{"id":26726,"date":"2026-11-02T12:37:16","date_gmt":"2026-11-02T11:37:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/telecomkh.info\/?p=26726"},"modified":"2026-11-02T12:38:32","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T11:38:32","slug":"msps-have-quietly-become-acting-ciso-for-nearly-half-of-their-customers-sophos-research-ffnds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/telecomkh.info\/?p=26726","title":{"rendered":"MSPs have quietly become acting CISO for nearly half of their customers, Sophos research finds"},"content":{"rendered":"

As AI-driven risk accelerates, 84% of MSPs say demand for CISO-level guidance is surging, while simultaneously citing risks to sufficiently scale to meet demand<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sophos, a global cybersecurity leader, released its 2026 MSP Perspectives Report, revealing that managed service providers (MSPs) are playing an increasingly strategic role in helping organizations manage cyber risk. Traditionally responsible for deploying, managing and supporting IT and cybersecurity technologies, MSPs are increasingly being called upon to provide the cybersecurity leadership, governance and risk guidance that many organizations do not have the resources to maintain in-house.
\nOn average, MSPs estimate that nearly half (46%) of their customers currently rely on them to act as their Chief Information Security Officer (CISO). New research suggests this role will continue to expand, with 84% of MSPs expecting demand for CISO services to increase over the next 12 months as organizations seek trusted advisors to help navigate cybersecurity risk, compliance obligations and increasingly complex security environments.
\n\u201cOrganizations require more than technology management to stay secure. They need trusted cybersecurity leaders who can help them understand their risk, navigate compliance requirements and translate security investments into meaningful business outcomes,\u201d said Scott Barlow, vice president and chief evangelist at Sophos. \u201cMSPs are already stepping into this role for nearly half of their customers, creating a significant opportunity to deepen relationships and develop new, higher-value services. The challenge now is delivering that leadership consistently and efficiently across a growing customer base.\u201d
\nThe opportunity to create efficiencies is also vast, with MSPs estimating they would save 53% of their time if they could use a single, unified platform for customer security posture and compliance management and reporting. Additionally, 81% believe it would reduce the time they currently spend on these activities by more than 30%.
\nCompliance is also central to this expanding role. Nearly all MSPs surveyed, 99%, provide at least one cybersecurity compliance service, and 58% currently offer full compliance program management. However, just 6% offer the full range of compliance services evaluated in the research, highlighting a gap between broad participation in compliance and the delivery of a comprehensive service stack.<\/p>\n

Other findings from the MSP Perspectives 2026 Report include:
\n\u2022 Compliance drives security investment:<\/strong> Compliance influences 50% of customer cybersecurity purchasing decisions on average, with 33% heavily or decisively influenced by regulatory demands. This creates an opportunity for MSPs to connect compliance requirements with broader security priorities.
\n\u2022 The shift to continuous compliance is gradual:<\/strong> Only 33% of MSPs are \u201ccompletely confident\u201d in their ability to continuously monitor, manage, and document compliance across multiple customers, highlighting a gap between the certainty customers need from their partners and what MSPs can consistently deliver.
\n\u2022 Tool-based delivery is commonplace, but fragmented:<\/strong> While 36% of MSPs rely on a single tool or platform to centrally manage cybersecurity compliance or CISO-type activities, 53% use multiple tools or platforms, indicating that delivery remains complex, disjointed, and potentially harder to scale.
\n\u2022 Full automation of security reporting has room to grow:<\/strong> While 86% of MSPs use a fully or semi-automated process to produce consolidated security posture reports, 55% still require some manual effort and just 31% can generate reports quickly through a fully automated process.<\/p>\n

\u201cMSPs have an opportunity to become indispensable strategic partners to their customers, but scaling that role requires a more unified operating model,\u201d continued Barlow. \u201cBringing security posture, compliance management and reporting together can help MSPs spend less time manually consolidating information and more time helping customers reduce risk, strengthen resilience and make informed cybersecurity decisions.\u201d
\nSophos CISO Advantage, available beginning October 2026, is designed to help MSPs turn the CISO role many already perform into a structured, scalable and billable cyber program management service. Delivered through Sophos Fusion, the company\u2019s AI-native Cybersecurity Defense System, Sophos CISO Advantage uses agentic AI-accelerated assessment, reporting and roadmap workflows to support board-ready insights, framework-mapped evidence and prioritized action plans across an MSP\u2019s customer base and prioritized action plans across an MSP\u2019s customer base.
\nData for the MSP Perspectives 2026 report comes from an independent, vendor-agnostic survey of 800 MSPs across the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Singapore, Australia and Brazil. Respondents represented senior to board-level MSP stakeholders. The survey was commissioned by Sophos and conducted by Vanson Bourne in April 2026.<\/p>\n

Above, Scott Barlow, vice president and chief evangelist at Sophos<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As AI-driven risk accelerates, 84% of MSPs say demand for CISO-level guidance is surging, while simultaneously citing risks to sufficiently scale to meet demand Sophos, a global cybersecurity leader, released its 2026 MSP Perspectives Report, revealing that managed service providers (MSPs) are playing an increasingly strategic role in helping organizations manage cyber risk. Traditionally responsible … <\/p>\n

Continue reading \u00abMSPs have quietly become acting CISO for nearly half of their customers, Sophos research finds\u00bb<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26727,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[24],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomkh.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26726"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomkh.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomkh.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomkh.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomkh.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26726"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/telecomkh.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26729,"href":"https:\/\/telecomkh.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26726\/revisions\/26729"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomkh.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomkh.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomkh.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomkh.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}