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As organizations struggle to implement cyberdefense capabilities, managed services providers are answering calls for assistance. Demand for trusted advisors with the resources and knowhow to run cybersecurity operations is expanding, according to a recent Sophos report.
The cybersecurity company commissioned Vanson Bourne to survey 800 MSPs in April and found that most providers — 84% — expect demand for CISO-centered services to increase over the next year. Nearly half of MSP customers already rely on a partner to act as a de-facto CISO, Sophos found.
Organizations turn to IT service providers for readiness assessments, systems integrations and cost-benefit analyses, Rob Harrison, SVP of product management at Sophos, told Channel Dive. Businesses, particularly in the midmarket, need partners who can provide strategic guidance as well as technology upgrades.
“MSPs are expected more and more to be the primary point of contact for security,” Harrison said. “Customers look to their MSP to be their CISO or security leader — that’s who they go to first for security expertise.”
While a shift to managed security services isn’t a new development, it’s become more entrenched. Hackers are using large language model capabilities to ramp up the speed and scope of attacks faster than most organizations can deploy AI-assisted defensive measures. Talent remains scarce amid low unemployment for IT professionals.
“In the last two years we started to see this CISO shortage as a fundamental market issue. It’s not a Sophos problem; it’s a cybersecurity problem globally,” Harrison said, referencing data indicating the tiny percentage of organizations with a CISO. “A lot of this is converging on the MSP because there’s a shortage of security leadership expertise, and there’s a cost associated with that expertise.”
Globally, more than 90% of $27.5 billion in cybersecurity went through the channel in the second quarter of 2026, according to a September market analysis by Omdia, a Channel Dive sister company. While the channel’s share of the cybersecurity market remained relatively stable year over year, the size of the market grew almost 15% in Q2 and is on track to surpass $300 billion this year, Omdia Chief Analyst Matthew Ball said in a LinkedIn post.
Sophos armed its partners with tools to capture a share of that spending through a platform upgrade in July. The company integrated agentic AI capabilities that came with its February acquisition of Arco Cyber into the Sophos Fusion cyber defense platform that rolled out in July.
Earlier this month, the UK-based company launched CISO Advantage in Europe and North America. The Sophos Fusion add-on uses AI to assess cybersecurity vulnerabilities, provide risk reduction planning and measure progress in mitigation efforts. The aim is to give MSPs the data they need to link compliance frameworks with business outcomes that justify investments in defensive capabilities.
The MSPs surveyed by Vanson Bourne said compliance and regulatory concerns drive roughly half and one-third half of customer cybersecurity purchasing decisions respectively.
Sophos is now engaging with its partners to help get them up to speed, according to Harrison.
“You can have the best tools and technology, but you also have to think about enabling your partners to use it efficiently and helping them have productive discussions with their customers,” Harrison said. “We’re building CISO advisory groups. We’re putting in regional field product managers to work MSPs and we’re listening to partner feedback as this evolves because it’s going to evolve a lot.”
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