Cybersecurity is becoming more and more complex every year. And that is why there are more and more appeals to mdr service providers. Likewise, the process of finding and hiring these suppliers is a complex task with hundreds of companies and a large number of criteria to consider. To get your bearings, you, as a customer of services, must identify the key elements to consider when evaluating suppliers. That’s why we’ve created this article to help you get exactly the services you deserve.
Determine your main goal
The first step to choosing the best providers of MDR service is to determine the primary goal of your security program. So, determine your appeal to providers like Underdefense. For yourself, you should determine the priority direction – whether it is ensuring compliance or whether you want to improve your protection against external threats. The reality of today’s digital world is that compliance and security are very different goals. Although most of the regulatory requirements were adopted with the goal of improving security, they are often not scalable and too general, while the ingenuity of hackers continues to evolve.
So when you choose to be compliant, you can go with almost any service provider. However, if you want to mitigate the impact of current cyberattacks, it’s important to look for a provider that offers services focused on detecting and responding to attacks. In addition, we advise you to pay attention to whether the provider can provide services in multi-technology environments, such as local infrastructure, cloud resources, industrial control systems and others. Since cyber security covers all areas of your business, services must be comprehensive.
What is the key factor in improving detection and response capabilities?
Today’s IT environments are characterized by increasingly complex infrastructure and increasingly interconnected systems. This creates a larger area for attacks and penetrations. In order to gain optimal visibility into the most important sources of information, it is important to choose a vendor who can anticipate the “white areas” when monitoring your systems and who already has experience monitoring environments similar to yours.
Don’t hesitate to entrust a specialized service provider like Underdefense with a one-time assessment of your security system. This will allow you to identify potential gaps, as well as strengths and weaknesses of your service, while striving to improve your monitoring system. In addition, you will get help with the planning that needs to be done in this area: from a penetration test, the sole purpose of which is to identify the weak points of the company, to measures aimed at improving the protection of the business.
Negotiations on the scope and value of the contract are still possible
But it’s worth noting that you shouldn’t turn down an offer that doesn’t fit your budget, especially if it fits your needs and fits into your technology stack. Always look for an opportunity to negotiate. Currently, provider companies provide package services, and often offer their customers the opportunity to adjust the package of services to their needs.
Indeed, to get the desired mdr service from providers, like Underdefense, you can choose only what your business needs at the moment. The most valuable capabilities offered by vendors focus on detection and response. This allows you to remove lower-level tactical actions from the contract:
- password reset management,
- vulnerability management or supporting an Identity and Access Management (IAM) solution,
- while using the best services offered by the provider.
But be careful, removing less important features from the scope of the provider should not affect its good visibility of your environment. Effective detection and response to cyber-attacks depends on full visibility, which is critical to offer selected vendors to limit errors and failures.
In-house or outsourced: Be strategic
Some operational functions can certainly be outsourced to your internal IT or security team. Sometimes this solution is advantageous because your employees have more technical knowledge about your company or the environment in which it operates. This makes them more efficient than an external provider, but in a rather limited range of scenarios. But note that hiring and developing your own specialists is a long-term process. A good example is detection engineering. This profile is really extremely in demand and it is difficult to train someone to perform this task effectively. That is why the market is now moving towards hybrid internal/external operating models that take the best of both approaches to service delivery.
Focus on the goals, not the technology used
The cyber security industry is evolving at a rapid pace. Therefore, it is quite easy to get distracted by trends or the prospects of the latest technologies. In reality, there is no such thing as a perfect solution, and technology alone is not the answer and will not help you with everything. Instead of looking for a vendor that can support the latest tools, focus on:
- their productivity,
- proposed goals,
- compliance with your company’s culture and values.
To do this, your organization needs to be aware of its weaknesses, from visibility, detection, and response to ongoing cybersecurity training, policies, and processes.
While buying newer, better security tools alone doesn’t improve results, sometimes it pays to upgrade your technology stack. Again, the key to success is staying focused on your goals.
In some cases, you will be able to achieve better results using existing systems. And to achieve other goals, it will be better to upgrade your technology stack and train your employees. That is why when choosing and working with suppliers, it is necessary to raise and carefully discuss the following questions: What technologies do you support and why? And be careful at this step, because you can hear the answer about the universality of services from the provider. But it cannot be like that. No MDR provider that values its reputation and provides quality service can be 100% efficient on all modern technologies.
So be careful, take your goals seriously, and choose a service provider carefully – then your digital space will be protected.
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