What is Managed Detection and Response (MDR)?

What is MDR?

Managed detection and response (MDR) is an outsourced cybersecurity service where experts handle SOC duties like threat monitoring, detection, and incident response. It acts as an extension of the organization’s own team responsible for monitoring the security ecosystem 24/7 in real time, detecting various threats, and investigating them. MDR can quickly reduce MTTR and provide the benefits of a robust security team. 

Security challenges that MDR addresses:  

• Overburdened security teams 
• Limited team capacity  
• Low cybersecurity maturity  
• Inability to adapt to rapid business change

How Does MDR Work?

An MDR performs threat monitoring, investigation and response remotely through various technologies and skilled analysts. The most important components of MDR include threat detection, security monitoring, threat hunting, threat intelligence, incident analysis, and incident response. 

Let’s explore these more below: 

Threat Detection  

After establishing a baseline of normal behaviors and activities in a security environment, analysts use automated and manual techniques to continuously monitor for potential threats at endpoints, on networks and in the cloud. Data and telemetry from these sources are gathered and analyzed using a SIEM for security monitoring. 

Assessing and prioritizing alerts to determine their severity or filter out false positives is crucial. This major task prevents security teams from focusing on genuine threats and advancing security projects. The number of alerts continues day after day from an ever-expanding set of security tools. 

Threat Hunting and Threat Intelligence 

Much like alert investigation, threat hunters analyze data from across the network examining logs, traffic data and more. The difference is a proactivity to discover hidden threats or even emerging threats that don’t have detections in place. Threat intelligence from commercial intel feeds, industry reports, briefings and more informs a hypothesis about a possible unknown threat. This intelligence is what hunters look to prove, meaning they have validated a certain threat does exist. 

Incident Response 

If a credible threat is identified, the MDR team performs a deep analysis to understand the scope and impact. Forensic teams gather and piece together information and deliver actionable insights to in-house security teams on how to contain and mitigate. Response to a threat involves taking immediate action like isolating affected systems and working to remove the threat. 

What Are the Benefits of Using an MDR Service?

Outsourced Team of Experts 

Not all organizations have robust IT security teams who can manage their threat detection, investigation, and response (TDIR) requirements. Using an outsourced SOC, MDR enhances an organization’s security without needing many internal resources.  

Technology Stack Maintained by the Provider 

MDR leverages a predefined technology stack that offers organizations cost-effective access to advanced cybersecurity tools and expertise. This setup ensures expert configuration, management, and updating of security technologies, allowing internal teams to focus on core business functions rather than cybersecurity maintenance. 

24/7 Monitoring 

MDR offers round-the-clock monitoring of an organization’s IT environment. This includes constant surveillance of network traffic, endpoints, cloud services, and other critical assets for signs of malicious activity or anomalies to prevent or minimize damage. 

Improved Response Times 

MDR improves visibility of the network and reduces the number of false-positive alerts, allowing security teams to focus on true threats and reduce their mean time to resolve (MTTR).  

Lower Up-Front Costs 

By providing managed access to advanced cybersecurity tools and expertise through a subscription-based model, MDR helps organizations avoid the up-front costs associated with building and maintaining a comparable in-house cybersecurity operation. 

How Does MDR Compare to Other Solutions and Technologies?

MDR vs. MSSP

Although both monitor customer’s networks for anomalous activity indicative of a security incident, a managed security services provider (MSSP) only provides alerts when it spots such activity. Its focus is providing broader security services outside of threat detection and response, like organizations needing managed firewall, intrusion detection, VPNS, vulnerability scanning, and anti-viral services. Comparing these two types of security services, MSSP aims to enhance security by providing continuous, comprehensive oversight and risk management while MDR is a specialized service to quickly bolster an organization’s ability to respond and mitigate threats.

 

MDR vs. SIEM

A security information and event manager (SIEM) is still a fundamental technology in security operations for aggregating and analyzing security data. It analyzes data to identify anomalies in traffic behavior and on other devices that may indicate suspicious behavior. MDR services will use a SIEM to interpret alerts accurately, prioritize genuine threats, and respond. There are also services that will manage a SIEM as they often require significant resources, both in terms of technology infrastructure and expert personnel to interpret the data and manage the system.

MDR vs. EDR

It’s essential to monitor endpoint activity as it is often the primary target for cyber–attacks and each endpoint or device can be an entry point into your IT systems. However, the sophistication of attacks and the number of endpoints in today’s security landscape make managing an EDR highly complex. MDR works well to maximize endpoint protection through its team of experts, making your current threat detection and response tools and process more effective. Read our guide on how these work together, their differences and how they relate to XDR.

MDR vs. XDR

MDR is a threat response service that typically manages endpoint security. XDR is a cross-platform technology approach that integrates and correlates data into a central platform for quicker threat detection and response. MDR has been focused on managing endpoint security since it’s conception, but there is a vast amount of security data outside of the endpoint. More data from networks, the cloud, email, even SIEM, can increase visibility to an attacks’ entire lifecycle. XDR extends into the entire security environment to make more sense of an attack and respond quicker from one location for all tools.

Some MDR providers offer a tool suite built on XDR architecture. They combine the extensive integration and visibility features of XDR with the managed service model. Both have become great solutions for either expanding your security team quickly or gaining comprehensive visibility across complex IT environments.

How to Select an MDR Provider

Choosing an MDR provider involves more than just evaluating their technical capabilities. You will need a comprehensive understanding of things like, how they integrate with your existing infrastructure, their approach to threat intelligence, and their ability to provide actionable insights. Here are a few things to consider:

Can the provider work with your existing security tools? 

Will the provider give you a unified view of your environment? 

Does the provider restrict the use of custom threat intel feeds? 

Does the provider offer automation capabilities? 

Do they provide key reporting metrics?