The Ingram Micro ransomware attack over July 4 week received a lot of attention, especially among channel partners who rely on the distribution giant for their businesses. Although it’s probably little consolation to Ingram, it had company even among large organizations that should have air- tight security.

As this Forbes story points out in great detail, food supplier United Natural Foods and McDonald’s were also hit within three weeks of Ingram. The three are different types of companies and the attacks were of a different nature, but they should serve as a wakeup call to organizations that should have already been well aware of the dangers.

“These breaches were not random,” Emil Sayegh, a senior advisor and CEO Partner at private equity firm Tritium Partners and former CEO of MSP Ntirety, wrote in Forbes. “They were preventable. And they signal a deeper crisis across the enterprise landscape where speed, scale and convenience continue to outpace discipline, governance and accountability.”

They also signal a massive opportunity for the channel.

Partners Have Resources to Fight Cyber Attacks

Erik Littlejohn, CEO of MSP CloudWave, said many of his customers – particularly in health care, look to partners to provide them with 24 by 7 operations and knowledge of vendor tools that the customers cannot afford and manage. “The same sort of trends we saw in getting into the managed service and hosting business years ago, are the same challenges we see in cyberspace,” he said.

“The challenge is, how do we help customers enable AI and machine learning in secure and compliant ways. The benefit of our business is we work with hundreds of customers and have sort of visibility of what it means to help manage that data securely.”

AI has become a prime tool in cybersecurity services, but hackers are also using AI. And in the case of the McDonald’s breach, its own McHire AI-powered hiring provided access to data from as many as 64 million job applicants’ personal data. As companies rush to use AI, it isn’t always used correctly.

“This is a perfect opportunity to reset expectations around AI,” said Kevin McDonald, COO and CISO for MSP Alvaka, who sees these attacks as a warning but also a chance for partners to prove their value.

Ingram Micro sells products across all areas of cybersecurity and still fell prey to a SafePay attack that left partners scrambling. Cybersecurity firm Galactic Advisors pointed to vulnerabilities in Kaseya’s Network Detective tool that could leave MSP and clients in danger.

Never has there been a more important time for channel partners to remain vigilant.

“Every executive, managed service provider and technology leader should see these incidents as more than a warning,” Sayegh wrote in Forbes. “They are a preview. The next breach may already be unfolding inside your own environment. Speed to react matters, but prevention matters more. This is not just about protecting systems. It is about protecting the country and also your reputation, your role and your career.”