Cybersecurity execs weigh on the impact of AI on security

From agentic to talent shortages, several cyber execs breakdown how the breakout technology is impacting cybersecurity.

AI is being implemented in every sector and every department, including cybersecurity. We know that hackers are using AI tools to breach organisations, but how are vendors and partners taking advantage of AI as a cyber tool?

In an exclusive executive roundtable at Xchange, CRN Australia spoke to several cybersecurity leaders about the biggest impact AI is having on cybersecurity for MSPs.

Mike DePalma, VP of business development at OpenText said the MSPs are figuring out where they fit in with AI.

“The small business community knows that they need it. We know the criminals are using AI and all the rest of it,” he said.

“Everything else, those other shifts, it was very well defined.”

AI is such a broad term that as a channel, vendors down to the MSPs have to figure out what their role is, because AI is a technology, not a product, DePalma explained.

"Every vendor here is integrating AI into their platform, and that is the standard thing, but it's more the macro vision of five years from now, what is the value prop that MSP is adding to their clients when it comes to AI?” He said.

Addie Finch, VP of channels Americas at Cato Networks noted that MSPs need to evaluate if they have the correct architectural model to support AI initiatives.

“AI and the bad guys are going to punish complexity. If you look at how many MSPs are running siloed security tech stacks, fragmentation will kill all efforts,” she said.

“They're not only having a look at how do we go create services and value around AI, but do we have to rearchitect what we're historically offering to be able to do that.”

Agentic era of cyber

We’ve had four distinct eras of IT, on prem, software defined network, SaaS and AI, and agentic AI can impact all four of those, according to Adam Winston, field CTO, Watchguard Technologies.

Winston noted that MSPs have to “batten down the hatches”.

“You have to take stock of the moment we're in now, which is the adversary having the agentic system and the infrastructure security that is spread out between those four eras in their environment, and realistically clamp down on the way things have been done,” he said.

“All of us here have some relationship to network traffic, some relationship to endpoint security, some relationship to identity, and it's in a mixed environment.

“Because you're not able to deal with the problem unless you have control in all those places, because AI will basically shame you by showing you all those gaps a lot faster than they have in the past,” he added.

He explained how agentic AI could enhance the number of attacks MSPs could face creating complexity.

“If we're dealing with for one attack group [doing] four hundred attacks a year, and they can agentically multiply that by five, you're just going to have such a big problem and trying to just sort of play Whack-a-Mole,” he said.

“You really do need to start understanding that the environment is probably not going to change. We probably didn't change that environment, post pandemic the way it should have. We didn't put everything in the cloud.

“We just have this sort of mixed hybrid IT environment, and that's what you have to restore control of first before the adversary gets agentic, while simultaneously making sure you remain profitable so you still exist in a year.”

Dave Baggett, CEO and founder at Inky noted that with the emergence of agentic AI, there is going to be a “massive shift” in what labour is performed in white collar jobs.

“One of the things that's really struck me about MSPs is I've never met a single one who had any free time. They're all massively busy, nobody's golfing on a Friday afternoon if they're an MSP,” he said.

“One of the things that we focused on a lot is how do we make their lives easier? How do we make our stuff less work and admitting our system less work? There's a massive opportunity with agentic AI to automate out a lot of the work.”

Talent shortages

Technology aside, there is also an issue with talent that MSPs need to grapple with, according to Xan Stevenson, head of partner sales and distribution, Meter.

He called it the “great tsunami”.

“There aren't enough network operators there in the market. A lot of MSPs are dealing with lack of talent,” he said.

“The reality is those people aren't showing up in five years from now, they're going to be doing other things and just the landscape of how people enter the networking space as operators is changing.”

If this is the cast, this means MSPs need to rely on automation.

“What that means too is you’re going to have to be in a situation where you can support Tier 1 and Tier 2 [issues] as table stakes and automate the network as fast as possible. If you don’t do that, you’re just not a viable option in the market,” he added.

MSP as a translator

A lot of MSPs and partners need to be the translator for their own customers.

Scott Barlow, chief evangelist and global head of community at Sophos said MSPs are usually viewed as a trust broker and now they need to know how AI and cyber can help their end users hit their business outcomes.

But, Barlow warned, there need to be boundaries in place.

“The guardrails that need to be put in place for the end customer who's not as technologically advanced as we are, doesn't understand that AI can still hallucinate and give you wrong data,” he noted.

“Having that relationship with AI just needs to be very cautious, but the but the partner needs to be able to translate what AI could do for the end customer in their business.”

Xchange is run by CRN Australia’s parent company, The Channel Company. Xchange is coming to Australia in 2026.