The small- and mid-size business security market is a significant opportunity for MSPs, but service providers will have to change the way they approach their customers if they truly want to make the most of it.

Signing up customers for anti-virus and firewall protection is fine, but soon MSPs that want to do security will have no choice but to buckle down and do the hard work required to win more lucrative, forward-thinking and longer-term business available to MSPs willing to talk price, commit to deep product knowledge and do some cajoling and hand-holding along the way.

Those who don't will be left behind, gathering low-hanging fruit until eventually there's none left to harvest, says Art Gross, CEO of Entegration Inc. Through channel partners, Entegration sells security products HIPAA Secure Now and Breach Secure Now for health care firms and others.

The SMB security market has huge potential for MSPs because price-conscious business owners have so far been reluctant to spend.

"SMBs are in denial," Gross tells IT Best of Breed. "They think they're too small to get hacked, they think: 'what do I have that someone would want to steal?'"

But while hacks at large firms like Target or Sony get lots of attention, the majority of breaches happen in small- and mid-size businesses, Gross says.

However, MSPs that want to take this opportunity to sell security products and services to SMBs have to do it right, and from what Gross sees, many are not.

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