Partnering for an Effective Cybersecurity Strategy

By Bradley Wolfenden

As compute power and malicious tools become increasingly accessible, and the profitability of a successful cyber-attack remains on the rise, cyber criminals continue to be motivated to find new and more complex ways to exploit businesses of all sizes. And as these attacks can lead to devastating results, both financially and in terms of business reputation, it’s now more important than ever to develop an effective cybersecurity strategy.
 
What is an effective cybersecurity strategy? 
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​To start, it’s well-rounded and resilient. Security teams must account for the entire cybersecurity landscape, factoring in everything from emerging technologies, legacy systems, technology refresh lifecycles, new risks, ransomware, malware, zero-day attacks, compliance, regulations, aligning cybersecurity with broader, enterprise-wide strategies, and of course, those highly sophisticated attackers. For some businesses accomplishing this via in-house human capital is an option, and for others, it isn’t. And for the businesses that struggle to hire or afford the technical resources, finding a capable partner to manage your cybersecurity posture is an effective strategy.
 
So how is it possible to partner for a successful security strategy despite an ever evolving and highly complicated threat landscape? One of the most important aspects to consider is don’t wait until it’s too late. For many reasons, it’s crucial to have selected and onboarded a partner before an incident occurs. Getting started early will give you a distinct advantage, and allows your partner to truly focus on getting to know the intricacies of your business, establish a relationship with your decision makers, identify points of contact, develop a response plan, and acutely understand the tactics, techniques and procedures malicious actors may use against your enterprise.
 
 
Managed Detection & Response (MDR)
Every enterprise has unique business applications, IT configurations, and attack vectors. MDR services offer customized visibility and prevention capabilities, providing the contextual understanding of a business’ network environment. This is a wholistic approach, that helps you better understand your overall security posture, detect anomalies, respond to intrusions, investigate malicious activity, improve compliance efforts, and further reduce your risks by getting into the nuanced details that make your enterprise vulnerable to threats.
 
MDR takes a different approach from the traditional managed security services. Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs) primarily focus on tasks such as managing vulnerabilities, monitoring network traffic, and remotely managing devices (like firewalls, for example). MDR also differs from Endpoint Protection and Response (EDR) because EDR solutions don’t provide visibility into the network or Cloud. Additionally, managing EDR agents still requires human resources — the already overworked and understaffed IT teams. And while many threats do enter the environment through endpoints such as workstations and mobile devices, relying largely on an EDR solution leaves other entry points exposed.
  
 
The EmberSec Approach
EmberSec’s comprehensive MDR service offerings enable our clients to expand their current capabilities beyond or in the absence of existing in-house resources. We use RedTeam expertise coupled with state-of-the-art tooling to ensure all aspects of your network environment are accounted for and protected.

• Holistic Approach: Our security engineers have a wide range of skills and serve as dedicated teams to best reflect our driving purpose of understanding the whole picture of our clients’ particular business. From there, EmberSec works to build a flexible framework that defines, recommends, and integrates best practices based on the specific threats, vulnerabilities and risk they face.
• Better Technology: EmberSec leverages advanced technologies and a comprehensive suite of tools, techniques and procedures to maximize the protection for our clients and their particular enterprise.
• Cost-savings: On average, the technology stack and 24x7 staffing of a Security Operations Center (SOC) are ~$1.5 million when managed internally. This presents two main problems for many organizations: a.) it’s oftentimes cost-prohibitive, and b.) the technical talent is very hard to hire and retain. EmberSec can act as a force-multiplier by integrating with your existing IT or SOC team, supplementing after hours, or work a customized schedule to meet your business needs.

 
 
It’s no secret that cyber-attacks have become mainstream occurrences, and that the ensuing data breach or information loss can lead to devastating consequences. And in order for organizations to keep pace with the highly adaptive nature of cyber threats and determined adversaries, a well-developed cybersecurity strategy is of critical importance. Having a managed security company on retainer shows proactivity and helps to maintain the trust of customers that you can handle a crisis.
At EmberSec, we’re on your side.
 
 
EmberSec
“Your partner in advanced cybersecurity technical services and managed solutions.”

To get started on your path to an effective strategy, learn more about the benefits of Managed Detection & Response

Learn more about MDR