Organisations are too trusting of Managed Service Providers, according to new research. Just four-in-ten believe they need to make sure Managed Service Providers are certified in providing cyber security essentials, while one-third agreed personnel of providers should undergo security checks before taking on such work.

Managed services is the practice of outsourcing the responsibility for maintaining, and anticipating need for, a range of processes and functions, ostensibly for the purpose of improved operations and reduced budgetary expenditures through the reduction of directly-employed staff. To that end, Managed Service Providers (MSPs) can help business stay flexible when it comes to resources, and can accommodate swift changes which an in-house team might not be able to respond to efficiently.

But as with any outsourcing practice, MSPs also come with a host of risks, which have been exacerbated by the pandemic. As the Covid-19 outbreak opened even more avenues for fraudsters to commit financial crimes, 64% of UK companies admitted they had experienced fraud or economic crime since 2020 – and when pointing to external sources of such incidents, 20% said they had been hit by outsourced suppliers, such as MSPs

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