Threat detection and response is becoming an essential aspect of cybersecurity for organizations that depend on cloud infrastructure. Moreover, cybercrimes also take longer to fix which leads to more organizations losing a significant amount of their revenues.
According to a 2019 study by the Ponemon Institute and Accenture, the average number of annual security breaches in 2018 grew by 11 percent from 130 to 145. This is why organizations need to come up with a robust managed detection and response (MDR) plan in place to combat and stay on top of emerging threats.
In general, MDR is defined as security providers that offer services to businesses and organizations that aim to enhance the way they identify threats, respond to incidents, and keep track of their assets always. MDR service arose from the continuous need for enterprises that do not have the security tools to be more aware of the risks and enhance their capability to identify and remediate threats.
While unique MDR service providers have their set of equipment and precautions in identifying and responding threats, all offerings depend mainly on security event management and advanced analytics. There is also some automation used, but most of the work usually involves human resources who track your network 24/7.
The increase in cyberattacks can mainly be attributed to the expanding threat landscape and innovative business technologies that are getting more sophisticated for employees to handle. Without the ability to identify network intruders and malicious adversaries in real-time, organizations have no hope of responding to security events and mitigating threats and damages effectively.
At present, cyberattacks now cost organizations an average of $200,000, which puts many out of business. Related statistics further added that data breaches exposed five billion records in 2018. More specifically, roughly 43 percent of these cyberattacks are aimed at small and medium-sized businesses, but only 14 percent are prepared to defend themselves.
Assess your cybersecurity
How MDR Service Providers Work?
MDR service providers will also perform an analysis of security and notify the organization about how inherent risks may affect their data. In other words, organizations can have direct communication with the analysts instead of depending on a dashboard that notifies and investigates security events, management of cases, and other security-related activities.
Other than that, Remote IT security providers conduct remote response and incident validation as well. This helps organizations to determine signs of a cyberattack, do sandboxing, and reverse engineer a component of malware. What is more, is that these security analysts can also provide consultation on how an organization can contain or remedy security vulnerabilities.
Unlike other security providers, the services provided by MDR are distributed using their technologies and tools but adopt user on-premise deployment. The technology stack is often packed with essential equipment that can deal with network and host-based solutions.
Usually, the methods MDR or remote IT security service providers use often vary with some relying mainly on security logs and others using endpoint activity and network security monitoring to safeguard business systems. While it can satisfy the requirements of the strictest regulatory standards in the industry, MDR is more focused on threat detection rather than compliance.
This is why organizations should also take into account the MDR plan and provider they choose to make sure that it can address their current needs. Today’s Remote IT security solutions depend on visibility into security alerts and events mixed with threat hunting and anomaly detection to identify the apparent warnings that need attention as well as more subtle signs of compromise that might signal a threat.
While some contemporary malware is easy to detect, a more complex attacker with backdoor access may leave few clues about an intrusion and is silently extracting confidential information over months at a time. Organizations outsourcing security need MDR more than ever to enhance cybersecurity resilience.
Also Read: Benefits of Having a Managed Detection and Response Plan
With the security landscape starting to become more complex and the costs of maintaining sufficient in-house security teams getting more expensive, it makes so much sense for many organizations to outsource threat detection and response. This ensures that they can promptly determine potential threats and react swiftly to lessen damages.
Traditional managed security service providers (MSSPs) have been popular with organizations looking to boost their alerting and threat monitoring capabilities. Unfortunately, the caveat with legacy MSSPs is that the degree of remediation support and threat visibility they offer can often prove inadequate.
Plus, organizations leveraging MSSPs may find that they do not receive what they require when they need it most with the in-house resources being stretched. An MDR service provider goes above and beyond the scope of an MSSP by offering organizations with intelligence, technology, and specialist expertise to pinpoint, contain, and eradicate the most sophisticated and persistent threat actors before they cause catastrophic damages and business interruption.
Businesses can turn to Remote IT security service providers to help address the growing cyber talent scarcity as well. According to recent data by Cybersecurity Ventures, the online security industry will have close to 3.5 million jobs available by 2021.
More often than not, MDR service providers integrate tools like endpoint detection and response and other solutions to capture threats, evaluate risk, and connect data to recognize patterns that could indicate a more massive attack. According to Gartner, 15 percent of organizations will have an MDR plan in place by the end of 2020.
Nevertheless, Gartner further advises organizations to be wary when choosing an MDR provider, with many MSSPs declaring to offer MDR-type services without the appropriate toolsets and insights to do so. Outlined in this article are essential aspects to remember when choosing an MDR service provider to ensure more robust cybersecurity and avoid sophisticated threats.
Comprehensive Security Background
By supplying the personnel needed to keep track of endpoints and network, MDR acts as an extension of in-house resources, which assists the organization in connecting the gap between knowledge and cyber support. When picking an MDR plan, organizations should consider a provider that has an in-depth understanding of the tactics used by cybercriminals, the cybersecurity landscape, and the tools that are used to combat them.
