Cyber-attackers work 24/7 … but what about your security team?

March 1, 2021 TH Author

Promo One thing you can say about cyber-attackers. They don’t keep office hours. They – or their code – will chip away at your systems, all day, every day, looking for a way in before quietly exploiting it for as long as possible.

So what about your own security operation? Are your cyber-defences effectively on autopilot evenings and weekends?

Of course, you know your team is dedicated, and if you come under attack, they’ll put in the hours to save the day. But burnout is a real thing. And if you and your team are constantly firefighting, how do you find the time to remediate the damage done, never mind ensure your intelligence, tools and skill sets are up to date, ready for the next attack? Because there will be one.

That’s assuming you spot an attack of course. Because the bad guys’ ultimate aim is to stealthily move through your systems until they hit a cache of personal data, or IP, or the data backups that you’re relying on to recover from a ransomware attack…the ransomware attack that they’ll launch, as soon as they’ve destroyed your backups.

It’s no surprise then that companies are increasingly turning to Managed Detection and Response (MDR) services to bolster their internal cyber-sec resources. Indeed, while just five per cent of organisations were using such services in 2019, around half will by 2025, according to Gartner.

The attractions are obvious. Recruiting skilled security staff is challenging, and once you do it’s a constant juggling act splitting their time between reactive response, actively hunting for threats, and ensuring skills are kept up to date.

Which means it makes sense to leverage a pool of expertise with state of the art tooling, and the latest in threat intelligence, to monitor your systems and respond to attacks 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

But not all MDR services are equal. Is their coverage really 24/7? Are they watching dials waiting for an attacker to reveal themselves, or are they actively going out and looking for threats? And when they do, are they simply going to call you? Or will they roll up their sleeves to deal with the problem themselves?

These are all factors that could affect your organisation’s very survival, so performing appropriate due diligence is crucial.

But don’t worry – too much – we’ve got something that will make that decision making process that little bit easier, in the shape of this Managed Detection and Response Services Buyers’ Guide from Sophos.

Sophos of course knows a thing or two about cyber-security, and its guide will take you through the nuts and bolts that make up MDR. But it also talks you through the nuances of choosing an MDR partner whether that’s establishing precisely how proactive a service will be, or whether the tools you’ll need to underpin the service are included in the overall price.

You’ll never banish those middle of the night alerts for ever of course. But with a mix of checklists and inside info, this guide will help you spread the load more evenly. Just signup, download, and relax. Kind of.

Brought to you by Sophos.