Untangle Inc. announced the results of their inaugural "Voice of the Channel" survey. The survey found that channel partners are moving towards adding more diverse and comprehensive security solutions to their portfolios, often as a way to address the ever-evolving threat landscape and provide a layered approach to cybersecurity. However, limited solutions knowledge and budget constraints are top barriers the channel faces in deploying cybersecurity solutions to small-to-medium businesses (SMBs).

Channel partners play a key role in providing network security solutions to SMBs with limited resources and budget. With cyberattacks expected to continue to increase in 2019, the channel must stay ahead of emerging threats by providing effective network security solutions that are affordable and easy to manage. Based on their experience in 2018, surveyed channel partners believe that the top threats of 2019 will be ransomware, data breaches, phishing and security exploits.

"Channel partners are essential in getting proper security solutions into the hands of SMBs, so it's crucial that we understand their customers and barriers to adoption," said Scott Devens, chief executive officer at Untangle. "As we expected, cost and a lack of manpower are key pain points when it comes to security for both SMBs and channel partners. However, we were surprised to learn that more and more customers are becoming savvy to phishing attacks, with 43 percent of channel customers reporting attacks before a breach occurred."

Untangle surveyed more than 100 channel partners to understand the state of IT and cybersecurity trends, as well as their predictions for 2019, across a number of topics including cloud adoption, data breaches, revenue and emerging threats. Key highlights include:

• More than 62% of channel partners surveyed identify budget constraints as a top barrier in cybersecurity, followed closely by limited solutions knowledge (56%) and lack of manpower (38%).
• Over 57% of channel partners agree or strongly agree that moving their data and network traffic to the cloud will provide better security. However, price (35%), lack of trust (31%) and lack of knowledge (27%) are the top barriers the channel experiences when their clients begin or consider adopting cloud security solutions.
• Channel partners that stated their customers were victims of cyberattacks revealed that malware/virus (83.49%), phishing (77.06%), and ransomware (75.23%) were the top types of attacks.
• 43% of clients reported phishing attacks before a breach occurred, indicating that clients are becoming better at identifying cyberattacks and taking proactive steps to educate employees and report attempts before they can cause damage.
• 99% of channel partners indicated that cybersecurity as an overall part of their business will increase or stay the same in 2019, while 80% believe that their cybersecurity revenue will increase in 2019.
• When asked about the largest threats channel partners expect to encounter in 2019, ransomware (80%), data breaches (55%), phishing (52%) and security exploits (51%) were the top ranked choices.
  

"Channel partners and SMBs continue to move slowly into cloud-based security deployments and a lack of skilled IT-security professionals, along with budget constraints, continue to be substantial barriers to providing adequate security measures. However, they don't have to be," continued Devens. "When considering vendors to partner with, researching and testing out solutions is key to finding the right one for your business."

The full "Voice of the Channel" report is available here. For more information on Untangle's partner program, visit https://www.untangle.com/partners/.