Legacy managed service companies often assign generalist support staff who lack the knowledge and specialist skills needed to track the cybersecurity of the organization and investigate incidents carefully. This can put the organization in grave danger, most notably since adversaries are now using sophisticated tools to penetrate business networks.
This is why businesses should opt for an MDR provider that puts great importance on staff training, has several security accreditations, and is seasoned at using multiple threat detection technologies. Besides that, organizations should also make sure that a provider demonstrates excellent concentration on service delivery and customer service.
Dissimilar to many MSSPs, top MDR companies like RSI Security work efficiently to establish a comprehensive understanding of the security risks and networks of their clients. This assures that they can provide the tailored insight and advice needed to identify and respond to threats proactively.
MDRs Have the Latest Security Technologies
With a myriad of cybersecurity technologies available on the market to help organizations prevent, identify, contain, and remediate threats, it can be challenging and time-consuming to assess the options and choose the right solutions. Most enterprises require a range of security technologies to safeguard their environments, but simultaneously overseeing and tracking multiple disparate systems is a challenge.
Other than that, expensive technologies can quickly become obsolete with threats continually evolving. This is why organizations must look for an MDR service provider that offers an extensive range of detection technologies, including behavioral monitoring, vulnerability scanning, endpoint detection and response, intrusion detection system, and security information and event management.
Working with an MDR provider that has a vendor-agnostic mindset to technology will provide you with peace of mind that any solutions deployed will be the best fit for each environment. MDR providers with orchestration and automation tools can also help you contextualize and aggregate the extensive amounts of notifications engendered by security technologies and consolidate them into a single platform, eliminating the time-consuming task of having to pivot between different systems.
In some cases, an MDR plan may also include development operation capabilities to improve efficiency further. This ensures easy integration of services into the workflows and ticket management systems of the organization.
Offer Proactive Threat Hunting Capabilities
As threats and vulnerabilities become more evasive, sophisticated, and persistent than ever before, the passive tracking approach used by MSSPs is becoming more ineffective. Look for an MDR provider that has real-time threat hunters who utilize the most innovative behavioral analytics and updated security intelligence to proactively look for new kinds of threats that evade current defenses.
By creating a baseline, configuring custom rule sets, and optimizing a range of technologies like AI and machine learning tools, MDR can rapidly determine indicators of compromise and break the kill chain of attacks. Aside from that, an MDR plan goes far beyond the scope of traditional MSSPs using the latest tools and intelligence to provide actionable insights and analytics.
This, in turn, leads to enhanced incident awareness and more reliable and swifter decision-making. One of the most common skepticisms of traditional MSSPs is that they are unable to deliver tangible guidance and insight, with many of them accused of typically passing alerts over the wall.
By providing regular reports, MDR companies help organizations understand the risks and fulfill the requirements of regulatory compliance standards. While MDR does not necessarily focus on compliance, having one puts an organization on the right track to achieving compliance regulations like DPA 2018, PCI-DSS, NIS Directive, and GDPR.
Provide Integrated Incident Response
With the absence of a high level of support and guidelines on how to respond to incidents when they are determined, enterprises using MSSPs are usually unable to react fast enough to cybercrimes to minimize disruption and damage. MDR providers place high importance on an incident response as it provides comprehensive incident notifications, remediation guidance, and reports to ensure threats are shut down immediately before they can spread.
Organizations should go after MDR providers that have EDR skills to contain and isolate threats and incident playbooks to back swift responses to several threat scenarios. It is also essential that the MDR provider can provide extra onsite or virtual support to help with high-priority incidents.
Furthermore, seek out an MDR plan that provides rapid deployment and can be tailored and scaled to meet changing business needs to ensure easy deployment. With more and more organizations using cloud services, companies should look for an MDR partner with the specialist knowledge and toolsets required to achieve threat visibility throughout VMWare, Hyper-V, G-Suite, Office 365, Azure, and Amazon Web Service (AWS) environments.
Real-time Security Intelligence
Another critical component that every organization should take into account when choosing an MDR plan is high-quality security intelligence. A key advantage of an MDR service over MSSPs is that it usually uses an extensive range of knowledge combining external threat data with in-house research and first-hand insights from multiple clients throughout a variety of industries.
By having a diverse range of intelligence resources, organizations can quickly determine the tactics, techniques, and procedures of adversaries and accumulate more in-depth and better-contextualized security analytics. Quality intelligence can be used to enhance detection processes as well, including the establishment of incident response playbooks and the correlation of rule sets.
Final Thoughts
Although it is a relatively new component of information security services, MDR is proving to be valuable for an organization aiming to build a more robust and comprehensive security posture.
An MDR plan also helps in establishing proactive security controls as recommended by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, International Data Corporation, and Gartner.
If your organization is seeking to enhance its threat detection and incident response programs, MDR service providers could be an economical way to achieve these goals. Talk to an expert at RSI Security today to find out how your organization needs to put a comprehensive MDR plan to reach greater heights.
Download Our Breach Response Checklist
Whether you’re in the midst of a breach or preparing a plan for the future – this checklist will give a good starting point for responding to a breach. Upon filling out this brief form you will receive the checklist via email.