5 Reasons You Need Managed Detection and Response Right Now

Cybercrime has increased by 600 percent as a fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. Worldwide, cyberattacks are estimated to cost companies $10.5 trillion by 2025, up $7.5 trillion since 2015. To stay ahead of cyberattacks before they happen, companies of all sizes increasingly turn to managed detection and response (MDR) solutions. MDRs are essential to cybersecurity because they constantly evolve as hacking trends change. Keep reading to understand what managed detection and response is, how it works, and why your organization needs it now more than ever.

What is managed detection and response?

Managed detection and response is a contracted incident response service that quickly and effectively detects security threats and responds to them. This service blends tools and technology with human expertise and intelligence to provide threat monitoring, analysis, detection, and response. MDR rose from the need for organizations to fill security gaps and improve in-house security practices.

Although each provider’s services may vary, most MDR services include the following characteristics:

• Use their own set of host-based, network-based, and endpoint security tools and technologies on your premises.
• Rely on security information and event management (SIEM) and advanced analytics.
• Continuously monitor networks.
• Validate individual incidents.
• Provide support, response, and remediation for each incident.

Beyond these basics, providers may enhance their practice with user and entity-based analytics (UEBA), security sensors, and machine learning and AI-based engines to constantly update threat protection.

How managed detection and response works

At a high level, an MDR security team follows this process:

1. Sweeps your organization’s network and endpoint data to search for threats.
2. Prioritizes threats when it detects them.
3. Investigates the origin, scope, and impact of the threat.
4. Alerts your organization about incidents and provides analysis, mitigation recommendations, and incident response assistance.
5. Works with your organization to restore its systems by removing the threat, returning the network and data to its pre-threat state.

5 reasons you need managed detection and response

As hackers amp up attempts to sneak into networks, companies are at greater risk than ever for an attack, with their valuable assets at stake. See why your organization can’t afford to be without MDR as part of your total security strategy.

1. Prevent against cyberattacks

You might only hear about the biggest cyberattacks in the news. But for each large enterprise that’s attacked, thousands of small-to-medium-sized businesses are also attacked. These attacks come from phishing, malware, mobile device attacks, and other threats. Each successful attack comes at a devastating cost for its unassuming victims. By having a cybersecurity strategy with MDR in place, you can prevent an attack that otherwise could cost your company millions of dollars.

2. Secure work-from-home practices

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, companies had shifted employees to work from home as an alternative way to work. However, as the pandemic continues in waves around the globe, work from home has become a permanent solution for many employees in office-related roles. This extended workspace has created an even larger attack surface for hackers to work with. Besides establishing a new set of security practices for your work-from-home employees, you need to secure the additional endpoints your employees have access to.

3. Contain attacks before they spread

Finding a threat serves no purpose if you don’t have the right solution in place to contain it. Threat containment depends on the ability to analyze it and determine its origin, scope, and potential impact. By having a comprehensive cybersecurity MDR solution in place that uses SIEM coupled with analytics, you gain visibility into your entire environment—not just one endpoint. SIEM collects and aggregates information across your environment, where MDR analyzes, correlates, and identifies threats in your organization that need responding to. By gaining this information before it’s too late, you mitigate the risk for your organization and prevent a threat from spreading and impacting others.

4. Prepare to respond to threats

When a cyberattack occurs, you need a plan with protocols in place to respond to the threat. Your organization must be prepared to handle all types of threats that your company is at risk for, including ransomware, security breaches, data loss, and even internal threats from your own employees. Industry regulators, such as GDPR and HIPAA, often have requirements in place for how to respond to threats and impose fines for violators that can cost up to $1 million or more. When you have threat response protocols in place, your MDR provider can enhance your response strategy by providing timely information that enables a proper response.

5. Bridge the gap in cybersecurity resources

Hackers don’t sleep, skip holidays, or take vacations; your cybersecurity strategy shouldn’t either. As cyber threats persist and continue to climb, organizations need skilled staff to stay vigilant each day and night, year-round. You can’t pull resources from your IT department because you need them to keep your business running. Without having access to the cybersecurity staff you need, you place your company at greater risk for a cyber threat to become a cyber nightmare. MDR providers bridge that skill and resource gap, providing continuous monitoring, detection, and incident response services.

Strengthen your security posture

Securing your organization with a fortress doesn’t work for today’s cyber attackers. Stay ahead of the potential cyberattacks looming around your organization before it’s too late. Prepare to mitigate a potential attack by having the right mix of cybersecurity tools, training, practices, and strategies that change with your security posture. To further strengthen your security posture, choose a managed detection and response service that provides the latest AI and machine-learning threat detection, contains incidents before they spread, and rapidly responds to mitigate further risks. Keep your cyber attackers at bay; detect and prevent them with an MDR.