Shadow AI Is Now Your Problem: Why Doubling Sensitive Data Uploads Should Keep MSPs Up at Night
There has been a 93% year-over-year increase in employees transferring enterprise data to AI tools. — Zscaler 2026 AI Threat Report Managed service providers are quietly inheriting a new kind of data‑loss problem: clients’ employees are shoveling sensitive data into AI tools at a rate that has doubled in the last year, with the average […]
Stop Selling Cybersecurity and Compliance With Negative Social Proof
Most MSPs are accidentally talking prospects out of buying cybersecurity and compliance. By leaning on “shock” statistics about how few businesses take security seriously, they normalize doing nothing instead of making action feel urgent and expected. Stop selling security like a bad cheeseburger Imagine trying to sell a burger by saying, “Did you know 80% […]
MSPs Are Under Direct Attack: Hardening RMM, IAM, and Your Own House First
For attackers, compromising a managed service provider is one of the highest-leverage plays in cybersecurity. NSA and CISA warn that malicious actors are known to target MSPs because MSPs often hold privileged access into customer environments, giving an attacker a trusted path to pivot into multiple downstream tenants and making those actions harder to detect […]
AI Is Finally Real Money for MSPs: Turning Hype into Billable Outcomes
The MSP conversation around AI has changed. In 2026, AI is no longer a novelty for demos, webinars, and investor decks; it is becoming a margin story, a service-delivery story, and a client-retention story. Recent MSP market analysis tied to Omdia’s 2026 outlook points to slower overall growth, more intense competition, and rising expectations around […]
Vendor Risk, Fake Automation, and the Green Check Trap
A vendor questionnaire is not vendor risk management. It’s a starting point. Sometimes a useful one. But if your process ends with a filled-out form and a SOC report in a folder, you’re not managing risk — you’re documenting optimism. In this Get NIST-y, Jared and Mike use the Mythos supply chain mess to highlight […]
AI is Useful. AI Slop Is Not.
AI is everywhere right now — and if you’re running an MSP, you’re feeling it from every direction. Your PSA has AI. Your RMM has AI. Your documentation platform has AI. Your quoting tool probably has AI. At this point, we’re all just waiting for the coffee maker to start summarizing tickets. But here’s the […]
Blacksmith Wins 2026 Q1 Category Leader Award!
Blacksmith just earned another BetterTracker (Channel Program) Category Leader badge for 2026 Q1 — our latest quarter ranked among the top‑rated vendors in the IT channel across more than 80 technology categories. Blacksmith’s 2026 Q1 Category Win For 2026 Q1, Blacksmith was recognized as a Category Leader in Compliance. That means MSPs and IT providers […]
Higher‑Level Advisory Services Your MSP Should Be Monetizing
Most MSPs still sell themselves as “outsourced IT” or “24/7 support.” That message is increasingly out of step with what growth‑minded organizations actually want: a strategic partner who can turn technology into a lever for revenue, risk reduction, and scale. The good news is you’re already doing pieces of that work — you’re just not […]
Data as a Service: How MSPs Turn Noisy Logs into Business Insights
Small and mid‑sized businesses have more data than ever, but very little of it actually informs day‑to‑day decisions. Business intelligence (BI) platforms promise dashboards and data‑driven strategy, yet many SMEs either never deploy them fully, or they struggle with cost, complexity, and a lack of in‑house skills to make the tools pay off. Instead, executives […]
From “We Do Security” to Ransomware-Ready Compliance: How MSPs Turn Framework Jargon into Revenue and Risk Reduction
Buyers no longer accept “we do security” as an answer. They’re asking how security is implemented, whether it maps to recognizable frameworks, and if it is robust enough to satisfy insurers, auditors, and regulators when ransomware hits. This article walks through how to design a ransomware-ready stack that you can both operate and prove — […]