Channel Brief: Worklyn Acquires Harbor Networks

A new business readiness report earlier this month from Kyndryl revealed some very interesting -- if contradictory -- findings: Nearly half of the world’s mission-critical business technology is out-of-date or nearing end-of-life. This means almost half of the world’s essential IT infrastructure is more vulnerable to cyberattacks and at higher risk of prolonged outages, which can disrupt global operations for business. Think banks unable to complete transactions, grounded flights, or hospitals unable to access patient records – and potentially halt revenue coming in the door for hours or even days, Kyndryl found.

And while IT leaders are concerned with the readiness of their IT infrastructure to manage looming risks and disruptions such as regulation, increasing cyberattacks, outages or climate change, they also remain very confident in their technology: A full 90% of executives are confident in IT and believe it is best-in-class, but less than half or 39% don't believe it’s ready for future risk.

Obviously this presents a huge opportunity for MSPs and MSSPs to help bring IT and business technology up-to-date and make sure it's prepared to defend against ever-evolving threats.

Check out more about the report here.

As always, drop me a line at [email protected] if you have news to share or want to say hi!

Grab your coffee. Here's what you need to know today.

Today’s Tech, Channel and MSP News

1. Worklyn acquires Harbor Networks to expand IT, security portfolio: Worklyn Partners has acquired Harbor Networks, a Massachusetts-based technology services provider specializing in managed voice, IT, and cybersecurity solutions, the companies said in a statement. The buy furthers Worklyn's goals of building out its IT managed services and cybersecurity platform. In addition to Harbor Networks, Worklyn’s portfolio includes Colorado-based Noynim IT Solutions, a leading IT consulting and managed services provider; California-based NetXperts, a provider of IT and network engineering services; and Florida-based Quadrant Information Security, a cybersecurity organization specializing in managed detection and response (MDR) services. With these strategic investments, Worklyn has created a cohesive IT service offering to meet business needs. Worklyn also expects to announce additional acquisitions this year, the company said.

2. RELI Group names new president, COO: RELI Group has appointed Vishal Tulsian as the federal solutions provider's president and chief operating officer (COO). Tulsian brings more than 25 years of experience empowering high-performing teams, driving revenue-generating market expansion, and creating frameworks for delivering best-in-class products and services. Tulsian joins RELI Group from SAIC, where he served as the senior vice president and general manager of the state and local, health, and civilian agencies. He also worked at CGI Technologies & Solutions, Inc. for nearly 10 years, beginning his tenure as the director of corporate finance and rising to the VP of global delivery. His career began as the controller and principal of the Public Sector Group at American Management Systems, Inc. Congratulations!

3. Securonix allies with AVANT to deliver security tech, services: Securonix has inked an alliance with technology services distributor AVANT to bring Securonix's SIEM and AI-reinforced cybersecurity solutions to AVANT’s network, the companies said in a statement. Resellers and partners can nowaccess and sell Securonix’s SIEM platform, leveraging Securonix EON, which integrates advanced AI capabilities. This advancement empowers security teams to tackle emerging cyber threats with greater speed, precision, and efficacy, the companies said.

4. Filigran raises $35 million Series B for U.S. expansion: European cybertech firm Filigran announced the completion of its $35M Series B fundraise, led by global software investor Insight Partners, with continued support from existing investors Accel and Moonfire. This new round of funding comes just months after the company’s $16 million Series A, and will fuel the company’s global expansion, particularly in the United States and the Pacific region, while supporting continued product innovation, focusing on AI and data engineering use cases, the company said in a statement. Founded by Samuel Hassine and Julien Richard in 2022, Filigran offers open-source platforms OpenCTI and OpenBAS, tied into a unified eXtended Threat Management (XTM) suite. The XTM suite helps organizations understand threat environments, anticipate and detect incidents, decrease incident response time, stress-test critical infrastructure, and design viable long-term cybersecurity strategies.

5. SonicWall SSL VPNs targeted in Akira, Fog attacks: At least 30 intrusions involving the exploitation of the critical SonicWall SSL VPN access control bug, tracked as CVE-2024-40766, have been conducted by the Akira and Fog ransomware gangs against several industries since August, with the former responsible for 75% of the incidents, reports BleepingComputer. Most of the attacks — which share the same infrastructure, indicating the groups' continued partnership after exploiting a critical Veeam backup flaw — took nearly 10 hours from initial compromise to data encryption, while many involved the utilization of VPN/VPS for endpoint access, according to an analysis from Arctic Wolf, which also showed the absence of multi-factor authentication on the breached SSL VPN accounts. Additional findings revealed that virtual machines and backups were primarily subjected to the groups' rapid encryption attacks, which targeted documents and proprietary software but not files or sensitive documents that were older than six months or 30 months, respectively.