Why you need Managed Detection and Response

The cybersecurity threat landscape is always changing. New threats are continually appearing, and existing threats evolve and pose new risks to businesses and other organisations. For example, ransomware has been around for years but had a significant global increase over the last few years. It was up 15% in 2019, and 20% again in 2020*.

Managing the risks posed by cyberattacks is now a core component of the operations in all organisations. It's a 24/7 task to provide protection and keep up to date with the changing threat landscape. Cybersecurity is a business function that needs dedicated security professionals.

Unfortunately, not all organisations can provide the resources to deliver this function. Even those that can often find it hard to recruit and retain staff with the experience and skills needed. In many organisations, what happens is that the task of cybersecurity risk management is given to the IT team, who are already tasked with other deliverables. This is a bad idea. It takes these staff away from delivering the functions they are assigned to improve the business. It also means they have responsibility for a vital process that needs a focus they can't provide.

What is Managed Detection and Response (MDR)?

Managed Detection and Response (MDR) is a service provided by dedicated security companies. It is a service designed to lift the burden of 24/7 cybersecurity monitoring and risk from organisations, and place it with focused professionals who live, breathe, and sleep cybersecurity. MDR services and solutions are designed to augment or replace any internal cybersecurity teams that are in place. And allow them to get on with other IT related tasks that drive forward the organisation's goals.

MDR goes beyond Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs) network monitoring services and managed Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solutions.

How Can MDR Augment Your Security Response?

MDR solutions do all the things you would expect from an outsourced MSSP or SIEM contract. In addition to identifying anomalies and other suspicious events, MDR also includes analysis of the security event, a plan to prevent any breach spreading further, along with plans on how to remove it and repair any damage. Many MDR offerings also ensure that any breach successfully cleared has not left any backdoors or other ticking time-bombs behind on the network to be activated at a later date.

MDR solutions offer the following to organisations. These are beneficial from both a cybersecurity risk prevention point of view, and in delivering any regulatory requirements that need to be fulfilled.

Highly knowledgeable security expertise - software and human experts who monitor the network for anomalous behaviour. With software providing the alerts and human experts analysing them to remove false positives and then investigate those that warrant investigation.
Improved cybersecurity response times - detect and resolve threats in real-time.
End-to-end security investigations - full analysis of events with reporting that can be understood by non-security focused executives and IT staff.
Plans to combat any attack or breach - detect and stop ongoing attacks in minutes, rather than the month-long dwell times that are the norm on unmonitored networks.
Provide plans to resolve any breaches - plans for how any detected breach can be resolved, and how any future attacks using the same technique can be blocked.
Audit trails - full accountability for regulatory compliance and audits.

Conclusion

Renaissance partners and vendors have offerings that cover the complete gamut of managed network monitoring and response. Including full MDR services and solutions. Contact us to discuss your needs and find out more.

*As reported in the SonicWall 2020 Cyber Threat Report.