What are Managed Detection and Response (MDR) Services?

Categories of MDR Services

MDR services typically cover use cases in four major categories:

• Continuous monitoring
• Proactive advanced threat hunting
• Managed investigation and response
• Security posture optimization

Each of these fills a somewhat different type of security service, taking place over an extended process covering from the identification of a specific threat to the response to that threat.

Features Offered by MDR Service Providers

MDR cybersecurity services are provided by EDR/XDR vendors, and Specialized managed security service providers (MSSPs). They benefit organizations by offering comprehensive protection by continuously monitoring an organization's IT environment, which includes Endpoint, Networks, Identity, and Cloud.

MDR services typically focus on several key aspects:

• Threat Detection and Monitoring: MDR services keep a constant watch on the organization's digital landscape, seeking out any signs of suspicious or malicious activities that could indicate a cybersecurity threat.
• Incident Investigation: When potential threats are identified, MDR providers conduct thorough investigations to understand the nature and scope of the incident. This involves analyzing data logs, network traffic, and relevant information to determine the attack's origin and potential impact.
• Threat Hunting: Proactive threat hunting is a part of MDR services where cybersecurity experts actively search for concealed or advanced threats that automated detection systems might miss. This proactive approach uses threat intelligence and advanced analytics to identify potential risks.
• Alerting and Response: MDR services generate alerts when suspicious activities are detected. Security analysts then assess these alerts, categorize them based on their severity, and take appropriate actions to mitigate the threats. This can include isolating affected systems or implementing security measures.
• Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR): Many MDR services include Endpoint Detection and Response capabilities, focusing on monitoring and securing individual endpoints, such as desktops, laptops, and servers. EDR tools provide real-time visibility and response capabilities at the endpoint level.
• Behavioral Analytics: MDR services often leverage behavioral analytics and machine learning to establish a baseline of normal behavior within an organization's network and endpoints. Deviations from this baseline trigger alerts, indicating potentially abnormal or malicious activities.
• Incident Reporting and Documentation: MDR providers supply detailed reports on security incidents, their causes, and the actions taken to mitigate them. These reports may also include recommendations for improving an organization's security posture.
• Continuous Improvement: MDR services remain dynamic to adapt to evolving threats and vulnerabilities. Service providers update their detection rules, response strategies, and threat intelligence sources to stay ahead of cyber threats.
• Expertise and Resources: MDR services tap into the expertise of skilled cybersecurity professionals who possess a deep understanding of a wide range of threats and extensive knowledge of the threat landscape. Organizations benefit from the collective knowledge and experience of the MDR team.

Why are MDR Services Important?

MDR services deliver various technical, operational, and process benefits to organizations. These include:

1. Increased security maturity with a modern approach to threat management and security operations that is both reactive and proactive, such as threat hunting, paving the way for transformation across other aspects of security operations.
2. Faster time to value your security investment with access to security experts, operational best practices, and recommendations on policy changes and tuning.
3. Reduced mean time to detect (MTTD) and mean time to respond (MTTR) for faster detection of and response to advanced threats, thereby reducing risk.
4. Resource augmentation with continuous 24/7, year-round coverage and expertise to aid security teams in areas that require specialized skill sets, such as threat hunting, forensic investigation, and incident response.
5. Guided response and managed remediation to restore endpoints to a known good status in the event of a threat.

How MDR Services Work

Extended Detection and Response (XDR) vendors offering MDR services leverage their XDR technology by engaging directly with customers on the XDR platform, eliminating the need for additional software installations. Users connect with the providers' own team of MDR specialists, which augment an organization's existing skills within its IT or SecOps departments.

The MDR service provider collects relevant logs, data, and other telemetry from the customer environment and then analyzes this telemetry using analytics, threat intelligence, automation, and human expertise to deliver continuous monitoring, high-fidelity threat detection, containment, and investigation. Additionally, proactive threat hunting is carried out to detect new types of sophisticated threats and multistage attacks that might evade typical security controls.

MDR service providers deliver valuable help to in-house security operations teams that often lack sufficient manpower, experience, budget, or technical/process expertise. They also enable customer teams to connect with the MDR provider's security experts, who can help bolster the security skills of the client company's IT department. This makes them ideal for businesses that don't have a designated threat detection or threat hunting team in-house.

As a dedicated expert in delivering MDR services to help organizations fight threats and contend with vulnerabilities, an MDR provider fills important cybersecurity coverage gaps but allows in-house teams to spend more time on other cybersecurity requirements. However, it's vital for organizations to select an experienced, reputable provider that understands MDR technologies, regulatory compliance, data governance, and risk management.

Examples of Continuous Monitoring Services

Continuous monitoring services provide real-time, continuous analysis and monitoring of IT infrastructure, applications, and data. They pinpoint security threats, organizational vulnerabilities, potential compliance violations, and other high-impact events in an around-the-clock manner instead of doing intermittent analyses or audits.

Examples of Continuous Monitoring include:

• Comprehensive visibility, which provides data from endpoints, networks, cloud, and identities with 24-hour monitoring and analysis of security events.
• Alert management and incident triage, enabling both automated and manual review of activities and behaviors to triage alerts and to create rules for understanding context and follow-up actions.
• Notification and security event escalation, escalating events that need attention, and leveraging integrated logic and alert stitching to align with the MITRE ATT&CK framework.

Examples of Proactive Advanced Threat Hunting

Proactive advanced threat hunting actively searches for and identifies security threats and vulnerabilities throughout an organization before harm is done or a negative impact becomes clear via an automated security process.

Examples include:

• 24/7 threat hunting based on analysis of analytics, suspicious signals, custom detection rules, and threat intelligence research.
• High-fidelity threat intelligence using widespread signal telemetry and detections from other installed security products worldwide to inform and enhance threat investigations.
• Actionable reporting identifies the scope, source, and attack tools used by bad actors to understand attacker intent and the context of a threat better, as well as recommended actions to take in assessing the impact of emerging threats.
• Direct assistance, such as simple and fast access to a provider's threat-hunting team to ask direct questions and get hands-on guidance.

What are Examples of Managed Investigation and Response?

Managed investigation and response refers to the MDR service provider's ability to detect, investigate, and respond to security events and threats in a proactive manner by coordinating information, experiences, and detailed analysis.

Examples include:

• Quick containment of threats, requiring analysts to restrict and restrain active threats by isolating endpoints and removing malicious files or processes using a function-rich XDR tool.
• Streamlined investigations, where endpoints are scrutinized, forensic artifacts are analyzed, and network/cloud telemetry is used to identify the root cause and scope of the potential attack.
• Rapid recovery, using sophisticated tools and proven processes to remove threats such as malicious files and registry keys and to restore damaged files.

Examples of Security Posture Optimization

Security posture optimization entails continuously improving an organization's security posture by assessing, enhancing, and maintaining security measures, policies, and practices. The goal is to strengthen an organization's resilience against a vast and growing number of types of security challenges.

Examples include:

• Health checks for identifying gaps in security requirements using endpoint security profiles, device control, host firewalls, and disk encryption.
• Vulnerability assessments are conducted regularly to identify and quantify vulnerabilities for endpoint-installed applications.
• Host inventory to quickly identify potential security or IT issues that could attract threats.

Do Smaller Businesses Need MDR Services?

MDR services are well-suited for any organization because they substantially deepen an organization's awareness and knowledge of new and emerging threats. They also enhance an organization's ability to proactively respond to cybersecurity challenges. Since smaller organizations are both frequent targets of cyberattacks and often lack significant internal experience and expertise to battle those threats, using a third-party provider for MDR services is an intelligent step.

MDR Services FAQs