Microsoft MISA Further Expands; MSSPs Gain Security Integrations

The Microsoft Intelligent Security Association (MISA), an ecosystem of MSSPs and independent software vendors (ISVs), continues to expand.

Indeed, MISA's newest member is Pathlock, an access orchestration platform provider. More than a handshake partnership, Pathlock now integrates with Microsoft Azure Active Directory (AD). The connection provides greater control and visibility over Provisioning, User Access Reviews, and Separation of Duties, the company noted.

Pathlock works with many of the world's largest MSSPs. The 140-person company also supports roughly 1,000 of the world's top Global 5000 companies.

Pathlock joins MISA less than one month after phishing detection and response (PDR) solutions provider Cofense also joined the organization. Cofense received a nomination to join MISA based on its PhishMe phishing attack simulation platform's Recipient Sync feature, which lets organizations provision and update users from Azure AD.

Microsoft MISA: Security Software Integration and MSSPs

MISA has generated steady growth over the past year or so. Indeed, MISA had 67 MSSP members that supported 165 managed security services as of August 2021. Also, the organization had 176 ISVs that delivered 259 integrations as of July 2021. The net result, in theory, is an ecosystem of MSSPs that can more tightly integrate various third-party tools and Microsoft technologies into their security service catalogs.

Still, Microsoft's rivals also are building MSSP partner ecosystems. For instance, Amazon Web Services (AWS) in August 2021 announced the Level 1 MSSP Competency for AWS Partners as part of its efforts to expand its MSSP partnerships. AWS Partners can earn this competency to provide AWS security and monitoring as a fully managed service.