What to Look for in Your MDR Solution

Managed detection and response (MDR) isn’t just a technology or tool you integrate into your enterprise network’s security stack. Instead, MDR is a service organizations can leverage to reinforce their overall network security posture.

With MDR, you’ll get comprehensive protection through a suite of cybersecurity tools, including endpoint detection and response (EDR), SIEM, and others. But the greatest benefits of MDR come through its “managed” nature. Having a security operations center (SOC) watching your network makes everything vastly more secure, while also cutting down on response times.

As you can probably tell, the unique properties of MDR carry benefits to enterprises everywhere, which is why this type of cyber defense is growing in popularity. There are some compelling reasons why it makes sense to adopt MDR. Let’s dig further into this, as well as what to look for in your MDR solution.

Why Should Enterprises Adopt MDR Solutions?

The most obvious reason enterprises should consider MDR solutions is they make networks more secure. In today’s world of ever-evolving and -present cyber threats, it’s irrational to put an organization’s livelihood on the line by skimping on security. By opting for a managed detection and response offering, organizations can protect their networks far better by having world-class experts on the team.

There are additional benefits to going with an MDR. When enterprises outsource SOC capabilities to a cybersecurity service provider, a few things happen:

• They don’t have to purchase the network infrastructure and devices to support an in-house SOC, which saves upfront capital.
• They don’t have to hire the additional employees to staff an in-house SOC—saving on the operating budget.
• They’ll get higher levels of expertise from the engineers and analysts working at the cybersecurity firm.
• They’ll actually save money on two fronts—from a lower spend on cybersecurity and mitigating the costliness of a data breach. Considering the average costs of a data breach keep rising—to a global average of $4.24 million in 2021—it’s essential for organizations to save themselves from the financial and reputational costs of this in any possible way.

As you can see, there are highly compelling reasons for enterprises to utilize MDR. This, however, isn’t enough to guarantee success from adoption. It’s essential to know what to look for in your MDR solution before choosing any particular provider.

What to Look for in Your MDR Solution

While MDR is a fantastic service, it’s only as good as the people providing it. This is why MDR decision-makers need to know what to look for so they can choose the best option for their firm.

Leading the list is the overall experience and reputation of the MDR solution provider. If it’s an extremely new company with unproven products and services, going with them is likely to be a risk you maybe shouldn’t take with your digital assets and infrastructure. Instead, you should seek MDR providers with many years—preferably decades—of overall cybersecurity expertise and industry presence. Further, look for companies certified by trustworthy organizations. For instance, Open Systems holds a Microsoft Threat Protection Advanced Specialization certification. Only organizations that meet certain strict standards for staffing and performance are able to claim this.

After you’ve vetted the expertise of an MDR solution provider, you want to make sure they offer a full suite of security tools that will meet all your needs. Today’s MDR solutions should utilize AI and machine learning technologies to analyze more data and identify threats sooner. An important part of this is the accuracy of alerting. Constantly getting false positive alerts can wear on the security staff. A good MDR will only send alerts when it’s a real threat, allowing for a much more focused response.

Managed detection and response solutions are going to be a part of the enterprise network security landscape for years to come. Finding the right MDR for your organization can keep critical data far more secure.