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Beyond the Bare Minimum: What to Truly Expect from Your MDR Provider

In today’s escalating threat landscape, the need for robust cybersecurity is paramount. Many organizations are turning to Managed Detection and Response (MDR) services to augment their security posture. While the promise of 24×7 monitoring and threat detection is a common thread among MDR providers, it’s crucial to understand that this is often just the baseline. To truly safeguard your digital assets, you need an MDR provider that goes beyond the basics and that integrates themselves into your business and your security. Failure to do so can result in diminished visibility into true security issues. 

At its core, a standard MDR service should offer continuous monitoring of your environment to identify and analyze potential security threats. This typically involves: 

  • 24×7 Security Monitoring: Round-the-clock surveillance of your environment, including your network, endpoints, cloud environments, and other SAAS platforms to detect suspicious activities. This ensures that potential threats are identified and addressed promptly, regardless of the time of day. 
  • Threat Detection and Analysis: Utilizing various security technologies, behavioral analytics, and expert analysis to identify malicious behavior and differentiate it from normal activity. This involves sifting through a large volume of security alerts to pinpoint genuine threats and also continual tuning to reduce the volume to noise ratio.   
  • Incident Response: Providing guidance and support in the event of a security incident, helping your organization to eradicate, and recover from the attack. This can range from providing recommendations to actively participating in the response process. 

These foundational elements are essential for any MDR service. However, in a landscape where attackers are becoming increasingly sophisticated, settling for the minimum can leave significant gaps in your defenses.  

More Than Just a ‘One-Size-Fits-All' MDR Servicell

“Big box” MDR providers provide quality security software and a strong 24×7 response. However, due to their need to scale, they typically offer commoditized features, reporting, and limit custom threat investigations. A superior MDR provider understands that each organization has distinct workflows, compliance requirements, and risk tolerances and is able to customize the solution to align with your unique business needs. They provide a flexible, tailored approach that adapts to your specific business needs through: 

  • Custom Runbooks: Developing specific procedures and workflows for responding to different types of threats based on your business environment and priorities. For example, the required response to a potential phishing attack on a basic user vs VIP like an executive  
  • Custom Automation: Implementing customized automation rules to streamline responses to common and well-defined threats, freeing up security analysts to focus on more complex issues. This ensures faster response times and reduces the burden on your internal teams. 
  • Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) capabilities – SOAR takes customized automation a step further by automating the initial stages of investigation and response. When an alert is triggered, SOAR can automatically gather context, run threat intelligence queries, and initiate containment actions (like isolating a compromised device or blocking a malicious IP address). This drastically reduces the Mean Time To Respond (MTTR) and minimizes the impact of an attack. 
  • Capturing your unique data sources: Identifying unique data sources with mission critical data that needs to be protected and helps you build custom integrations to ensure your crown jewels are covered under the consistent security monitoring. Examples: Business SAAS solutions, custom applications, unique operating systems,  
  • Tailored Reporting: Providing security reports that are relevant to your business stakeholders, highlighting key metrics, trends, and actionable insights in a format that is easy to understand. Generic reports often contain irrelevant information and fail to provide a clear picture of your security posture. 
  • Regular Business Reviews: Regularly scheduled meetings to discuss your security posture, review incident trends, and adjust the MDR service to align with evolving business needs and emerging threats. This collaborative approach ensures that your security strategy remains effective over time. 
2. Robust Services and a Deep Bench of Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)

An exceptional MDR provider isn’t just focused on detection and response. They possess a broader understanding of the security landscape and can offer a wider range of services. Providers who also function as Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs) and Managed Service Providers (MSPs), often have a more comprehensive view of IT environments and can address a wider array of security needs beyond just MDR. This includes: 

  • Full-Service Offerings: The ability to address all your security needs, including governance, vulnerability management, offensive security, security assessments, and compliance support, creating a more holistic security strategy. 
  • Full IT Stack Implementation and Management: Expertise in managing and securing your entire IT infrastructure, helping you manage a deeper layer of potential attack vectors and interdependencies. 
  • Access to a Broad Range of Expertise: A larger pool of security and IT professionals with diverse skill sets to address various security challenges effectively.  
3. Senior Security Expertise

With many MDR providers, you might interact with various analysts with different levels of experience. A differentiator for a top-tier MDR service is the assignment of a senior security expertise to your account. This provides significant benefits: 

  • MDR Platform Customization: A senior engineer possesses the deep technical knowledge to fine-tune the MDR platform specifically for your environment, ensuring optimal detection and response capabilities. 
  • Technical Issue Resolution: Having a dedicated point of contact who understands your specific setup and challenges streamlines the resolution of any technical issues that may arise past the basic detection and response. 
  • Consistent Communication and Strategic Guidance: Building a relationship with a senior expert ensures consistent communication, provides valuable strategic guidance for your detection and response service, and fosters a deeper understanding of the visibility into your environment.  
4. Flexible MDR Deployment Capabilities: Adapting to Your Infrastructure

Not all organizations have the same infrastructure or cloud strategy. A truly adaptable MDR provider offers flexible deployment options to accommodate diverse client needs and environments. This includes options like: 

  • Flexible technology deployment models: The ability to deploy the MDR solution in the provider’s cloud, your own cloud environment, or even a hybrid model, offers greater control and flexibility. This ensures that the MDR service integrates seamlessly with your existing infrastructure without forcing you into a specific deployment model and the ability to leverage the most out of your existing investments.   . 
  • Integration Support: Organizations use a vast array of security tools (firewalls, EDR, cloud security platforms, identity providers, vulnerability scanners, etc.), IT systems (on-premise, cloud, hybrid), and applications (SaaS, custom-built). Integration support is critical for a Managed Detection and Response (MDR) provider to deliver comprehensive and effective cybersecurity services to its clients. This includes not just pre-built integrations, but also the crucial ability to deploy custom-developed integrations. 

Conclusion

While 24×7 monitoring is a fundamental component of any MDR service, it should not be the sole criterion for your selectionpicking a partner. To truly enhance your security posture and gain peace of mind, look for an MDR provider that offers tailored solutions, a broad range of expertise, dedicated senior support, and flexible deployment options. Investing in a more comprehensive MDR service will provide significantly greater value and ultimately offer better protection against the ever-evolving threat landscape. 

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MEET THE AUTHOR

Adam Berger

VP, Managed Services & CISO

Adam Berger has over 20 years of experience in Information technology with a diverse technical background including managing cloud service provider platforms, supporting enterprise systems, leading IT security programs, and maintaining mission critical IT infrastructure.
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