Partners react to ESET World 2024: MDR, shrinking cyber teams and AI for threat actors and end-users
At the cyber vendor's Bratislava conference, CRN sat down with two UK partners to get their take on the latest cyber trends
Channel partners gathered this week at ESET World in Bratislava to talk shop and – more importantly – margin – and get the inside track on some of the vendor's recent announcements.
Key topics across the three-day summit included presentations on rising trends in threat intelligence, MDR, the impact of deepfakes and AI generated ransomware and, not least of all, the company's own AI advisor tool, which translates data across risk identification, analysis, and response capabilities into easily digestible insights.
The vendor is, unsurprisingly, looking to its channel partners to bring all of these developments to market, as they move towards subscription or services models.
Technical speakers from ESET positioned MDR as a first line of defence against cyber-crime, and highlighted rising threats including deepfakes, state and non-state threat actors and a growing proliferation of ransomware enabled by cyber-criminals' use of AI.
Cyber insurance was given centre stage as a driving force pushing end user firms to review their existing cyber posture and arm themselves with comprehensive security solutions.
But what did the partners actually have to say? CRN sat down with two of ESET's UK partners to get their take.
Find out what partners Millgate and Grey Matter had to say on the next page...
Partners react to ESET World 2024: MDR, shrinking cyber teams and AI for threat actors and end-users
At the cyber vendor's Bratislava conference, CRN sat down with two UK partners to get their take on the latest cyber trends
John-Paul Williams, sales and marketing director at Millgate
CRN: What do you make of all the conversations around the potential of AI for MSPs at the conference? Are you seeing the impact at Millgate?
JPW: "We've just restructured our focus areas, with security at the forefront. Then we have enterprise solutions and cloud, all wrapped around our professional services.
"But AI is fast becoming probably one of the most common conversations we have.
"It feels where security was a few years ago, and one of the most common questions we get is how do we incorporate it within our business? Can we incorporate it? Is it just a buzzword? Is it something that's actually going to streamline and improve services within our organisation?
"Some businesses may have an IT manager who's banging the drum saying, I need Copilot, for example or I want to incorporate ChatGPT? And for some customers it's just, what can we do with this technology?
"We take a holistic view and kind of say: ‘Well, look, what are your problems right now? How can we come in and solve that? Can we use AI as part of that? Can we also make sure that you're secure at the same time?'"
CRN: What was your biggest takeaway from the conference?
JPW: "For me, it was the point raised around cyber insurance and how partners can work with the demands it raises.
"Cyber insurance will bring proactive defence to the forefront of every conversation we have and is likely to become the defining trend in cybersecurity in the near future.
"Managed detection will be a first line of defence that and the ESET platform offers that. The case now is not whether you're going to get attacked, but when. And the customers need to realise that very, very quickly."
CRN: Millgate has gone through a significant amount of change over recent years. Nine months into your role, what are your key priorities at the moment?
JPW: "I've come in and had to build a new business strategy for the organisation. Now, the job is to really build out the brand. And I don't just mean to our competitors
"I think it's actually about being recognised for our expertise. Ten years ago, Millgate's brand was selling laptops. We did that really well. But the MSP model is really a natural extension of our business.
"For me that means being the partner of choice, for resale but also for our vendors, like ESET. That's what I'm trying to build at the moment.
"Coming in last year, my first priority was to rebuild the marketing team and vendor partnerships. And that's been critical to our growth over the past year. We delivered £35m in revenue last year and we're forecasting further growth this year."
Partners react to ESET World 2024: MDR, shrinking cyber teams and AI for threat actors and end-users
At the cyber vendor's Bratislava conference, CRN sat down with two UK partners to get their take on the latest cyber trends
Scott Harrison, cybersecurity solutions expert at Grey Matter
CRN: One of the key themes throughout the conference was partners' collective move towards managed services models with an emphasis on recurring revenue. Is this something Grey Matter is exploring and how does the relationship with ESET play into that?
SH: "At the moment, we're sticking with a traditional one-year, two-year, three-year subscription model, but the MSP model something we may explore in the future.
"But I think in terms of the managed service piece, where we've had some success, especially early this year, is we closed a managed detection deal for a big insurance company in the UK. That's where we're focusing.
"For me last year, that was my biggest point - getting that message out to customers that if you're of a certain size, and you're in a certain vertical, if you work with government, if you're in the finance sector, education, etc, a managed SOC service should be a consideration for you.
"ESET were hugely helpful to us on that front, helping us to organise a webinar on the topic with their experts, focusing on the interaction between automation and human insight to stay ahead of security threats.
"So whilst we're not really going into the MSP piece ourselves, we are engaging quite frequently on the managed detection piece, as well as some of the deployment services that ESET offer."
CRN: Where are you directing MDF funding this year?
SH: "This year, we wanted to do a lot more in person events. Last year, we did a good two or three webinars with ESET. But this year, we've really said, 'let's get a face to face customers, because that, for us is still the best way.'
"And I think, obviously, around COVID that dropped off quite a lot – we're used to being face to face, so we're excited to use this partnership to enable that.
"So we've already run an event in London this year and we've got an event with them in July, in Bournemouth that we're customers along to. This is really leveraging the incentives that they've created for us this year, which again, is helping us drive that managed services piece.
"We've come up with a few different ideas, but the key is that we don't just want to do a burst of activity and then drop off. Instead, we want to run events throughout the full year to keep driving business growth.
"And ESET have really been that partner to sit down with us and be open and flexible around these events."
CRN: Arguably the biggest talking points at the conference have been around MDR and AI. How have these tech trends enabled client conversations for Grey Matter?
SH: "On the AI front, Microsoft Copilot's early release programme was big for us. Because we obviously work with a lot of ISVs, the GitHub coding piece drove a lot of interest. Additionally, the data piece with Power BI, data warehousing, data translation. And again, as soon as Copilot got launched, the immediate question was ‘How do I get it? I want it now.'
"In terms of MDR, we like to go in and offer a solution to a customer, after listening to what their concerns are. We're not there to try and replace everything that they've got with a single solution but rather, fill in the gaps.
"After listening to their problems and the resource that they have, then we'll usually offer ESET Protect Complete or Protect Advanced – the former is one that tends to get more traction because it sits around the 365 piece
"But more and more we are hearing people say ‘Well, it's just me.' Even as business size increases, often times for a 250 seat business, we'll hear that there's one or two people looking after cyber.
"That's where the MDR conversation is invaluable because of these tightening budgets."