners! Part of our mission is to extend that protection and revenue-building service we provide beyond North America. We currently have active Partners offering Dark Web monitoring in 22 countries, and we continue to expand that footprint, We’re invested in our Partners’ businesses, and we strive to do all we can to help them succeed. This past year we looked at other ways we can help MSPs to protect their customers, and the logical next step for us was to develop a Security Awareness Training and Anti-Phishing platform. With lots of input from our Partners, we launched BullPhish ID™ and have received excellent reviews from our Partners. With a wide range of phishing templates and training topics, MSPs can help develop employees into the front line of a company’s defense. Speaking of developing new products, we were beyond excited to announce earlier this year that we joined Kaseya. The vision Kaseya has shown in developing their IT Complete platform made them the perfect partner to help us get to the next level. With the backing of the leading provider of IT infrastructure management solutions, we are able to drive bigger and better improvements to our existing products and continue to innovate new security offerings to complement them. The feedback from our MSP Partner community speaks for itself. Every day, I receive emails and messages on LinkedIn raving about our Customer Success team and how they have in some cases literally saved a business, our world-class marketing materials that enable demand generation for MSPs who don’t have a marketing staff, and the educational presentations provided by our Business Development team that expand the value we bring far beyond the products themselves. Those emails make every early morning and late night at work, along with countless hours traveling the globe, totally worth it for me and the ID Agent Team. By the way, our team has grown to more than 50 full-time employees, and we are adding more every week! As we continue to grow, we thank each of you for your loyalty, your insight, and your friendship. Sincerely, ID Agent Awards to Date 1. ASCII 2018: Best Revenue Generator, Charlotte 2. ASCII 2018: Best Revenue Generator, Ann Arbor 3. ASCII 2018: Best Revenue Generator, Toronto 4. ASCII 2018: Best Revenue Generator, Seattle 5. ASCII 2018: Best Partner Involvement, Seattle 6. ASCII 2019: Best Educational Presentation, Orange County 7. ASCII 2019: Best Partner Involvement, Orange County 8. ASCII 2019: Best Partner Involvement, Dallas 9. ASCII 2019: Best Educational Presentation, Bethesda 10. ASCII 2019: Best Partner Involvement, Bethesda 11. ASCII 2019: Best Educational Presentation, Charlotte 12. ASCII 2019: Best Revenue Generator, Denver 13. ASCII 2019: Best Revenue Generator, Toronto 14. ChannelPro SMB Forum 2017: Best New Solution, Newark 15. ChannelPro SMB All-Star Vendor 2018 16. CRN Emerging Vendors 2017 17. CRN NexGen 2017: Best Technology Solution 18. CRN NexGen 2017: Best Tech Talk 19. CRN Emerging Vendors 2018 20. CRN Women in the Channel 2018 21. CRN Xchange 2018: Best Boardroom Execution, Orlando 22. CRN Xchange 2018: Best Xchange Newcomer, Orlando 23. CRN Xchange 2018: Best Boardroom Execution, San Antonio 24. CRN NexGen 2018: Best Technology Solution 25. CRN NexGen 2018: Best Tech Talk 26. CRN NexGen 2018: Best Boardroom Execution 27. CRN Channel Chiefs 2019 28. CRN 100 People You Should Know 2019 29. CRN Security 100 2019 30. CRN Xchange 2019: Best Boardroom Execution, Las Vegas 31. DattoCon 2018: Most Innovative Product 32. DattoCon Barcelona 2018: Best in Show 33. E-Channel News: Best New Solution 2018 34. IOTSSA 2019: Best Security Presentation, Salt Lake City 35. IOTSSA 2019: Best Security Solution, Columbus 36. SMB TechFest: Best Product Q2 2019
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ID Agent will be offering a Pre-Day MSP Security Certification at GlueX! Taught by our very own Senior Threat Analyst, Duncan Miller, those in attendance will learn the fundamentals for offering an effective core security program.
