Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

Generative AI is no longer emerging. It is already embedded in how businesses work. From content creation and research to customer support and internal productivity, AI tools are rapidly becoming part of everyday workflows across SMBs and the MSPs that serve them. But this shift comes with a hard reality: As GenAI adoption accelerates, so do the risks.

While it is not technically required, the Cyber Essentials 3.3 set of standards is quickly becoming a necessity for organizations that need to ensure public sector contract, insurance and supplier assurance in the U.K. That’s good news for managed service providers (MSPs), who now have an opportunity to build both trust and revenue by guiding clients toward Cyber Essentials certification. Acronis recently surveyed U.K. partners about Cyber Essentials.

QR code phishing is a social engineering attack that embeds malicious URLs inside QR code images delivered through email. Because the payload lives inside an image — not in a clickable link or plain text — legacy secure email gateways (SEGs) never see it. The email passes inspection. The user scans the code with their phone. And the attack moves from a protected corporate desktop to an unmanaged mobile device outside your security perimeter.

Generative AI and sophisticated social engineering have reshaped the cybersecurity landscape in 2026. Traditional "castle-and-moat" defenses centered on the Secure Email Gateway (SEG) are increasingly pressured by machine-scale attacks designed to bypass static filters. As organizations shift toward Integrated Cloud Email Security (ICES) models, a new technical and psychological barrier appears: the "black box" problem of defensive AI.