Introduction
Kaseya Connect APAC 2025 delivered a message that went beyond product releases: MSP cybersecurity is entering an era where resilience, automation and identity-level defences matter more than point solutions. While most coverage will focus on the Datto SIRIS 6 appliance and Kaseya’s acquisition of INKY, what stood out inside the rooms at ICC Sydney was the pressure on MSPs across Australia and New Zealand to operate like full security operations centres, without the budget, staffing or margins of one.
A Changing Face
SIRIS 6 and Datto Backup for Microsoft Entra ID weren’t just incremental updates. They reflect the reality that SMB attacks increasingly target identity systems, backups and cloud workloads before ransomware is ever deployed. When MFA bypass and credential abuse collapse the perimeter, recovery speed becomes the new measure of security. The upcoming Cyber Resiliency Platform continues this shift ie. collapsing backup, monitoring and security telemetry into a single operational layer designed to let MSPs respond rather than react.
The INKY acquisition is another signal of where the threat landscape has moved. Traditional secure email gateways are being outpaced by generative phishing, QR-based lures and identity-level impersonation. INKY’s behavioural analysis and in-inbox user coaching acknowledge that humans, not filters, are often the final control point. Integrated into Kaseya’s threat ecosystem, INKY has the potential to move MSPs from blocklists to behavioural detection, something that will be essential as phishing campaigns continue to automate.
But the most telling takeaway came from conversations with MSP leaders on the ground and one insight from Shaun Witherden, Kaseya’s Senior VP of MSP Enablement, captured it clearly: “Tool fatigue is real. MSPs have been running 10, 20, sometimes 30 different products just to keep customers protected. Every tool needs training, patching, passwords, support teams. When something breaks, fingers get pointed. When platforms are integrated, one outage can cripple an entire stack.”
He explained that this is where Kaseya is trying to differentiate. Rather than stitching products together through surface-level API connections, Kaseya is absorbing tools into a shared backbone, reducing outage chains, minimising blame-shifting and letting MSPs deal with a single vendor, a single account manager and a single training path. Everything sits inside Kaseya One, the central portal where applications are unified.
Automatic for The People
Beyond the technology, Kaseya’s “Digital Workforce” may be the most disruptive element for the APAC MSP market. Agentic remediation systems capable of detecting anomalies, generating responses and executing fixes autonomously could reshape Tier-1 and Tier-2 support. The irony is that automation isn’t about replacing technicians it’s about replacing burnout. With skill shortages across the region and rising cyber insurance requirements, autonomous response will decide which MSPs scale and which ones stall.
Commercial changes also matter here. Ending High Watermark pricing and shifting to consumption-based models gives MSPs flexibility during volatile customer cycles something that has been a pain point since the pandemic era. Taken together, these moves show the consolidation of a platform approach that reduces tool sprawl, staffing load and operational drag.
Conclusion
If there was a single theme that cut through the conference, it was that resilience is now the centre of gravity in cyber. Backup is part of incident response. Email security is behavioural. Automation is defensive strategy. For thousands of small and mid-sized businesses across APAC that rely entirely on MSPs for security, these changes aren’t upgrades they’re lifelines.
The next phase of MSP cyber defence in this region won’t be won by the cheapest provider, the longest feature list or the biggest vendor stack. It will be won by those who can integrate, automate and recover faster than attackers can evolve. Kaseya’s announcements reflect that shift and for MSPs, the clock on manual cybersecurity has officially run out.
