How to Evaluate MDR Providers - 5 Key Steps

Cyber threats continue to grow and are more costly than ever

Managed detection and response (MDR) is a growing category with Gartner projecting 50% of organizations will use MDR services by 2025.¹ After reading this guide, you will have a better understanding of why organizations like yours are turning to MDR services providers for help. This guide covers:

The differences between SIEM, MSSP, and MDR
Components of MDR
How to evaluate MDR vendors
Pondurance’s approach to managed detection and response

64% of organizations are seeing 5,000+ alerts every day.

If you experience these challenges when trying to protect your organization From cyberattacks, you’re not alone

Shortage of cybersecurity talent

Lack of visibility across the enterprise

Security technology that is difficult to maintain

Difficulty managing multiple tools and investigating all alerts

Technology alone isn't enough to stop motivated attackers

New compliance and regulation requirements

Undocumented processes in the event of an attack or breach

Security professionals that are expensive to hire and hard to retain

Inability to quickly remediate or reduce attacker dwell time

How mature Is your security operations?

Consider how MDR can help you step up your security operations maturity

Organizations like yours find It expensive and difficult to build an internal security operations center (SOC)

As a result, many organizations lack 24/7 detection and response capabilities

Threat actors are getting smarter and circumventing prevention tools. Tools that were used in the past to detect phishing attacks or threats like ransomware are no longer sufficient. More often, we are seeing insider threats, account takeovers, and attacks entering through unpatched vulnerabilities.

57% of organizations operate their SOC during business hours.³

—Forrester Opportunity Snapshot

85% of breaches involved a human element in 2021⁴.

—Verizon

Could an MSSP or SIEM help with your challenges?

Many MSSPs and SIEMs do not have detection and response capabilities; they only alert the security teams, which causes a backlog of tickets to search through. Many clients spend more time triaging alerts from MSSPs than they can respond to. SIEMs are difficult to maintain, have stale correlation rules, and are expensive from both a storage and management perspective.

What is the difference between SIEM, MSSP, & MDR?

SIEM

Supports threat detection, compliance, and security incident management through collection and analysis of security events.

MSSP

Provides outsourced monitoring and management of security devices and systems.

MDR

Provides remotely delivered, modern, 24/7 SOC capabilities to rapidly detect, analyze, investigate, and actively respond to threats.

MDR MAY BE THE ANSWER FOR YOUR ORGANIZATION

Learn more about the differences between SIEM, MSSP, MDR, and Pondurance MDR in our comparison chart.

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What should you look for in an MDR?

Is Partnering With MDR Services Right for Your Organization?

Gartner suggests that you consider an MDR provider if you need remotely delivered, modern, 24/7 SOC functions and there are no existing internal capabilities or if you need to accelerate or augment existing capabilities. You should also consider an MDR provider if there is no one in-house to respond to threats that require immediate attention. We recommend the following criteria when evaluating MDR vendors

Technology stack
What tools are you using now? Can your MDR provider significantly enhance your security operations while leveraging your existing IT investments?

Fits with your policies
Does the MDR provider’s containment approach integrate with your organization’s policies and procedures?

Monitor on-premises & cloud assets
Can the provider detect and respond across your network, log, endpoint, and cloud infrastructure?

Custom reports including compliance
Does the MDR provider offer custom reports including those needed for compliance?

Real-Time alerts backed by human intelligence
Does the MDR provider have a fully managed and monitored log? Can they provide real-time alerts? Does the provider offer real-time alerts?

Incident response and remediation
Does the MDR provider offer incident response capabilities? Will they work with you to respond to threats through instant triage and integrated services? Can the provider help minimize losses and prevent future incidents?

Experience with your industry
Does the provider have experience with your industry? Does the provider work with other organizations that are similar in size to yours?

When you are looking for a new vendor, you want to find the one that works best for your organization, whether they specialize in your industry, is able to integrate with your current technology stack, or is able to monitor your cloud environments.

The right MDR provider will fit into your organization and current security protocols. The vendor will actively hunt for and identify threats across your network, log, endpoint, and cloud environments.

Pondurance approach to MDR

How Pondurance can help

Our mission is to ensure that your organization is able to detect and respond to cyber threats — regardless of size, industry, or current in-house capabilities. Our advanced platform combined with decades of human intelligence decrease risk to your mission. We combine our advanced platform with decades of human intelligence to decrease risk to your mission.

Managed Detection and Response

Recognized by Gartner, Pondurance provides 24/7 U.S.-based SOC services powered by analysts, threat hunters, and incident responders who utilize our advanced cloud-native platform to provide you with continuous cyber risk reduction. By integrating 360-degree visibility across network, log, endpoint, and cloud data and with proactive threat hunting, we reduce the time it takes you to respond to emerging cyber threats.

Pondurance MDR is the proactive security service backed by authentic human intelligence. Technology is not enough to stop cyber threats. Human attackers must be confronted by human defenders.

Incident Response

When every minute counts, organizations need specialized cybersecurity experts to help them respond to a compromise, minimize losses, and prevent future incidents.

Pondurance delivers digital forensics and incident response services with an experienced team capable of guiding you and your organization every step of the way. This includes scoping and containing the incident, determining exposure through forensic analysis and helping to quickly restore your normal operations.

Security Consultancy Services

Our specialized consultancy services will help you assess systems, controls, programs, and teams to uncover and manage vulnerabilities. Our suite of services ranges from Penetration Testing to red team exercises, along with compliance program assessments for highly regulated industries. We provide security Incident Response and business continuity planning to put you in the best position to defend against and respond to cyberattacks.

Want to learn more about MDR and what it can do for you?

Dive deep into the subject in the first-ever Managed Detection and Response for Dummies Guide.

Read Here

About Pondurance

Pondurance delivers world-class MDR services to industries facing today’s most pressing and dynamic cybersecurity challenges including ransomware, complex compliance requirements, and digital transformation accelerated by a distributed workforce. By combining our advanced platform with our experienced team of analysts, we continuously hunt, investigate, validate, and contain threats so your own team can focus on what matters most.

Pondurance experts include seasoned security operations analysts, digital forensics and incident response professionals, and compliance and security strategists who provide always-on services to clients seeking broader visibility, faster response and containment, and more unified risk management for their organizations.

Visit www.pondurance.com for more information.

5 Things To Consider When Choosing an MDR Vendor

Cyber threats continue to grow and are more costly than ever

If you experience these challenges when trying to protect your organization From cyberattacks, you’re not alone

How mature Is your security operations?

Organizations like yours find It expensive and difficult to build an internal security operations center (SOC)

—Forrester Opportunity Snapshot

—Verizon

Could an MSSP or SIEM help with your challenges?

What is the difference between SIEM, MSSP, & MDR?

MDR MAY BE THE ANSWER FOR YOUR ORGANIZATION

What should you look for in an MDR?

Is Partnering With MDR Services Right for Your Organization?

Pondurance approach to MDR

How Pondurance can help

Managed Detection and Response

Incident Response

Security Consultancy Services

Want to learn more about MDR and what it can do for you?

About Pondurance

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