MSP Cybersecurity: Critical No Longer Means Rare

About this episode

The episode highlights a structural shift in vulnerability management, where accelerated discovery of software flaws—driven by AI—has outpaced the ability to remediate. Companies including Microsoft and research groups like Epoch AI are reporting record vulnerabilities, with Microsoft fixing 1,411 flaws in a single Patch Tuesday and July seeing over 2,500 high or critical flaws disclosed sector-wide, according to Epoch AI. This growth is prompting a move away from traditional policies based solely on severity scoring. Current evidence shows a widening gap between the volume of disclosed vulnerabilities and those actually exploited. While Anthropic’s AI identified more than 10,000 serious flaws, the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, which focuses on proven exploitation, is growing at a slower rate. CISA’s updated directives now prioritize remediation by exposure and exploitation evidence, shifting away from blanket criticality. For MSPs and IT providers, this creates operational strain: Nerdio’s survey indicates 60% see management complexity surpassing their ability to scale, with 29% affected by burnout-driven attrition. Large enterprises can add headcount to tackle v