Inside The Cybercrime Conglomerate: Sophos’ Call To Action For MSPs

Sophos is sounding the alarm on a new era of cybercrime, one that resembles organized business operations more than lone hackers. Speaking to a channel audience, Scott Barlow, chief evangelist and global head of community at Sophos, outlined the growing complexity of threats and the urgent need for managed service providers (MSPs) to consolidate and modernize their cybersecurity strategies.

Barlow emphasized the scale of the challenge: “Adversaries, they’re not breaking into your organization 56 percent of attacks are a result of adversaries actually logging in.” He pointed to compromised credentials, unpatched systems and malicious emails as the top entry points for attackers.

The rise of cybercrime alliances like DragonForce, Qilin and LockBit marks a shift in the threat landscape. “We are fighting that business model,” Barlow said, referencing Qilin’s legal support for ransomware actors and the strategic partnerships forming among threat groups.

MSPs are also facing internal pressure. “The top causes of burnout [are] the constantly evolving threats, high alert volume, regulatory pressure changes,” Barlow noted. Sophos is positioning AI and its counter threat intelligence unit as key tools to combat alert fatigue and improve visibility across the attack surface.

Barlow urged MSPs to consider consolidation, citing a 48 percent reduction in operational costs when switching to a single vendor. Sophos’ portfolio includes endpoint, XDR, MDR, firewall, identity and cloud services, all integrated into a unified data lake.

Learn more: https://www.sophos.com/en-us/partners/msp