MSPs, is cybersecurity slowing your network performance?

Patience is not a thriving practice in the 21st century. As the ability to find information and get work done online has gotten faster, users have become less willing to wait for networks and applications to respond.

That impatience might seem comical given how many working adults can easily remember the days of buying airline tickets on 1-800 telephone numbers and waiting six to eight weeks for delivery of almost anything. But in an era when the number and severity of cyberattacks continue to climb, impatience can be dangerous for MSPs and their clients.

Users are increasingly bypassing cybersecurity measures, in part because they don’t like what they consider long response times. Of course, a lot of factors can influence networks and application performance, but cybersecurity is definitely one of them.

All security tools have some measurable impact on response times, but some are a bigger drag than others. At a time when cyberthreats are increasing and patience is declining, slow computing can become a genuine security hazard.

Protection isn’t the only important aspect of cybersecurity solutions. Performance matters, too. If your cybersecurity tools are degrading performance, you’re increasing your clients’ risk of a cyberattack and your risk of being embroiled in all the problems and complications that come with it.

Gartner recently found that 69% of employees had bypassed their organization’s cybersecurity guidance in the last year and that 74% would have no problem bypassing cybersecurity guidance if it helped them “achieve a business objective.”

So, what did organizations do? They added more controls, Henrique Teixeira, Senior Director Analyst at Gartner, said in a press release. And that was the wrong response. “Employees report a huge amount of friction involved with secure behavior, which is driving unsecure behavior,” Teixeira said. “Controls that are circumvented are worse than no controls at all.”

If anything, users seem to become more defiant in their resistance with the more cybersecurity controls they face. In a separate study, Gartner found that a whopping 90% of employees who admitted avoiding security controls during work activities knew what they were doing would increase risk, but did it anyway.

Speed and convenience are no doubt factors in employees going rogue. In an era when almost any conceivable activity or piece of content is available immediately on multiple devices, users will absolutely choose the fastest route to getting what they want rather than waiting for a response. And they’ll do it on whichever devices or networks are the fastest available.

The circumvention of corporate security controls is part of a well-known phenomenon called shadow IT: employees using their own apps, devices and networks for work but completely outside the purview of their organizations.

Shadow IT is a widespread problem. TechTarget notes that it can have multiple negative effects, including security risks and compliance issues. But one of the major problems it creates is employees siphoning network bandwidth by using their own unapproved applications. Network speed can also slow when rogue apps lead to a conflict between network or application protocols.

Cybersecurity incidents can also slow network traffic. TechRxiv found that peaks in traffic frequently coincide with increased threat levels. Network protocols, including ICMP and TCP, can play a role in traffic slowing during incidents. So, even though your cybersecurity solutions are doing their jobs, the impact on your network speed can be severe.

Any factor that contributes to the growth of shadow IT and rogue behavior creates a potentially massive problem for MSPs. As a cybersecurity provider, it’s your responsibility to protect client data.

You might not even know when users are circumventing security controls in clients’ organizations (although you can still deliver protection through extended detection and response, or XDR). Your clients might not know, either. But if and when a breach occurs, your clients will likely blame you for it — and look to you to fix it.

Anything you can do to improve network and application performance will help you better protect your clients’ data. Users who don’t notice a difference in network and application speed are less likely to try to go around security controls. And employees in your clients’ organizations who stay within security parameters greatly reduce the risk of a cyberattack. So, while protection absolutely matters, performance is critical, too.

Part of the process of choosing a cybersecurity solution to offer clients should include looking at how much — or how little — a vendor’s offering is likely to slow response times. That’s a good reason for MSPs to take a look at Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud, which recently clocked the fastest response time in a test involving products from 16 vendors.

In an independent, impartial test conducted in May 2024 by AV-TEST, Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud with Advanced Security + XDR earned a perfect 6.0 score for having minimal impact on Windows performance. Windows performed faster running Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud than it did running any other similar product.

The total impact of Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud with Advanced Security + XDR on Windows performance was 5.89%. And the race wasn’t particularly close. The next-best product had a performance impact of nearly 7%, while the worst impacted performance was nearly 14%. The average impact on performance of the other 15 products tested was 8.4%.

With Acronis, MSPs can differentiate their offerings by delivering a solution that features native integration of critical cybersecurity functions as well as data protection. And critically, it has little to no impact on Windows performance.

Your clients are very likely dealing with shadow IT issues and users skirting cybersecurity controls. By offering the cybersecurity solution that tested the fastest, you can show them that you understand their dilemma and have a way to solve it — quickly. There’s no need for patience.