When businesses think about cyber security, they usually think about their own systems: their email, their files, their staff. But for any organisation that outsources IT to a managed service provider, there’s another layer worth understanding, because your MSP’s own security posture is effectively an extension of yours.
MSPs hold the keys to a lot of doors at once. Remote monitoring and management (RMM) tools, the software that lets an IT provider patch, monitor, and remotely access client systems, are incredibly efficient when used properly. But that same efficiency is exactly what makes them an attractive target. A single compromised RMM credential can potentially give an attacker a path into dozens of client environments in one go, rather than just one.
Why attackers have taken notice
It’s a simple numbers game from an attacker’s perspective. Breaching one business gets you one business. Breaching the IT provider behind fifty businesses gets you fifty. As managed services have grown across every industry, from healthcare to legal to retail, that concentration of access has made MSPs a genuine strategic target rather than just another business on a phishing list.
Cyber insurers and regulators have taken notice too. It’s increasingly common for insurance policies and client contracts to ask specific questions about a provider’s own internal security, not just what they deploy for their clients. Multi factor authentication on administrative access, least privilege principles, logging and monitoring of RMM sessions, and a documented incident response plan are no longer nice to haves, they’re baseline expectations.
What good MSP security actually looks like
- Multi factor authentication enforced on every administrative and remote access tool, with no exceptions for convenience
- Least privilege access, technicians only have the level of access required for their role, not blanket admin rights across every client
- Session logging and alerting on RMM and remote access tools, so unusual activity is caught quickly rather than discovered after the fact
- Regular patching and hardening of the MSP’s own internal systems, not just client environments
- A documented, tested incident response plan that covers what happens if the MSP itself is compromised, not just individual client incidents
What to ask your IT provider
If you outsource your IT, it’s a reasonable question to ask your provider directly: how is your own access to our systems secured? A provider that can answer clearly and specifically, rather than with a general reassurance, is one that’s actually thought it through.
At Pure Logic, this isn’t an afterthought. Our own administrative access is protected with multi factor authentication, access is scoped to what’s needed for each engagement, and our systems are monitored the same way we monitor yours. Your security is only as strong as the weakest link in the chain that supports it, and we treat our own link in that chain as seriously as we treat yours.
