Top 6 Trends Every MSP Must Know About for 2025

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With 2025 well underway, Managed Service Providers must stay informed about the latest trends to capture market share and stay ahead of the competition in the new year

Here are six trends shaping the MSP landscape in 2025.   

6 Trends MSPs Should Take Note of for 2025 

  1. The rise of GenAI: GenAI outputs are getting smarter and becoming more accurate with every prompt. GenAI helps MSPs build targeted marketing and social strategies, process complex technical documents, and parse large volumes of data that would take hours or even days to process manually. That’s the good part. 

Unfortunately, this also means that cyber attacks are getting more sophisticated. 

There has been a 4,151% increase in phishing campaigns since the launch of ChatGPT and an 856% spike in malicious email threats over the last year. Threat actors can purchase pre-packaged phishing kits on the dark web for as little as a few hundred dollars. 

AI-generated phishing attacks aren’t only targeting large organizations. They are frequently targeting executives at SMBs. Surprisingly enough, attacks geared at C-level executives have significantly higher success rates. 

Just how much?

According to a recent survey, 96% of executives failed to tell the difference between a real email and a phishing email. Even the C-suite is vulnerable to phishing attacks. This is why it’s essential to conduct routine phishing simulations across all departments in the organization from the top down. 

Phishing simulations mimic real-world attack scenarios, offering actionable insights into user behavior and identifying areas where additional training is needed.

  1. User-centric approach: Threat prevention begins by reverse engineering the digital footsteps of an attacker. Where do all security threats lead back? Is it a specific user? Device? An unknown third party that is no longer with the organization? Tracing the threat requires a user-centric approach to isolate devices, suspend users, and contain potential breaches before they spread further. 

Communicating risk without context is an uphill climb. This is especially true for MSPs who don’t know all of the employees personally. A user-centric approach connects the threats back to a specific user in the organization, making communication more actionable and impactful. This approach also helps employees understand their role in mitigating risks. 

MSPs must have granular visibility and control over all user access points, especially when it comes to endpoint security as more devices and identities are continually added to the network. A single unmanaged device can bring on a massive data breach. A user-centric approach places identities at the core of the strategy, enabling MSPs to build better policies and controls to defend against threats. 

  1. MDR – The new way of mitigating cyber threats: Cyber threat hunting is a complex ongoing process that blends human expertise with AI-driven analysis. Traditional threat-hunting tools won’t cut it anymore. Outsourcing your SOC? It’s not exactly practical or scalable.

There’s also the issue of integrations. Outsourced SOC offerings can break existing security stacks and architectures, leading to data silos and, even worse, the missed detection of critical threats.

MDR is transforming the way MSPs address cyber threats, particularly for SMBs. By combining human expertise with AI-driven analysis, an MDR delivers a robust and affordable cybersecurity solution. This approach enables small businesses to stay ahead of sophisticated cyber threats with continuous 24/7 monitoring, eliminating the need for a large in-house security team.” – Esther Pinto, CISO at Guardz.

A Managed detection and response (MDR), on the other hand, can provide contextual insights that an outsourced SOC might lack. These insights help guide MSPs towards prioritized threat mitigation and reduced response times. Less noise. More actionable intelligence. But not all MDRs are created equal. Traditional MDRs are heavily dependent on human analysts. In other words, they aren’t built to scale. 

An effective MDR in 2025 should be AI-first and standardized on a tech stack. AI algorithms help analyze and prioritize threat intelligence data from multiple sources onto a unified dashboard, enabling MSPs to respond to incidents faster while minimizing human error. 

  1. Selling MSP services: MSPs have to up their sales game to gain a competitive edge in a highly saturated market. 

Some of the common selling roadblocks MSPs face include: 

  • Explaining pricing models and what they entail
  • Measuring KPIs and providing substantial returns
  • Defining shared responsibilities
  • Positioning your business against low-cost providers

And the million-dollar question…

What makes you different from the competition? 

Addressing these concerns is key to scaling your practice and building a sustainable, recession-proof business. That’s why we created the Growth Hub at Guardz. The Growth Hub is a centralized knowledge base designed to help MSPs understand risk and enhance client retention. Our mission is to empower MSPs with the right tools and resources to succeed.  

Selling cybersecurity doesn’t have to be difficult either. We’ve outlined a simple 6-step process for MSPs on how to sell cybersecurity to your clients.

  1. The power of MSP communities: Communities are powerful. There are many communities where MSPs share knowledge, insights, and best practices and discover business opportunities from other MSPs looking to branch out and expand their offerings. 

So, where do MSPs hang out? 

There are plenty of Facebook groups built and managed by fellow MSPs and IT professionals, Slack channels, and, of course, Reddit. In fact, we’ve compiled a list of 38 subreddits every MSP should join. The r/msp subreddit alone has over 193k connected and engaged members. Discussions range from AI to vendor comparisons and the latest scoop on data breaches making front headlines. 

MSP communities are going to continue to grow in 2025. Don’t get left out of the valuable discussions. Make sure you’re a part of them.

  1. Operational efficiency: MSPs have a very busy workload. They need to hire and train new technicians on the tools they have in their security stack, which can drain plenty of time and resources. Every minute of productivity saved translates to higher profit margins and enables MSPs to focus on tasks with the highest impact on business operations. 

How? By consolidating and simplifying their security stack. 

Point solutions only offer partial visibility into the overall attack surface. MSPs simply don’t have the capacity to track and manage a multitude of security tools. Data becomes siloed and lost in the shuffle. This leads to tool sprawl and miscommunication. 

Point solutions might also miss critical vulnerabilities because they lack a unified view of the attack surface. 

Consolidation is a big win on the business end. It is exceptionally beneficial for MSPs looking to scale their operations most efficiently. Traditional security tools require training, continuous updates, and manual efforts to manage. Tool complexity is another issue to take into consideration. Businesses might need to hire tier 2 or tier 3 technicians to integrate them. And those costs can quickly eat into your profit margins. 

Consolidation also increases an MSPs capacity for more revenue-generating activities. 

Futureproof Your Business and Cybersecurity with Guardz

Don’t let outdated technologies keep you behind in 2025. 

The Guardz unified platform streamlines cybersecurity from a single pane of glass, helping you connect the security dots and enhance incident response with a user-centric approach. 

By leveraging behavioral insights and AI-powered threat analytics, your organization can prioritize mitigation strategies, refine security policies, and communicate risk in clear, relatable terms.

Make unified cybersecurity part of your New Year’s resolution. 
Schedule a demo today.

Categories:

Jordan is a Cybersecurity Content Creator and community builder. He has written for many cybersecurity companies and knows more stats about a data breach than IBM.

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Discover the Power of Cybersecurity for Your MSP Growth.

Dive into the crucial e-mail security protocols (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) to enhance your e-mail protection and make sure your e-mails are delivered in the inbox of your recipients instead of the spam or quarantine folder.

This guide provides you with innovative strategies and expert insights to elevate your MSP business, strengthen client trust, and stay ahead of ever-evolving threats.

Illustration of yellow envelopes with documents against a purple backdrop. Red warning icons with exclamation marks suggest potential cyber risks. Circuit-like lines enhance the background, reminiscent of a Cyber Risk Prospecting Report alert.
Illustration of yellow envelopes on a purple background, with two red envelopes marked by exclamation points, indicating cyber risk warnings. Green shield icons adorn some envelopes, while a radar-like pattern enhances the sense of alertness in the background.