Tiffany Ricks, CEO of cybersecurity training vendor HacWare, needed a phishing simulation product for her consultancy business, so she created one herself.

Brooklyn, New York-based HacWare was founded in 2019 as Ricks owned a consultancy business in Dallas which focused on helping companies understand how hackers break into their systems.

“I decided that we needed a product that could send phishing simulations and try to see if those users are going to fall for them, and then train them,” she told CRN. “This is what I needed in my consultancy, a way to automate that.”

She then realized that MSPs needed that same product she saw a need for, so she created it herself.

“And then that creates awareness,” she said.

Since launching in 2019, HacWare is now used by MSPs in seven different countries “to educate their users on phishing and other cybersecurity topics.”

“It automates the phishing simulation process and it uses real phishing data to test the users on how cybercriminals are attacking them today,” she said. “Then it automatically trains them on what they potentially did wrong and also help them meet other compliance endeavors that the clients may have.”

Most recently, HacWare partnered with Involta Partners, a Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based data center, hybrid IT and cloud-forward consulting firm, and on CRN’s 2022 MSP 500 list, to expand cybersecurity awareness.

“We‘re in the channel, we’re focused on growing and scaling,” she said. “We‘re moving fast. We have to wear multiple hats. But the key thing to remember here is all businesses now are technology businesses. All businesses are vulnerable to phishing and other types of attacks. It’s super important to make sure that you‘re thinking about security training as a part of working and trying to protect the businesses that you support.”

CRN spoke with Ricks about the partnership and how HacWare is expanding its awareness on phishing attacks to help the MSP community. Click through the slideshow to see what she had to say.