MSP, MSSP and IT Notes Industry June 28th, 2021

Sponsored by

June 14th, 2021

Arcoa Group

Why partnering with ARCOA makes sense
Electronics Recycling is an important and profitable part of the IT asset lifecycle, but it can be overwhelming with all you already do, varying state regulations, and the limited resources at hand. That’s where ARCOA comes in. When you partner with ARCOA, you get all the benefits of a big company without any of the capital investment. We’ve been doing this since 1989 and have the expertise, certifications, and nationwide resources to get the most for all your clients’ retired IT assets. Plus, positioning your clients as environmental stewards not only elevates their appeal to consumers, it meets government requirements and avoids fines.

What partnering with ARCOA looks like
Our role is to make it easy for you to bring more value to your clients. We work with you to help stretch your clients’ IT budget by reducing the total cost of ownership of their electronics. We’re experts at identifying and implementing the solutions your clients need for the end-of-use remarketing, recovery, and recycling of their technology assets. The sooner you involve ARCOA, the sooner you and your clients will see better results.

Evergreen Services Group to Enter MSSP Market With Agreement to Acquire VirtualArmour

• announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire substantially all the operating assets of VirtualArmour
• Transaction is expected to close later in the second quarter or early in the third quarter of 2021
• Company will continue to operate independently under its existing leadership team led by CEO Russ Armbrust

ECS Demonstrates Seven Years of Excellence as AWS Managed Service Provider

• Named an AWS Managed Service Provider (MSP) Partner for the seventh year in a row
• ECS supports enterprises throughout the full cloud adoption lifecycle, from plan and design through migration, build, and optimization
• “This successful audit demonstrates ECS’ expertise at delivering cloud solutions using AWS technology,” said Michael Scrivener, ECS director of cloud architecture

Converge Technology Solutions Corp. Announces Acquisition of ExactlyIT, Inc.

• announce it has completed the acquisition of international managed IT services provider, ExactlyIT
• Headquartered in North Carolina, with operational offices in Mexico, ExactlyIT is a managed IT services provider
• ExactlyIT marks the twentieth acquisitions completed by Converge since October 2017

Stratosphere Networks Named Among the Best Managed IT Service Providers in Chicago by ...

• com, has named Stratosphere Networks among the best managed IT services in Chicago for 2021
• Stratosphere Networks provides managed services – including managed cybersecurity, managed IT, co-managed IT, and co-managed cybersecurity services
• com reviews and compares the best products, services, and software for running or growing a small business website or online shop

CrushBank Builds Automation Into ConnectWise Manage To Deliver Instant, Curated Answers To ...

• Announced that its Resolve module has eliminated one of the cornerstones of the help desk – searching for relevant information
• CrushBank’s Resolve, powered by IBM Watson allows every support engineer to begin with a set of qualified answers created automatically from the trouble ticket
• CrushBank’s Resolve operates inside ConnectWise Manage to present the vetted and ranked answers from a rapid search of PSA/ ITSMs, document management systems, configuration management databases, SharePoint pages and publicly available information from Microsoft and Stack Exchange
• CrushBank is the first IT Help-Desk application built on Watson, the breakthrough cognitive technology developed by IBM

CGS Recognized for Excellence among Managed Service Providers

• Announced today that CRN®, a brand of The Channel Company, has named CGS to its 2021 Managed Service Provider (MSP) 500 list in the MSP Elite 150 category
• CGS was recognized among the MSP Elite 150, which recognizes large, data center-focused MSPs with a strong mix of on-premises and off-premises services
• The MSP 500 list is featured on the CRN site at: CRN.com/msp500

CommTech Joins Best in Class Managed Service Provider, New Charter Technologies

• New Charter Technologies, Palo Alto-based private equity firm Oval Partners, announced the partnership of CommTech
• Oval Partners and New Charter Technologies business model is focused on building a caliber of business that the IT industry hasn't yet seen
• According to John Knoll, Co-Founder and Managing Director at Oval, "CommTech represents the 10th high quality MSP to join the New Charter platform. Darryl and the team have a legacy of success and expertise that will strengthen the New Charter partnership and create greater opportunity to grow the business and serve our customers across the country

nDivision Wins $2 Million in Government Managed Services Contracts Through its Fortune 50 ...