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As I reflect on the last 2 weeks I spent traveling through New Zealand and Australia for a series of MSP roadshows, one word comes to mind. Grateful. ID Agent has been in the channel since May 2017 and we’ve grown from a handful of early adopters to over 2000 active MSP Partners today. We first ventured Down Under last summer. Matt Solomon, our VP of Business Development, brought ID Agent to ANZ and had tons of success growing that market quickly. Since then, our Kiwi and Aussie Partners have really hit the ground running selling Dark Web ID and have become huge advocates and friends of the Team. Our roles in Channel Development are often exhausting, hectic and stressful, but getting to fly across the world and bring this product to a new batch of MSPs makes all the flight delays, early mornings and late nights, and the inevitable jet lag totally worth it! Dark Web ID is a best-in- class solution that provides our Partners the ability to educate and inform their clients when employee credentials have been exposed. This actionable data allows our Partners to become trusted advisors who provide valuable insight into employee behavior, In each of these 5 roadshows with our friends at Datto, I was able to speak to the success stories our Partners share every day and provide educational content they can turn around and present to their prospects. Having the right approach and not just using the data to scare people into buying something is key and we share the “tried and true” messages that have proven to work. In Sydney, Robert Brown even got up on stage with me and shared his own success stories. When I thanked him profusely for the kind words and recommendation, his response was simply, “I just spoke about my experiences. It’s a good product which makes it easy.” This mindset is prevalent throughout New Zealand and Australia, and it really was amazing to see how welcoming, thoughtful and energetic our current (and soon to be) Partners are on that side of the world. Our small but mighty business development team is on the road every week in various cities presenting and meeting with prospects and current Partners. We love what we do – and love getting to meet our Partners on the road. Whether it’s laughing over a cocktail (pr a kangaroo dinner), strategizing how to use Dark Web data to drive new revenue or just exploring a new city, the MSP community has been nothing short of amazing. Once this jet lag subsides, I can’t wait to hop back on a plane and head to the next city! Check out our events page to see when we’re heading your way!
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A security flaw has caused CISA to raise a red flag to alert users to possible trouble. Here’ what you need to know.
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The future of community organizing or the latest flagrant violation of online privacy? That’s the debate currently raging over the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign’s roll-out of its new “BERN” application. The campaign positions it as a new organizing tool that assists volunteers in tracking potential supporters – permitting them to log the name and background of anyone they talk to: from friends and family members to complete strangers on the street. But skeptics argue that the database of personal information could open non-supporters up to harassment. While a sizable proportion of the data the app requests is publicly available for savvy political operatives who know where to look, critics say that having the data neatly compiled — while not giving people a way to opt out of it — presents online and offline safety concerns. So how did this hotly debated application expose private information of up to 150,000,000 American voters? It seems that an error in the app’s source code caused personal voter identification numbers to be exposed for several hours before ultimately being corrected. Visitors to the website could simply use the F12 Developer Tools shortcut to inspect HTML elements, displaying results like this: (personal information redacted to protect user privacy) Defenders of the application note that information like this has long been accessible by campaigns through the use of CRM tools like NGP VAN and others. However, opponents argue that there are some important caveats. Traditionally, campaign staff using the above tools are limited to data about the precincts they work in, data packets are coded, and personnel are monitored – the BERN app contained no such restrictions. Publishing voter files online is illegal in every state – and for good reason. In some states, voter ID numbers are identical to other identifying numbers like those found on Driver’s Licenses or Social Security cards. This is deeply troubling as hackers and criminals could use these legitimate records to make counterfeit IDs and subsequently use them to open bank accounts and commit other types of fraud. Setting aside critical identifiers like Social Security numbers, the exposed information such as a user’s age, residence, gender, zip code and other “banal” data can be cross-referenced with personal records already compromised on the Dark Web. For example, a cybercriminal typically purchases stolen credit card information on the Dark Web for less than $10 per record. To carry out an online purchase, a hacker would have to know your address and ZIP code – and thanks to the BERN leak, this information is already out there. For in-store purchases, a hacker could simply clone your credit card and, in the rare case that a store associate asks for a photo ID, use the Driver’s License number found on BERN to create a convincing and scannable counterfeit ID. (sample Dark Web advertisement for stolen credit card information) So how do you protect yourself from becoming a victim of identity theft? Organizations have proved time and time again that they are unable to ensure complete security of your personal information; therefore, it would benefit private citizens to enroll in an Identity Monitoring service. By enlisting the help of a trusted provider, online users can monitor their credit cards, driver’s license, Social Security number, medical records and even their passwords – and be alerted when they are for sale on the Dark Web, the world’s largest marketplace for stolen information. ID Agent provides a robust suite of services to address the risks faced by MSPs and that of their SMB clients. BullPhish ID™ delivers security awareness training and phishing simulations created specifically to help employees recognize and avoid phishing traps. Dark Web ID™ monitors the dark web for employee and supply chain credential exposure, which most often results from using those credentials on third-party websites. SpotLight ID™ provides comprehensive personal identity protection and restoration services for employees and customers, mitigating risk and providing peace of mind.
