Monday Morning Impact – October 17

CompTIA: Organizations Need New Approaches to Cybersecurity

Fortifying cybersecurity defenses remains a work in progress for many organizations, many of whom acknowledge their shortcomings but have yet to commit the necessary resources to the effort, according to new research from CompTIA, a non-profit trade association based in suburban Chicago.

While a majority of respondents feel that their company’s cybersecurity is satisfactory, CompTIA’s “State of Cybersecurity” shows that a much smaller number rank the situation as “completely satisfactory.”

“Companies are aware of the threats they face and the potential consequences of an attack or breach,” said Seth Robinson, vice president, industry research, CompTIA. “But they may be underestimating their exposure and how much they need to invest in cybersecurity. Risk mitigation is the key, the filter through which everything should be viewed.”

Two of the top three issues driving cybersecurity considerations are the growing volume of cybercriminals, cited by 48% of respondents, and the growing variety of cyberattacks (45%). Additionally, ransomware and phishing have quickly become major areas of concern as digital operations have increased and human error has proven more costly.

“Digital transformation driven by cloud and mobile adoption requires a new strategic approach to cybersecurity, but this poses significant challenges, both tactically and financially,” Robinson said. “As IT operations and strategy have grown more complex, so has the management of cybersecurity.”

As cybersecurity is more tightly integrated with business objectives, Zero Trust policies are seen as a viable option, though its adoption will not take place overnight because it requires a drastically different way of thinking and acting. The report suggests there is small progress in recognizing a holistic Zero Trust approach. Multifactor authentication is in place at 46% of companies and cloud workload governance at 41%. Other key security changes include a higher priority on incident response, a more diverse set of technology tools, an increased focus on process improvements, and expanded employee education.

CompTIA’s “State of Cybersecurity” report is based on a Q3 2022 survey of technology and business professionals involved in cybersecurity. There were 500 respondents from the U.S. and 125 from each of six other regions around the world.

Channel Impact^®
The report demonstrates the need for improvement; an area in which channel partners can add measurable value.

IBM Unveils Training Initiative

IBM has announced a revamped approach to partner training that is intended to level the playing field by giving all registered PartnerWorld members access to the same training and enablement as IBM’s own people. The courses are offered to partners at no charge, and is supported by a platform intended to serve as a one-stop shop for learning and credentialing.

The training closely aligns to product offerings that partners use to deliver hybrid cloud and AI solutions for clients, within data and AI, automation, security, sustainability, and infrastructure. New sales and technical badges demonstrate a partner’s industry-recognized expertise, including the ability to position and differentiate an IBM solution to clients. The badges are also shareable on professional social platforms such as LinkedIn, and they travel with the learner.

Additional resources include guidance that enables partners to run their own successful demos for clients, including verbatim scripts that highlight benefits of the offerings; templates on how to position the offering and differentiate against competitors; assets for client meetings that highlight key benefits and advantages of IBM’s offerings; and a wide variety of white papers, analyst reports, decks, and solutions briefs.

When new content is made available, it is promised to be accessible to IBM personnel and partners at the same time, to help improve collaboration.

Partners can access the training and enablement materials through a new learning hub designed to enhance simplicity and ease-of-use.

In addition, IBM announced that, over the past year, it has increased technical partner sellers by more than 35%, and has made strides in its deal registration and leads program.

Channel Impact^®
The improvements are designed to capitalize on partner feedback suggesting that increased training has a direct correlation on improved sales numbers.

Grip Security Launches Partner Program

Grip Security, a Boston-based cybersecurity company, has rolled out a new channel program designed to attract partners who specialize in mitigating SaaS risks. Benefits include a free SaaS security assessment, end-to-end support, sales and sales engineer training, co-branded sales materials, discounts, and jointly funded programs.

“Grip Security’s product is ideal for the channel as it solves a problem that nearly every company has and is easy to sell, install and support,” said Sales VP Drew Ganther. “Our program is designed to provide partners with a product that they can sell quickly and demonstrate value to their customers quickly without friction.”

The company differentiates itself against cloud access security brokers, claiming that CASBs are limited by a focus on managed devices only as well as requiring long deployment times, network architecture changes and additional staff to analyze the data and triage alerts.

Grip’s SaaS Security Control Plane is designed to help companies discover, prioritize, secure, and orchestrate compliance and risk management for all SaaS regardless of the device, unifying control points, telemetry, analytics, and operations. The platform leverages existing infrastructure and is designed to simplify SaaS security operations with built-in, out-of-the-box automation.

The company promises 15-minute installation and immediate return on investment, support for more than 20,000 SaaS applications, 5X more SaaS application discovery compared to CASBs, an 80% reduction in analyst workload, an automated employee SaaS off-boarding and access control, and a large SaaS risk database to prioritize and remediate risk.

Channel Impact^®
The new program provides incentives and support to accelerate partner sales traction and realize success in SaaS security.