• nDivision Inc., announced that it has been awarded two separate government IT Managed Services contracts as part of its strategic partnership with a $90B Fortune 50 Global Solutions company
• contracts are expected to generate $2 million of revenue for nDivision over the next five years
• two separate government awards include a 5-year contract with a federal government entity with over 10,000 employees as well as a 3-year contract with a large county government entity with over 100,000 employees
• contracts are expected to go live in the third quarter of 2021

PEI Named Top Managed Services Provider in the United States

• PEI, announced today that it had been selected as a Top Managed Service Providers in the United States for 2021 by Cloudtango
• Cloudtango, an independent Managed Service Provider directory
• Cloudtango editors evaluated over 6,000 MSPs, 223 different types of certifications, 95 vendor relationships, and 22 different IT services before making their final selections

Unisys Achieves Amazon Web Services Managed Service Provider Status for Fourth Consecutive ...

• Unisys Corporation announced that it has been recognized in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Managed Service Provider (MSP) Partner Program for the fourth consecutive year
• Earned the designation after AWS reviewed Unisys' cloud managed services capabilities, underpinned by the Unisys Cloud Management Platform (CMP)
• Unisys is a global IT solutions company that delivers successful outcomes for the most demanding businesses and governments

Managed IT firm lights the way with prestigious contract win

• Reported on businessdesk.com
• Octavian IT has won the £30,000 contract with fellow Nottingham-based company Lighthouse Display
• Five-figure contract will see Octavian IT replace all of Lighthouse Display’s servers, storage, disaster recovery, cyber security, licensing and remote access technology

SAP MSP Channel Consolidation: Syntax Acquires Illumiti

• Reported on CRN.com
• Syntax Tuesday unveiled its acquisition of Illumiti, a major SAP systems integration and management consultant
• Fifth acquisition for Montreal-based Syntax, which partners with SAP, Oracle, JD Edwards, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and others to bring private, public and hybrid cloud solutions, services and managed services to clients

Report on shipping container issues

• Report published by Actionable Intelligence magazine
• When pandemic started, global sea trade dropped by 9% in 2/2020, an another 12% in 4/2020
• Up to 90% of global trade volume moves by sea in containers on ships
  • Hauling up to 190,000 tons at a time
  • 80% of containers are made in China
  • Global freight index has risen from $1459 per container to $5165
• Air freight costs went from $4 per kilogram to as high as $18 per kilogram
• Non-store retail ec-ommerce transactions jumped 40% during lockdowns, causing increase in need for shipping consumer products in containers on ships
• Auto sales jumped 29%
• Home furniture sales went up 20.4%
• Containers that carried millions of masks to countries in Africa and South America at beginning of pandemic remain there, empty and uncollected
  • Same occurred in Australia and New Zealand
• Bloomberg estimates that 3,000 containers fell off ships into the ocean in 2020, and another 1,000 so far this year
• Due to lockdowns, at the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, CA, ships drift for days in so-called “drift boxes” zones as they wait for workers to unload ships

etherFAX partners with ActFax

• etherFAX markets cloud-based fax server technology
• - claims to have 6 million connected endpoints
• - ActFax also provides fax server solutions, and will now use etherFAX’s secure exchange network

Ricoh unveils Digital Services Center to drive its culture of excellence and innovation

• announced that it has launched a Digital Services Center, a major step in its digital services transformation journey
• will transform Ricoh's obsession with customer success into an incubation hub that aligns resources and prioritizes new solution development based on customer need
• According to Gartner's The 2021 CIO Agenda: Seize This Opportunity for Digital Business Acceleration, 76% of CIOs report increased demand for new digital products or services during the pandemic, and 83% expect this demand to increase further in 2021

Cybersecurity Updates

• CVS Health, headquartered in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, may have inadvertently exposed over a billion PHI, impacting an unknown number of patients.
• • Apparently left a online database on Internet without password protection exposing 204GB of medical data

