Do you have a managed detection and response plan (MDR) in place for the protection and security of your company? At times knowing where to begin your search or where to start can be overwhelming. It doesn’t have to be, though, with the help of someone who has done all the research for you.
Those who seek to permanently damage or leak your company’s critical information are lurking today, and they are constantly upping their offenses. By bringing in a more dynamic MDR plan, you’re providing your company with the protection it needs.
Continue reading to learn all you need to know about an MDR plan.
What is an MDR Plan?
An MDR plan is something that was created for companies to be able to detect threats when they came along. It also helped improve their ability to respond to these cyber threats as well.
1) MDR plans focus on detecting any cyber threats.
2) MDR Plans must have its services and tools delivered by their providers. This means that your provider must be responsible with managing and monitoring the services they have provided for you. They must also keep these services protected from any threats by having security tools. These security tools can vary between different providers.
3) Most MDR plans rely heavily on security management as well as for analytic measures.
4) It can be possible for automation to be used for MDR plans, but it can be more helpful for your employees to take charge on that end. The analysis of any security alert can be done by your employees with helpful training. It can also be helpful for your clients to know it is a person working with them behind the screen instead of an automated machine or system.
5) Paired along with your MDR plan you should also have an incident validation and remote response system. This is basically geared towards the structure of your MDR plan. Your provider can offer help with fixing up any vulnerabilities your plan may have as well.
How to Improve Your Detection and Response Plan
The information you need in order to create an effective detection and response plan is listed below. You do not have to be a technical genius to be able to fully understand and put into effect the following practices.
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Have Your MDR Plans Physically Written Out or Documented
Make sure to have your incident response plans written and documented to ensure it is kept in a safe place. While there can be meetings conducted for your incident response plans, it is best to have it in physical writing.
Having your plans in writing is beneficial legally as well as for the company’s cybersecurity system. Another reason for having these things in writing is for keeping track of anything that may become outdated over time.
By teaming up with your employees and creating a clear MDR plan you can successfully dodge cybersecurity threats.
Put Your MDR Plan to The Test
Have your MDR plans tested. This means that no matter how effective you think your MDR plan is, there is no real way of knowing without putting your plans through tests. You can then filter which steps need to be taken out and which need to be repaired.
It is also important to know that with every state there may be periodic testing required for your plan. You may need to put your plans through testing every month, year, or whenever there are new updates to your MDR plan.
Your MDR Plan Can And Should Change
Always remember that managed detection and response plans can never stay the same. MDR plans must evolve over time in order to ensure it’s working to the best of its ability. Considering the tests that your plans are put through, there is bound to be room for improvement.
While looking at these liabilities and consistently improving them to improve your plan, it is important to understand one thing. Your MDR plan needs to be strong enough to be easily modified to the changes your company makes or to adhere to various scenarios.
Have Your Plans Put Into Effect
Be sure to have these incident response plans put into agreement throughout your entire business. This practice can be done by simply integrating your policies with ones that your company already has in place.
Because the size of every company is different, it can be difficult to know whether your plan will be able to smoothly integrate itself. For example, larger highly valued companies can have an extensive plan with multiple people involved to ensure it can function.
Advantages to Having an MDR Plan
1) A huge benefit to having an MDR plan is the readiness you feel knowing your company’s system is prepared for any cyber attack that may come your way. When an attack is placed on a company’s system, most employees panic. They struggle to effectively look at the impression the cyber attack left on the system.
By creating an MDR plan that has a well-detailed outline on how your response plan is supposed to be you can skip over all the panic and go straight to repair your system.
2) Another benefit to having an MDR plan in place is the fact that your security system will lessen the severity of potential incidents. You can feel at peace knowing that if an attack on your system were to happen, you would have all the right protective measures in place.
3) An important piece of advice to follow is maintaining the relationships you have with your customers, investors, as well as business partners even during a crisis. If a cyber security breach were to happen, it is in your favor to let your customer know of it.
This instills trust between you and the customer. By letting them know, you can work to find how the breach happened and how to prevent it from happening again. A huge gesture to the company would be to continue that form of communication with every breach.
To ensure that a connection or form of trust is created and maintained between you and your customer, it’s best to do the following:
- Create a timetable for your communications system
- You can also create pre-drafted messages or customized ones for a particular situation for the management you work for
- Have your employees trained on the proper way to communicate with your customer
4) By improving your skills in communicating with the different departments within your company you can help create a more unified workplace. The first thing to know about your MDR plan is to know that it does not solely fall on one department of your company.
By acknowledging this you can count on the collaboration of many of your employees. Typically, in a cyber security crisis and without the proper communications training in place, your employees will most likely not talk to one another.
One way to solve this communications issue is to simply put into place an effective communications plan. Your employees should learn to exchange vital information in a timely manner. Encourage this as it will provide your company with the skill to evaluate incidents in a more concise manner.
5 ) A more self-explanatory piece of advice is to strengthen the security system you already have in place. There is no such thing as a perfect MDR plan. Every plan can be improved, and every plan can be worked upon and maybe even come close to perfection.
6 ) Lastly, the security benefits to having an MDR plan are the advantage of identifying every possible threat that passes through. Your plan may be designed to help you determine which security alerts are definite threats and which are small defects in your system.
Seek Help
There is no shame in needing more help with understanding or even creating a managed detection and response plan. If you feel the need to speak to a professional on this topic, don’t hesitate to contact RSI Security for a free consultation.
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