Monday Morning Impact – March 8

CrowdStrike Global Threat Report Highlights Key Trends in eCrime and Nation-State Activity

CrowdStrike, a Sunnyvale, California-based company specializing in cloud-delivered endpoint and workload protection, has released its 2021 Global Threat Report, detailing the global threat landscape and security best practices to fend off the attacks.

According to the report, eCrime attacks made up 79% of all intrusions. The supply chain has been identified as a major attack vector as it allows malicious actors to propagate multiple downstream targets from a single intrusion. Additionally, the report spotlights how nation-state adversaries infiltrated networks to steal valuable data seeking COVID-19 vaccine research, whereby threat actors have improved strategies to evade detection.

“There is a human being behind every attack, and cyber actors are getting bolder and more astute day-to-day,” said Adam Meyers, senior vice president of intelligence at CrowdStrike. “Additionally, today’s rapidly changing remote work environment highlights that identity protection is central to the defense of any enterprise’s infrastructure. Organizations must take decisive action to control access and protect data in order to outmaneuver adversaries,”

Among other key findings, the healthcare industry will continue to face significant threats from criminal groups as CrowdStrike confirmed 18 Big Game Hunting enterprise ransomware families infected 104 healthcare organizations in 2020.

Adversaries from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) will be motivated to enhance cyber operations in 2021 due to COVID-19 and a resulting food shortage.

Data extortion techniques are expected to continue to accelerate through the introduction of Dedicated Leak Sites (DLS).

China will focus on supply chain compromises and the targeting of key western verticals in support of the 14th Five Year Plan and the COVID-19 vaccine including academic, healthcare, technology, manufacturing and aerospace.

The Global Threat Report analyzes comprehensive threat data from various sources within Crowdstrike.

Channel Impact^®
The findings suggest supply chain attacks, ransomware, data extortion and nation-state threats prove to be more prolific than ever.

Mitel Announces New Managed Services Model

Mitel has launched its new MiCloud Connect Partner Managed model, an expansion of its flagship public cloud solution, which is designed to give certified partners more control over service delivery and management, while enabling them to deepen customer relationships and more easily transition organizations to the cloud.

Unique to the unified communications-as-a-service (UCaaS) market, which typically operates in a traditional retail model, the MiCloud Connect Partner Managed model is intended to help partners monitor customer relationships and further extends their ability to provide professional, value-added services. With higher level access to Mitel’s delivery and service tools and the MiCloud Connect Account Console’s customer management capabilities, the model is expected to help improve marketing, sales, onboarding, and support.

The Partner Managed model additionally offers enhanced commissions and partners can enlist assistance from Mitel when needed.

“Relationships matter. In a transactional and highly digitized world, building long-term, trusting relationships is a key to differentiation and driving business outcomes,” said Scott Peterson, Chief Revenue Officer, Mitel. “The MiCloud Connect Partner Managed offering is designed to help partners further strengthen their customer connections while affording them more opportunities to grow their own businesses, even as they work to help customers modernize and leverage the cloud to communicate and collaborate in new and different ways.”

MiCloud Connect is a cloud communications, collaboration, and contact center service for organizations of all sizes. In addition to the new Partner Managed model, Mitel will continue to offer MiCloud Connect through its Partner Retail model, which also offers robust partner enablement tools.

Channel Impact^®
The new model is intended to provide a seamless, predictable path to the cloud and recurring revenue, regardless of whether the partner is activating new customers or transitioning their existing customer base.

Infoblox Invests in Cloud Specialization to Support SaaS Channels

Infoblox Inc., a Santa Clara, California-based cloud security company, has rolled out a new cloud specialization program to support its offerings in microservices, containerization, and virtualization.

“SaaS is the future of sales at Infoblox and we are thrilled to debut our Cloud Specialization program and further enable our channel partners to market, sell and support our secure SaaS solutions at scale,” says Sandy Janes, Senior Director of Global Partner Programs and Operations at Infoblox. “Rewarding our channel partners throughout the customer lifecycle is a top priority at Infoblox and a key differentiator within our expanded SaaS program.”

As part of the new SaaS designation, up to 30 designated channel partners worldwide will gain access to Infoblox’s team of cloud experts in field sales, business development, customer training and other disciplines. This added benefit is expected to help these channel partners expand their cloud business and achieve greater success through more effectively marketing, selling and supporting SaaS-based solutions. Additional partner benefits will include double-digit sales incentives, exclusive training and education offerings, as well as executive insights and peer-to-peer training.

“Since the shutdown began a year ago, businesses of all sizes are increasingly consuming cloud-managed DDI and security to transform how they work and, in many cases, where they work from,” said Infoblox president and CEO Jesper Andersen.

Infoblox claims more than 9,500 customers, including 350 of the Fortune 500.

Channel Impact^®
The new specialization aligns 2020’s top-performing channel partners with Infoblox Cloud team with the intent of creating a cloud-first, SaaS savvy salesforce.