An MSP’s remote access can become a route into your network if an attacker compromises the provider’s account, endpoint, or management platform. Because providers may administer systems for multiple customers, the same trusted tools or credentials can expose more than one organization. The practical response is to limit that access, secure and monitor it, and agree in advance how you and the provider will contain and recover from an incident.
Why MSP access creates a supply-chain risk
Managed service providers (MSPs) often need privileged access to customer devices, servers, and networks to deliver support. Remote monitoring and management (RMM) software can let them monitor systems continuously and administer them without someone at the customer site. Those capabilities are useful, but they also create a trusted path that an attacker may try to abuse.
The risk is not that every MSP is compromised, or that every security incident involving an MSP is a software supply-chain attack. It is that a provider’s access, tools, or accounts can connect an attacker to customer environments. CISA’s 2018 alert, Advanced Persistent Threat Activity Exploiting Managed Service Providers, describes how compromised legitimate credentials could be used to move between MSP and client networks. That alert is historical guidance on the mechanism, not evidence of a current campaign.
How a provider compromise can reach customers
- An attacker compromises a provider-side foothold. This might be an account, an endpoint, or a management platform.
- The attacker abuses the provider’s legitimate access or tools. An RMM capability intended for administration can give a foothold into provider systems or customer networks if it is compromised or misused.
- The attacker acts within the customer environment. Depending on the access available, that can enable discovery, persistence, data theft, or disruption.
- Shared access may widen the exposure. A provider’s centralized tools or reused credentials can put multiple customers at risk; the actual reach depends on how access and systems are separated.
This is a risk pathway, not a claim that all MSP incidents follow the same sequence. CISA’s Remote Monitoring and Management Cyber Defense Plan explains the operational role of RMM and the potential for exploitation to create footholds in MSP and customer systems. The cited guidance does not establish a current count of MSP-led incidents.
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What the supply-chain figures do—and do not—show
Supply-chain statistics are easy to misread as MSP statistics. ENISA’s 2024 Report on the State of Cybersecurity in the Union says 66% of supply-chain attacks in its referenced assessment focused on the supplier’s code. That figure is about supplier-code focus; it is not the percentage of attacks caused by MSPs.
ENISA’s 2025 Threat Landscape announcement describes an analysis of 4,875 incidents from 1 July 2024 to 30 June 2025 and notes abuse of critical dependency points, including the digital supply chain. Those are figures for the report’s overall incident analysis, not an MSP incident count. The cited sources do not establish an MSP-specific prevalence rate.
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How to assess an MSP before signing or renewing
Assess the provider’s operating controls and evidence, rather than relying only on a badge or broad assurance. CISA’s Risk Considerations for Managed Service Provider Customers (2025), its 2022 joint advisory, and its small-business vendor-assessment guidance identify practical areas to discuss.
- Map access and dependencies: document the systems and data the provider can reach, privileged accounts, subcontractors, and the business services that depend on the provider.
- Ask how remote access is protected: understand how the provider secures remote-access applications and privileged accounts, applies multifactor authentication (MFA) where possible, monitors its own environment, and responds to incidents.
- Agree on evidence and telemetry: establish what relevant security information the provider can share and how you can obtain it when assessing an incident or ongoing risk.
- Write down responsibilities: cover incident notification and escalation, continuity and recovery, customer access to relevant security information, and who is responsible for backups and restoration.
- Plan for failed communications: agree on an out-of-band way to contact one another if normal channels are unavailable, and identify who makes decisions on each side.
- Use consistent vetting: a standard vendor questionnaire or requirements list can make reviews more complete, including for smaller organizations evaluating an MSP with critical access.
Controls to require and review during the relationship
Limit the provider’s reach
- Scope each third-party account to the systems its role requires; avoid broad administrator membership when narrower permissions will work.
- Separate duties where practical, review provider accounts regularly, and remove access that is no longer needed.
- Restrict MSP VPN or other connectivity to necessary destinations and protocols. CISA’s 2018 alert recommends dedicated, certificate-based VPN connections and isolation from the internal network; treat that as architecture guidance to evaluate for your environment, not a universal design prescription.
Secure and observe remote access
- Use MFA where possible and secure remote-access applications and publicly accessible RMM accounts.
- Audit third-party access and retain important logs. The 2022 joint advisory recommends storing the most important logs for at least six months.
- Make sure the customer can obtain relevant telemetry needed to investigate activity affecting its systems.
Exercise the incident plan
Test a scenario in which an MSP account or management platform is compromised or unavailable. Confirm who can disable provider access, isolate affected systems, preserve logs, communicate with customers, and restore from protected backups. CISA’s joint advisory recommends exercising incident-response and recovery plans with stakeholder roles defined.
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Compare providers on evidence, not reassurance
When evaluating providers, ask for concrete explanations and evidence across the areas below. CISA guidance supports these evaluation dimensions, but it does not rank or certify particular vendors.
- How narrowly can customer access be scoped, and how are privileged accounts protected?
- How are remote access and RMM accounts secured and audited?
- What monitoring and logging are in place, and what telemetry can the customer receive?
- What are the incident-notification, escalation, and response arrangements?
- Who owns continuity, backups, and recovery tasks?
- How are subcontractors and other supply-chain dependencies assessed?
- Are security responsibilities and customer rights to relevant information clear in the contract?
In a contract or service review, resolve gaps in these answers before they become urgent during an incident. CISA Director Jen Easterly described the policy rationale in a 2022 CISA release: “Securing MSPs are critical to our collective cyber defense, and our interagency and international partners are committed to hardening their security and improving the resilience of our global supply chain.”
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