How AI Adoption Is Driving Investment Into Cybersecurity Basics: Blackwood Execs
How AI Adoption Is Driving Investment Into Cybersecurity Basics: Blackwood Execs
Publish Date: 2026-05-15 14:19:00
Source Domain: www.crn.com
The solution provider is seeing that the need for securing AI ‘oftentimes lead back to [investing in] good cyber hygiene,’ Blackwood President Ryan Morris tells CRN.
Amid the race to enable secure adoption of AI and agentic technologies, many organizations are discovering that the first step is not necessarily using more AI, according to top executives at solution provider Blackwood.
Instead, the urgency around securely adopting AI is frequently resulting in a re-focusing on longstanding cybersecurity fundamentals such as endpoint visibility, identity security and data protection, the executives told CRN.
[Related: 10 Key AI Security Controls For 2026]
“It leads back to some core domains of security that have existed for a long time—endpoint security for visibility and enforcement, identity for privilege and permissions,” said Ryan Morris, president at Annapolis, Md.-based Blackwood, No. 93 on CRN’s Solution Provider 500 for 2025. “And so we’re seeing that securing AI oftentimes leads back to [investing in] good cyber hygiene.”
This need to focus on the security basics is only becoming more acute as AI agents and applications increasingly connect deeper into an organization’s IT systems and repositories for sensitive data, Blackwood executives said.
The issue is exacerbated by the growing difficulties around gaining visibility in AI and agentic behavior, however, according to Blackwood CTO Chris Ebley.
AI usage has quickly spread to the point that organizations are now using a variety of means to try to control the tools—such as monitoring browser-based AI usage or using an MCP (model context protocol) proxy to understand how agents are connecting to tools, Ebley said.
And yet, developers and users are often rapidly adopting new approaches, including connecting directly…
