What is Managed Detection and Response (MDR)?

With the recent rise in cybersecurity threats, businesses and IT teams are working overtime to secure their data and networks. As you can imagine (or, more likely, already know), this can eat up significant resources and energy.

In this post, we're going to cover a potential solution to your cybersecurity woes: managed detection and response. We'll look at what managed detection and response is as well as how it leverages advanced analytics and security tools to keep you prepared and agile.

What is managed detection and response (MDR)?

Abbreviated as MDR, managed detection and response is a service that includes a set of bundled tools that automatically detect and respond to cybersecurity threats, but more importantly, it is executed by a trusted provider!

Without MDR, your IT team may find itself combing through your network constantly, looking for irregular events and requests.

With an MDR service in place, this task is taken over by a skilled third party who leverages automated processes and the tools to identify potential threats and respond on your behalf in a timely manner. Think of MDR as a service running in the background (people, process and technology), continuously observing and analyzing vast quantities of information, spotting threats and responding. This allows you and your team to work on other tasks. It's a valuable and modern response to the growing threat landscape of adversaries and hackers.

The benefits of MDR

There are several benefits to a managed detection and response service. If you're considering investing in MDR, review the benefits below first to see if it's the right move for your business/department.

MDR stops threats in their tracks

The cornerstone benefit of managed detection and response service is that it can stop threats automatically through supporting technologies or skilled security analysts. Similar to an IT team comprised of people, this service includes skilled security analysts who are online 24/7 proactively responding to threat indicators.

Rather than responding to a threat after it's come across your vision, MDR with automated response capabilities, can target the threat as soon as indicators are observed in your environment. Drastically reducing the exposure time a threat has in your environment is the key to mitigating or minimizing damage.

MDR empowers teams to focus on high-value IT tasks

Because managed detection and response is provided by a trusted party 24/7, your IT team can spend less time focused on the role that your new MDR provider is playing.

For example, a key input to any threat detection capability is threat intelligence (TI). Your MDR provider will invest significant resources in gathering and curating TI which is applied across all its customers.

Put another way, your MDR provider handles the tedious stuff so your employees can focus on the important stuff. In fact, because your MDR provider specializes in threat detection and response they will be able to detect and respond to threats faster and more accurately than your own team can.

This is crucial, as it increases the value you're receiving from both your technical staff and your MDR provider. The time saved can be spent further securely maintaining your systems such as a prioritized patch management regime.

MDR proactive threat hunting

Lastly, managed detection and response services offer various types of threat hunting. Proactive threat hunting is one type that don't just wait for threats to trigger red flags. Skilled analysts are constantly sifting through large volumes of data to find potential threats.

Once a potential threat is discovered, the analyst immediately starts looking for other potential victims and if any immediate remediation can be performed, such as endpoint host isolation. If an immediate solution to block the threat can't be implemented, a detailed report is issued to you with actionable tasks detailing the how to best neutralize the threat.

In other words, an active response to an active problem, rather than a passive solution.

MDR use cases

Now that we've covered what managed detection and response is and its benefits, it's time to cover some use cases. Here are some real-world use cases for MDR that can apply to your business.

Detect network attacks

The first and most obvious use case for a managed detection and response system is as a means of detecting network attacks. This is a must for MDR providers, and they need to excel at it!

An MDR provider will monitor your network for events, flagging events that have the potential to be a risk. These flags are then assessed automatically by the providers platform, and if they're decided to be a threat, an automated or human response is immediately initiated.

Mitigate ransomware attacks

It’s highly likely that ransomware attacks will continue to grow in frequency. These are attacks where the attacker seizes control over data or digital assets and threatens to corrupt, leak, or delete them unless a ransom is paid.

For ransomware to function, however, it generally has to install itself on a server/network for a period before the official attack is triggered. Thanks to MDR and active threat hunting capabilities, ransomware can be found and neutralized before it gains a foothold in your environment.

Maintain regulatory compliance

Managed detection and response services have an interesting use case in that they double as a means of regulatory compliance. Regulating bodies are becoming increasingly tech-savvy around the world, and as such, the requirements around cybersecurity are beginning to grow stricter.

The result is that businesses are being forced to up their game across the board. MDR is a great way to do just that. It meets many of the requirements of these regulations, providing a fast solution to compliance.

Endpoint Visibility

Not all threats can be observed on the network, such as business email compromise, encrypted malware, in-memory attacks and so on. MDR providers know that the key to providing a comprehensive view of the threat landscape includes visibility from endpoints, specifically servers, laptops and mobile devices.

MDR providers understand the importance of endpoint detection and response (EDR) and the benefits it provides organizations. When a potential threat is identified, indicators may the emanate directly from and endpoint as the victim or beacon via supporting network infrastructure like firewalls and proxies, either case the MDR provider can jump into action by providing remote response isolating the victim(s) device(s) immediately.

Lateral movement

Another use case for MDR is the prevention of lateral movement. Lateral movement is when an attacker gains a footing in one endpoint and leverages that to move “sideways” through a network and gain a hold over other endpoints/assets.

Thanks to managed detection and response automated responses and threat hunting, it's possible to halt lateral movement in its tracks. This helps prevent a small threat from becoming a large one.

Secure your business with Samurai MDR

If your business is looking for a solution like managed detection and response to keep your company protected, then consider partnering with Samurai MDR, powered by XDR. It's a cutting-edge solution backed by a team of cybersecurity experts. Reach out to our team today to discover opportunities for your business.