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***SPOILER ALERT: this article contains some plot details up to Season 8, episode 2*** The epic struggle of Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen and their fragile coalition of allies against the looming undead army of White Walkers bears a striking resemblance to the growing specter of cyberthreats against small to medium sized businesses in recent years. So how do you make people care about cybersecurity as much as they care about who will reign supreme over Westeros? Simple – frame these threats in the fantastical terms they already understand from Sunday nights watching HBO. Westeros as an SMB Westeros, the fictional continent where much of the show’s action takes place, is an excellent metaphor for your organization’s IT environment. It has a clear perimeter as an island surrounded by water and contains significant assets – food, weapons, livestock, infrastructure and its citizens (just as a business owns personal data, payment information, intellectual property and other sensitive material). While there is some warring between the Lannisters, Starks and other houses, it’s helpful to think of them as various departments within the same organization – jockeying for resources, much as different business units might fight for limited budget. A united Seven Kingdoms allows us to recognize the true existential threat to the security and prosperity of Westeros’s inhabitants – the White Walkers. The most direct cybersecurity parallel to this horde of undead would be a malware botnet. A botnet is a collection of internet-connected devices such as computers, smartphones or IoT devices whose security has been breached and control ceded to a third party (the ice-cold third party being The Night King in this scenario). Much like The Night King is able to raise his victims from the dead to join his ranks, hackers are able to fool unsuspecting users by implanting and executing malware on their devices, oftentimes through advanced phishing attacks, to take control of them. This malware could restrict access to business-critical systems for a ransom and harvest user credentials to grant hackers access to financial resources — two techniques that could potentially bankrupt an SMB. The hacker can also use infected devices to carry out ever larger-scale attacks, such as Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks against your website. As we learned in the latest episode of Game of Thrones, The Night King is seeking to launch a DDoS attack on Westeros and beyond, with the goal of permanently shutting down the living. Another similarity that Game of Thrones superfans will appreciate: neither the White Walkers nor hacking tools were originally conceived with destructive purposes in mind. The White Walkers were originally human-like figures created with magic by the Children of the Forest to protect them from the First Men. They were defense weapons created with good intentions that eventually became so powerful, they threatened all of humanity. Similarly, cyberweapons like StuxNet were originally developed as tools of defense to limit the advances of Iran’s nuclear program, but have since fallen into the hands of third-party criminal groups, who continue to leverage the techniques that made StuxNet possible. Speaking of hacking tools that were previously only available to national governments but are now utilized by criminals, the White Walkers currently have access to more powerful resources than ever before – namely, a terrifying ice-fire-breathing dragon. This parallels the now widespread use of tools like those released by The Shadow Brokers in 2016. The exploit EternalBlue, developed by the NSA in the name of national security and leaked by The Shadow Brokers, was used in the infamous worldwide WannaCry attack that affected over 200,000 computers across 150 countries. Similar to the defense measures that many SMBs implement, Westeros has indeed taken steps to protect itself from the murderous throngs of ice zombies to their north. The most notable example of this would be The Wall. 300 miles long, 700 feet tall and fortified with ancient magic, this rock-solid ice wall could most easily (and ironically) be compared to a Firewall. It’s the first line of defense against intruders, and it takes a Night’s Watch of IT Administrators to maintain it, guard it and analyze for vulnerabilities. As any cybersecurity professional knows, a firewall is a significant defense but can be bypassed by a savvy hacker who knows how to exploit human error, compromised credentials and unpatched applications (or in GoT, by a savvy zombie sociopath with a seemingly unstoppable ice dragon). How to fight back So what can be done to keep your digital kingdom safe? First, you want to make sure your organization’s leadership isn’t like Cersei Lannister – Queen of the Seven Kingdoms who is unwilling to address the existential threat from the North. Much like the wise Maesters of the Citadel, you’ll need to educate decision-makers about the consequences of inaction. For example, 60% of SMBs go bankrupt within the first 6 months following a major cyber incident. Because the vast majority of data breaches are due to human vulnerability and compromised credentials, you’ll want to focus on cybersecurity best practices; these practices are your weapons forged from dragon-glass and Valyrian steel – the only ones proven to be effective against White Walkers. Just as Arya Stark is lethally trained by the Faceless Men, make sure your employees are trained to recognize phishing attempts that may contain malicious files or requests. You’ll also want your very own Three-Eyed Raven. That’s to say, you will want to implement a Dark Web Monitoring service to detect when your users’ credentials are compromised on the Dark Web. Leveraging visibility of your business’s weak spots will give you a *Stark* advantage against hackers (pun very much intended). Be sure to implement strong password phrases and modify them on a regular basis. Lastly, enlist the help of a dragon of your own. Managed Service Providers are a powerful resource for SMBs, armed with knowledge and experience in fighting off cybercriminals. A reputable MSP who focuses on the above techniques like Security Awareness Training and Dark Web Monitoring will be a fiery champion for your digital realm. ID Agent provides a robust suite of services to address the risks faced by MSPs and that of their SMB clients. BullPhish ID™ delivers security awareness training and phishing simulations created specifically to help employees recognize and avoid phishing traps. Dark Web ID™ monitors the dark web for employee and supply chain credential exposure, which most often results from using those credentials on third-party websites. SpotLight ID™ provides comprehensive personal identity protection and restoration services for employees and customers, mitigating risk and providing peace of mind. Send us a raven to schedule a demo today!
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