A Managed Detection and Response (MDR) service will take over where your security stops. It is a 24/7 solution for advanced threat hunting and protection with ongoing vulnerability scans and remediation. And it costs less than deploying the same services in your own company. You don’t have to buy high-tech tools, find qualified security professionals and then pay a lot of money for either of those things.
Companies like RSI Security offer these MDR or remote IT security services alone or as part of a package of Managed Security Services that includes traditional network scanning, but adds real-time analysis and protection. The tools that RSI Security employs are state-of-the-art, but they are nothing without experienced cybersecurity analysts to sort out the false positives and detect attacks before or as they are occurring. RSI Security Analysts have the intellectual power and know-how to deploy and manage advanced tools.
Time for Tools
Not only does a superb MDR service require the expertise of cybersecurity professionals, but it requires the right kind of tools. The tools that RSI Security uses are highly advanced top-of-the-line industry tools that provide clarity to all aspects of the MDR lifecycle: Asset Management; Vulnerability Management; Threat Detection and Prioritization; and Response.
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Step 1: Covering Your Assets
The first step in securing your assets is documenting all the assets on your network, including the ones you didn’t know were there or the unmanaged assets. This requires a network scanner that can do more than ping your assets. RSI Security tools categorize your asset inventory and report on the lifecycle of those assets so you know which ones are unsupported and obsolete and which ones will likely be holes in your defense. With remote IT security service this is performed continuously.
The assets are assessed and prioritized for the latest vulnerabilities. And you can get a picture of your security posture at any time in real-time. This includes your certificate inventory, cloud inventory, container hosts and their information, and mobile device inventory. You will be given detailed information about your assets such as the services that are running, the software that is installed on each component and software license auditing. In short, you have a comprehensive view of everything on your network drilled down to what’s running on it and what security vulnerabilities exist.
Step 2: Vulnerability Management
Vulnerability management is closely tied to asset management. Not only does RSI Security’s MDR service detect what is running on your systems, it detects what is vulnerable, including misconfigurations and unnecessary services for each particular asset using the Center for Internet Security benchmarks. Software vulnerabilities are detected in real-time, as well, against a signature database.
Once the vulnerabilities are discovered they must be assessed in order of severity. The MDR will do this automatically and then fix your vulnerabilities with the latest superseding patches. Using remote IT security service will help your organization increase its efficiency and speed when responding to threats. RSI Security’s tools are on 24 hours a day seven days a week monitoring and remediating issues on your network.
Step 3: Threat Detection and Prioritization
To stay one step ahead of hackers, you want an MDR with continuous monitoring to let you know about threats and network changes before there is a problem. You want the best breach prevention your money can buy. Your MDR should be aware of changes before hackers are. With the right MDR service, you will get a hacker’s eye view of your network perimeter and assets and be alerted to any differences in your most important assets. Your MDR will deploy patches to any vulnerabilities before they can be exploited, such as software that has been added or ports that have been left open. The vulnerable host is identified by IP address and hostname so you know exactly where the weakness is on your network.
Because an MDR is on 24/7 with continuous monitoring, you always know your security posture. You should be able to ask for a report at any point in time. Reports should include such things as trends in issues or attacks, problem areas, or details for forensic requirements. Your MDR will handle implementing decisions automatically or by input from you. You should be able to ask when, where, what and how of an incident and connect multiple incidents together by the same root cause through analysis of these details. Part of the visibility should include ports that have been recently opened or software that has been changed.
Prioritization
A remote IT security provider will identify and categorize security events by threat level and then deploy the most urgent patches with the most critical impact first. You don’t have to do anything. Threats are continuously analyzed and matched to your vulnerabilities and assets. Threats are exposed and categorized in real-time and the MDR service will handle solution deployment. With thousands of threats each year, it’s important to have a service helping sort the important ones from the less critical.
Whether your assets are in the cloud or in your own LAN, an MDR service is able to alert you to assets that are at-risk. This is important because you can become overwhelmed with the number of bugs and other vulnerabilities that are reported on a daily basis. Having the MDR categorize and respond to the most critical security incidents allows you to focus on your business and improve efficiency and understanding into application lifecycles.
Your MDR can tell how many of your assets are affected by any single disclosure and can detect all types of threats as they occur in real-time. The MDR will know if there is a zero-day vulnerability, a well known public exploit, a vulnerability that is currently being exploited in the wild, a vulnerability that gives the attacker broad access to your network, easy exploits for script kiddies, vulnerabilities that could result in huge data loss, DOS, malware, vulnerabilities for which no patch exists, and vulnerabilities for which an exploit kit exists.
Step 4: Response
The fourth step in MDR is response or remediation. This includes the deployment of patches or removal of obsolete or unauthorized devices from the network, including mobile devices. Your MDR service should be able to handle your network size and keep all recurring patches whether or not they are security patches up to date. You may want a scalable MDR service that can keep pace with your network growth.
When it comes to protecting your mission-critical data and information systems, the sophistication of today’s threats requires a more proactive cybersecurity stance than ever. That’s exactly what managed detection and response services are all about.
Also Read: Benefits of Having a Managed Detection and Response Plan
Organizations across the board can no longer sit back and wait for threats to emerge. Managed detection and response services hunt for threats on a daily basis, and help organizations respond rapidly and effectively to eliminate the threat.
If and when a threat is detected, an experienced MDR partner like RSI Security will provide cyber incident response services that neutralize the threat and remediate any damage. A managed approach to threat detection and security incident response service takes a significant burden off of your internal cybersecurity teams and helps secure your data and systems around the clock. For a free consultation, contact RSI Security today.
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.