Life in the channel


EVOLVING PARTNERSHIPS


Can you provide a brief introduction to your respective companies? JA: CyberSmart is an all-in- one cybersecurity monitoring, optimisation, training and insurance platform. Born out of GCHQ’s cyber accelerator in 2016, CyberSmart was created to tackle a single problem, the growing cybersecurity challenges faced by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Cybercrime is projected to cost


Jamie Akhtar of security platform CyberSmart and James Selby of managed service provider VirtualIT talk to PCR about their relationship and managing SME customers.


www.pcr-online.biz


the world $10.5 trillion annually by the end of 2025, and 58% targets small businesses. Meanwhile, the cybersecurity gap between large enterprises with the resources to weather attacks and the SMEs that don’t is widening. CyberSmart provides small businesses and their service providers with all the tools and processes needed to build complete cyber confidence.


Today, we protect over 5,000 SMEs


across the UK and beyond, through our network of 800+ partners.


JS: Virtual IT was founded in 2001 with a focus on providing hybrid cloud services to the SMB market. Today, we have a team of over 130 staff and serve more than 700 SMB clients, generating revenues of over £20 million annually. In 2019, I joined Virtual IT to develop an enhanced MSSP (Managed Security Service Provider) solution for our MSP clients, combining innovative technologies and processes. We needed a robust ‘backbone technology’ to anchor our security offering, and CyberSmart has been key in meeting that need ever since.


JA: CyberSmart and Virtual IT began working together in 2019. Our relationship began with Virtual IT


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