As cyber attacks grow increasingly sophisticated, organizations must leverage a variety of internal and external tools and resources to combat threats. Unfortunately, building and maintaining a Security Operations Center (SOC) to strengthen and fortify security posture is costly and complex.
Managed detection and response (MDR) is one of many services offered by third-party SOC as a Service (SOCaaS) providers aimed at helping to resolve an organization’s gaps in cyber security skills and resources by providing cost-effective alternatives to an in-house SOC.
Specifically, MDR helps organizations to identify and remediate cyber threats through comprehensive 24x7x365 security monitoring, advanced threat detection and intelligence tools, and expert analysis. It allows organizations to mitigate threats more quickly and accurately and prevent future threats, ultimately saving them time and resources.
What Issues Can Managed Detection and Response Address in Your Organization?
While large enterprises typically have the resources to establish and train highly-skilled security teams and deploy advanced toolsets, most smaller companies lack the resources to perform full-time threat hunting and remediation in house and struggle to launch complex endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions.
Advanced Threat Detection & Intelligence Tools
MDR incorporates Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) tools with its security implementation, playing a significant role in threat detection, analysis, and response.
Although EDR tools are an important part of any security solution, they are often severely underutilized because they require significant time, skills, and training to manage effectively. For example, they produce a large volume of alerts. Oftentimes, these alerts cannot be classified as malicious, which means that they must be checked manually, and often.
Even after a threat is identified, security teams must analyze logs and notifications to determine the likelihood that a threat (or threats) could eventually become a part of a larger attack. This can be an overwhelming task for smaller security teams and may distract from managing other important tasks.
Importantly, a comprehensive MDR solution is backed by intelligence tools that detect emerging and evolving threats and continuously update threat intelligence data. These toolsets can often identify malicious activity before commercial and open source threat feeds identify this activity. This is a HUGE advantage that MDR providers have over in-house security teams.
A Necessary Human Element
Although security technologies can help block potential threats, security teams must still be able to determine the whats, hows, and whys behind incidents, which requires a human element. An effective MDR solution utilizes advanced threat detection and intelligence tools in combination with highly-skilled cybersecurity talent to identify, validate, and remediate threats.
An MDR provider gives organizations access to a network of cybersecurity experts, analysts, researchers, and engineers who monitor networks, evaluate issues, and respond to concerns.
These security teams are well trained on how to recognize threats and perform thorough analyses to determine the best method for protecting against future attacks.
MDR vs. MSSPs
Historically, organizations have used managed security service providers (MSSPs) to address their external security needs. While MDR providers can detect lateral movement within a cyber network, MSSPs usually work with perimeter-based technologies and rule-based detections to recognize potential threats within a system.
Additionally, MSSPs typically address known threats like vulnerability exploits, malware, and high-volume attacks. Security professionals using MSSPs perform very basic log management, monitoring, and analysis, but usually do not explore these areas in depth. Their analysis does not include extensive forensics, threat research, and evaluation.
Choosing a Managed Detection and Response (MDR) Provider
Today’s threat landscape requires that organizations remain ever-vigilant. AIS combines machine learning with human intelligence to detect faster, respond smarter, and predict and prevent more threats altogether.
We combine our in-house services with industry-leading cybersecurity partners to provide our clients with comprehensive cybersecurity solutions to help organizations minimize the likelihood and breadth of a breach and remediate gaps in security posture.
AIS’s cybersecurity services are designed to help you before, during, and after a security breach occurs so that you can minimize the impact and get back to running your business as soon as possible. Get in touch today to learn more about our managed detection and response services.