• OSF HealthCare, headquartered in Peoria, Illinois, notified an unknown number of patients that their PHI apparently has been posted on Dark Web after being hit by the Xing ransomware hacking group.
• Coastal Family Health Center, headquartered in Mississippi, notified an unknown number of patients that their PHI apparently has been posted on Dark Web after being hit by the Xing ransomware hacking group.
• Five Rivers Health Centers of Ohio notified 156,000 patients that their PHI was exposed after an email phishing attack
• Sky Lakes Medical Center of Oregon notified an unknown number of patients that their PHI was exposed after being hit by Ryuk ransomware hacking group.
• Sol Oriens Corp. of Albuquerque, New Mexico, a nuclear weapons subcontractor, notified an unknown number of customers that their info may have been exposed after being hit by REvil aka Sodinokibi ransomware hacking group.
• Cancer Centers of Southwest Oklahoma notified 8,000 patients that their PHI was exposed after ransomware attack.
• The Federal Communications Commission is warning hospitals about hacking groups hitting them with robocalls:
• • Robocallers use spoofed caller ID to trick hospital staff into thinking it is a real patient calling
  • Try to obtain PHI
  • Or demand ransom to stop the bombardment of calls

• Survey conducted by Software Advice claims that 20% of the U.S. population is aware that their PHI has been exposed after a breach.
• Ransomware report published by Cybereason:
• • 81% are highly concerned about ransomware

• • 27% do not have a specific plan in place to manage attack
  • 58% are not sure they have the right people in place
  • 32% lost some executives as result of attack
  • 53% lost brand value after attack
  • 66% suffered significant loss of revenue
  • 42% said cyber insurance did not cover all costs
  • 29% forced to lay off employees as a result
  • 80% had second attack after paying ransom
• Trinity Health System Twin City Hospital in Ohio notified 9,500 patients that their PHI was exposed after ransomware attack
• Stillwater Medical Center of Oklahoma notified an unknown number of patients that that PHI was exposed after ransomware attack
• Superior Health Plan, headquartered in Austin, TX, notified 2,781 patients that their PHI that their PHI was exposed after cyberattack
• Researchers at Ruhr University of Germany are warning of a new type of hacking attack that could exploit misconfigurations in TLS servers
• Could redirect HTTPS traffic from a web browser to a different endpoint allowing hackers to steal info.
• • Named the attacks ALPACA, short for application layer protocol confusion
• Northwest Congenital Heart Care of Renton, WA, notified 1,166 patients that their PHI was exposed after theft of an external hard drive
• Chainalysis reports that ransom payments from companies to hackers increased 341% to a total of $412 million during 2020
• Chiropractic Economics magazine reported on ransomware:
• • 2-4 chiropractors are hit by ransomware per week
  • Average cost to solve ransomware attack is $158,000
• Southwest Airlines delayed or cancelled hundreds of flights during the past week due to “network issues”
• Peloton is notifying uses of its exercise bikes that McAfee found that hackers can remotely access the bike’s camera and microphone and monitor users
• • Hackers can also add apps to control panel disguised at Netflix and Spotify to trick users to enter their login and password, which is then used to steal info
• South Texas Health System notified an unknown number of patients that their PHI may have been exposed after a report was mistakenly sent via email to wrong destination
• Lightfoot, Franklin & White Law Firm of Birmingham, Alabama notified an unknown number of clients that their info may have been exposed after ransomware attack
• Reproductive Biology Associates of Atlanta, Georgia notified 38,538 patients that their PHI was exposed after ransomware attack
• Carnival Cruises, headquartered in Miami, FL, notified an unknown number of customers that their info may have been exposed after data breach
• St. Joseph’s/Candler Health of Savannah, Georgia notified an unknown number of patients that their PHI was exposed after ransomware attack
• San Juan Regional Medical Center of New Mexico notified 68,792 patients that their PHI was exposed after ransomware attack
• First American Financial Corp., headquartered in Santa Ana, CA,was leaking more than 800 million documents — many containing sensitive financial data — related to real estate transactions dating back 16 years.
• This week, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission settled its investigation into the matter after the Fortune 500 company agreed to pay a paltry penalty of less than $500,000
• Judson Independent School District of Live Oak, Texas, notified an unknown number of students that their info was exposed after ransomware attack
• Coastal Medical Group of Old Bridge, new Jersey has notified an unknown number of patients that their PHI was exposed after ransomware attack
• Jones Family Dental of Ashland, Oregon is notifying an unknown number of patients that their PHI may have been exposed after cyber attack