Cybersecurity defense is a specialized task. It requires skilled professionals backed by excellent network tools to deliver managed detection and response (MDR) for any cyber threats. This MDR activity must be delivered from a well-staffed Security Operations Center (SOC) and must occur 24x7 to be effective. Building and maintaining a team of professionals and a SOC to provide protection around the clock is beyond most organizations, including those in the healthcare sector, the public sector, and for all but the largest private sector companies. Most organizations partner with a Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP) like Critical Insight to design, deploy and manage their cybersecurity posture and strategy.
What is Managed Detection and Response (MDR)?
MDR is a cybersecurity service provided by dedicated security professionals to organizations to deliver or augment their internal IT cybersecurity teams. An MDR service removes the burden of cybersecurity provision from already busy IT teams (or provides it for organizations without an IT team) by delivering industry-leading detection of cyberattack activity on a network. MDR uses advanced threat detection to analyze millions of network events to identify suspicious activity that warrants further human investigation. Pure software based MDR isn't enough to deliver the protections needed against modern cyber attackers. Skilled human cybersecurity professionals are essential to analyze attack vectors highlighted by software monitoring tools.
This combined human and software approach to MDR ensures that anomalous network behavior is detected and quarantined quickly by tools and then analyzed by human experts to determine the root cause of any successful cyberattack. This ensures attacks get mitigated in real-time and that protections are updated to prevent similar infiltrations in the future.
MDR ensures that cyberattacks are detected and nullified in hours rather than the very long times that it can take to detect many successful breaches. Dwell time (the period that cybercriminals have access to systems before they are detected) is typically measured in months when there isn't expert MDR in place. See our 24x7 Managed Detection and Response page for more details of Critical Insight’s MDR service offering.
What is a Managed SOC?
The best 24x7 MDR occurs via a Security Operations Center (SOC) staffed by experienced cybersecurity professionals who know the attack methods criminals use and also know the networks they are protecting. A SOC will have the integrated Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems in place to gather network event data from across the whole organization to see the big picture and provide comprehensive protection.
As mentioned above, the resources needed to maintain a SOC are beyond the means of most organizations. And that's before factoring in the day-to-day running of a SOC to cover staff sickness, holidays, and other people management issues. Using a managed SOC from a dedicated and focused security provider such as Critical Insight is a better way for organizations to get a 24x7 SOC and the eyes-on-glass monitoring required.
Critical Insight has geographically separated state-of-the-art SOC facilities that are continuously staffed with enough cybersecurity professionals to cover staff sickness and other staff issues. The geographic separation of the SOCs provides resilience from natural disasters or other issues that might temporarily render one SOC inoperable.
In addition to getting protection from highly skilled cybersecurity professionals 24x7, using the Critical Insight managed SOC-as-a-Service model also provides these benefits:
- Ensures regulatory compliance with readily producible documentation for auditors and business partners.
- Leverages existing technology investments Critical Insight has made in our SOCs.
- Provides SLAs for performance targets based on each organization's needs.
- Avoids HR costs due to SOC staff turnover, which is a big problem in today's competitive job market. Critical Insight has a low rate of staff turnover.
- Allows internal staff to focus on strategic projects to advance the business.
- Ensures new cybersecurity techniques are continuously applied to keep up with the changing threat landscape.
Critical Insight offers 24x7 MDR from a Managed SOC via an annual subscription, with no up-front capital costs. Contact us today to discuss your needs. See Also: