The Security Challenge MSPs Can’t Solve with More Tools

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This MSP Mastered® sponsored article, brought to you by Kaseya, examines how MSPs can build security that withstands human error.

For MSPs, keeping clients secure means handling a growing volume of threats without letting security demands overwhelm the team. That becomes harder when technicians protect dozens of clients, each with different users, environments and levels of security awareness.

Resources are tight on both sides. The 2026 Kaseya Cybersecurity Report: Building Security That Survives Human Error found that nearly two-thirds of MSP clients are underinvested in cybersecurity. On the MSP side, the skills that matter most right now, security automation and AI expertise, are the hardest to find and keep.

Growing security demands, underinvested clients and limited specialist skills make it difficult to scale security by simply asking technicians to take on more.

The trap MSPs fall into

The controls MSPs put in place to protect clients also create more work. Every security layer, from MFA and privileged access management to email security, needs to be configured, monitored and maintained. As environments become more complex, so does the workload required to manage them.

That burden forces trade-offs. About 30% of respondents say they most often sacrifice IT budget to maintain security, while more than a quarter point to deprioritizing end-user experience. Technicians also spend more time managing routine security work, leaving less capacity for proactive work that can reduce risk over time.

This creates a difficult cycle. Teams work harder to manage increasingly complex environments, yet the additional workload leaves less time to get ahead of emerging threats.

Human error is the biggest threat

Technology gives MSPs controls they can manage systematically. They can deploy security tools, apply patches, monitor endpoints and automate routine checks. Human behavior is harder to control. A user can still click a convincing phishing email, reuse a weak password or follow a request that appears legitimate.

Nearly 68% of respondents identify human error as a threat vector they are most concerned about. Phishing, business email compromise, malware and ransomware also rank among the top threats their clients have faced.

Our respondent pool includes more than 1,100 MSP and IT professionals, with MSPs making up 55% of respondents.

The problem becomes clearer after an attack. Among respondents who experienced a cyberattack, four of the five leading contributing factors involved people or their security practices. Poor user practices or user error ranked first at 41%, followed by lack of end-user cybersecurity training at 40%. Weak password or access management accounted for another 18%.

That makes human-driven risk difficult for MSPs to manage. They can put controls around the technology, but they cannot guarantee how people will interact with it. When a user’s mistake triggers an incident, the investigation and recovery work still lands on the team.

What alters the outcome

The organizations that recover quickly tend to have more than good security controls. Among respondents who recovered from a cyberattack within two hours, 35% cited a well-trained internal IT and security team as a key factor, while integrated security and IT management tools ranked second. That points to a practical approach for MSPs: give skilled people systems that reduce the work around them.

• Assume people will make mistakes. Training matters, but it cannot prevent every bad click or weak password. Layer MFA, least privilege access, email security and endpoint protection so one mistake has fewer opportunities to become a major incident.
• Connect IT and security. When management and security tools work together, technicians can see more of what is happening across a client environment without switching between systems. Shared context also gives automation and AI more information to work with, helping connect related alerts and prioritize what needs attention.
• Automate the routine. Monitoring alerts, routing tickets, patching known vulnerabilities and running backup checks can follow defined rules. Automating this work gives technicians more time for investigations and decisions that require human judgment.
• Use AI where volume becomes the problem. Alert triage is a clear example. About 44% of respondents already use AI for threat detection and monitoring. AI can filter large volumes of alerts, identify patterns and surface issues that need attention. It can also help summarize incidents and correlate activity across systems.
• Build recovery into the plan. Ransomware now appears in 48% of breaches according to the Verizon 2026 Data Breach Investigations Report, although ransom payments continue to decline. Tested backups, documented response plans and automated remediation can help contain an attack and speed recovery when prevention fails.
• Make risk visible to clients. IBM’s 2026 Cost of a Data Breach Report puts the average cost of a breach at nearly $5 million, up 12% from last year. Security investment becomes easier to discuss when clients can see the business impact. Connect vulnerabilities to consequences such as downtime and recovery costs.

Build security that can take a hit

The goal isn’t a perfect security environment. It is one that can withstand the inevitable mistake or missed signal without turning it into a major incident.

For MSPs, that means building layers around human behavior, automating repeatable work and connecting IT and security so technicians have the context to act quickly. AI can extend that capacity by helping teams handle volume and identify what deserves attention.

That is what security resilience looks like in practice: prevent what you can, contain what gets through and recover quickly when something goes wrong.

The 2026 Kaseya Cybersecurity Report: Building Security That Survives Human Error explores the data behind these challenges and the steps MSPs can take to build security that holds up under pressure.