In a cybersecurity breach, every second counts.
To maintain a robust risk posture, it is critical businesses not only detect potential threats but swiftly respond to incidents in real time.
However, average response time continues to increase, taking organizations 277 days (around nine months) to identify and mitigate breaches in 2022—49 days longer than average.
To minimize this window, mitigate risks, and maintain full visibility across systems, it is best practice to enlist a managed security service provider (MSSP) offering managed detection and response (MDR).
Here’s a useful explainer highlighting MDR’s benefits, differences from standard MSSPs, and important factors to consider when choosing a provider to help you achieve a robust, proactive cybersecurity posture.
Managed detection and response (MDR) services leverage top-tier threat intelligence and cutting-edge technology to provide continuous monitoring, threat hunting, and incident response.
MDR is distinct in providing threat detection, containment, and response during a breach, as well as industry expertise to identify new threat tactics as they arise. It entrusts the management of endpoint detection and response (EDR) services to a third-party team of security experts.
Providers often manage this and other services through a Security Operations Center (SOC), offering tailored solutions—or Security Operations Center-as-a-service (SOCaaS)—to meet an organization’s unique needs.
By 2025, management consulting company Gartner anticipates 60% of organizations will leverage MDR for remote threat detection and containment—up from 30% today.
By enlisting skilled cybersecurity providers to safeguard assets 24/7/365, organizations outsourcing MDR often reap benefits of top-level expertise, unparalleled visibility, cost savings, and so much more.
Here’s a brief list of other associated advantages:
Managed security service providers (MSSPs) supply third-party security services to enhance an organization's risk posture.
The key difference between MSSP and MDR services is that the former often do not provide incident response necessarily— a key in timely and effective threat detection, isolation, and eradication in the event of a breach.
While they might offer high-level security and risk assessment solutions, for example, MSSPs often defer alerts to a company’s in-house IT staff for investigation.
However, this can widen the window of response times regarding breaches.
In the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic, a seismic shift to remote work, and ongoing geopolitical tensions, response downtime continues to increase.
Fifty-eight percent of the more than 3,600 IT and security professionals surveyed in IBM’s “Cyber Resilient Organization Study 2021” responded that the time from detection to response had increased in their organization.
This underscores the importance of streamlining incident response by enlisting a skilled MSSP offering MDR for continuous monitoring, risk mitigation, and rapid incident response.
Although standard MSSP services differ by provider, they generally lack the robust offerings of MDR.
Here’s a useful checklist between the two:
MDR |
MSSP |
|
Managing Firewalls |
|
✔ |
Patch Management |
|
✔ |
24/7 Monitoring & Response |
✔ |
|
Team of Experts for Assistance |
✔ |
✔ |
Deception Technology |
✔ |
|
Managed Threat Hunting |
✔ |
|
Intelligence-Based Detection, Triage & Investigation of Threats |
✔ |
|
Access to Existing Threat Intelligence & Analysis |
✔ |
To reap the benefits of managed security services (MSSP) and the cutting-edge offerings of MDR, it is best practice to enlist an MSSP offering MDR.
When selecting the right provider to meet your organization’s unique needs, consider the following factors:
Cybersafe Solutions is an MSSP offering MDR and a suite of services tailored to meet your organization’s unique needs.
Compared with extended detection and response (XDR) and endpoint detection and response (EDR), MDR minimizes downtime between detection and response through top-tier security expertise and full visibility.
Our trained specialists continuously monitor your endpoint, network, and cloud environments 24/7/365 to detect and mitigate vulnerabilities, minimize attack potential, and bolster a robust security posture.
Leveraging state-of-the-art technology and more than 20 years of experience in public and private sector security, our advisors and analyst teams are constantly crafting new methods to detect threat tactics in real time.
With MDR that provides full visibility into all your essential assets, Cybersafe partners with you to continuously monitor your systems 24/7/365, mitigate risks, and proactively thwart threats, from the start.