Why your business needs managed detection and response

How quickly could your business detect and respond to a cyber attack? Think about that for a moment.?

Perhaps you do feel like the response would be quick. You might have a robust incident response plan or simply have started working with a cybersecurity provider to improve your protections.

When you think of cybersecurity threats, you might think of someone dropping in, deploying malware and then leaving. However, this is seldom the case, and we are seeing many threat actors dwelling in corporate systems and infrastructure for up to?fifteen days?before deploying ransomware. At this time, the attacker is most likely attempting to gain access to more of your systems and see what data they can access and steal.

Managed detection and response (MDR) is a security service that proactively monitors your IT environment for threats 24/7. MDR is your SOC or Security Operations Centre, taking care of monitoring, detection, response, and reporting. In addition to my earlier example, here is why your business needs Managed Detection and Response.

The NIST Cybersecurity Framework and MDR

Frameworks are an unbiased method for examining your cybersecurity posture and highlighting where you must improve.

The NIST Cybersecurity Framework?helps organisations to effectively manage and reduce cyber risk. The framework provides a flexible, risk-based approach for you to identify, assess, and mitigate cybersecurity threats.

MDR satisfies the Detect function of the NIST’s cybersecurity framework, so the framework is a good way to justify leveraging it. The Detect function defines the appropriate activities to identify the occurrence of a cybersecurity event in a timely manner. MDR meets the requirements by looking for anomalies in the network, be that a suspicious event like an unexpected login from overseas, looking for malicious code running on a device, or monitoring and securing your physical environments.

The Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) also recommends that organisations implement threat-hunting measures to discover and mitigate cyber security incidents, which is what MDR does.

4 compelling reasons to leverage MDR

Too often, we see businesses mistaking outsourced IT as protection against cyber threats. Your managed service provider (MSP) will keep things running, but they might not check your infrastructure for anomalies or suspicious behaviour and respond to a cyber attack, whether at 10 am on a Wednesday or 2 am on a Sunday.

MDR is a cybersecurity service for proactively monitoring your networks and endpoints for threats. It includes the following benefits:

1. Round-the-clock monitoring

Threat actors do not stop working when your business closes for the day. These threats can come from anyone from any time zone. So, your cyber security solutions need to operate 24/7 to proactively combat threats.

MDR services consistently work in the background to monitor your cybersecurity twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. They will find any issues quickly and before you notice anything wrong. They have the security professionals and technology to maintain this cadence, so you also do not have to worry about the effort that goes into building such a capability. This peace of mind lets you focus on what is important: running your business.?

2. Increase protection against ransomware

MDR improves your protection against sophisticated cybersecurity threats, such as ransomware. They have robust experience responding to a range of cyber threats and staying abreast of recent developments. MDR monitors your business and IT infrastructure to quickly detect and respond to attacks, containing the damage and minimising the impact of an attack. They will look for known attacks and any other activity that indicates an unknown threat has penetrated the system.

MDR’s proactive approach means that they can recognise and prevent malicious software from successfully holding your systems for ransom. They will monitor for suspicious activity targeting your business systems and deal with them before an attack occurs.

3. Prevent incidents falling through the cracks

You might deploy protections such as multi-factor authentication (MFA) and password managers or train your team on cybersecurity best practices to mitigate threats. Sometimes, all it takes for a cyber attack to become a success is a password written down on a notepad or a system without MFA. You need a partner that provides MDR to monitor your systems and detect suspicious activity for the times when cybercriminals find a way to slip through the cracks.

Rather than wait for a cyber event to occur and then attempt to mitigate the impact, MDR focuses on hunting for threats in network activity. MDR is about looking for indicators of a potential attack, including those missed by other security software, instead of simply responding to alerts. What really makes MDR unique is that it includes a human element. Instead of relying on artificial intelligence, you have skilled analysts reviewing threats and drawing up the best course of action.

4. A dedicated team for incident response

Threat actors sweep the internet constantly, looking for mistakes from software providers that have not patched security issues, IT incorrectly securing something, basic mistakes or end-users being tricked into doing something they should not. For these reasons, you need a SOC looking over your environment 24/7.

You might have an outsourced IT team that manages users, and their devices, onboarding new employees, etc. They likely do not have the resources to monitor your systems and assets 24/7, in addition to their other tasks. Moreover, incident response might not be their speciality.

If a cyber attack does impact your business, you need the right expertise to investigate and remediate the threats as quickly as possible, conduct root cause analysis to learn how the breach happened and take measures to prevent it from occurring in future. Wiping your systems and restoring from backup may not work because the threat actor has already dwelled in your system for some time and left back doors for re-entry.

With MDR, you have access to a team dedicated to monitoring your systems and cleaning up after an incident. You can focus on taking care of your business in the event of an attack while the experts handle the aftermath.

RODIN is your partner in cybersecurity

As the end of the year approaches, now is an excellent time to make your cybersecurity plans for 2023.?

Your business needs a solution that detects and protects you from advanced cyber attacks in the ever-increasing threat landscape. Our Managed Cybersecurity Services include MDR so that you can work with the confidence that your business has the right protections against cyber attacks. We offer a range of cybersecurity packages so you can choose the one best suited to your business needs.

Visit our?Cybersecurity?page for more information on how we can support your business.