From silo wars to Cyber Security harmony: the magic of Managed XDR

Silos are bad; integration and collaboration are good. It’s fairly common wisdom across most aspects of the business landscape – even when it comes to cyber security.

In fact, you could easily argue that integration and collaboration are both particularly important in the current cyber security landscape. Attacks are increasing across all industries and categories – phishing, ransomware, identity threats – you name it, we’re seeing more of it. The general consensus is that a “better together” security approach is the key to iron-clad protection.

Unfortunately, collaborative, integrated cyber security is often harder to achieve than it is to talk or write about. For most businesses, it takes a veritable ecosystem of solutions and tools to manage this very complex landscape. You probably already have a separate solution for email security, one for endpoint and one for identity management. All too often, we see environments where these various solutions are working in their own little silos – bravely defending their own little patch, but failing to work holistically to fend off the threats.

There’s one simple reason why an integrated approach is so important. Your various silos might be strong, but when there’s no integration they leave gaps and vulnerabilities in the spaces in between them. The bad news is that attackers know these gaps exist, and are learning how to target them. This is creating a lot more pressure on security teams – even those with the best-in-breed tools in place.

This is where extended detection and response (XDR) comes into play. We like to think of it as managed detection and response (MDR) on steroids – being the most comprehensive and robust cyber security solution, which integrates data from all the security components in the environment (endpoints, networks, servers and other sources) to provide a holistic view of security incidents, and a unified response to threats.

What makes XDR special?

There’s no doubt that XDR is one of the top buzzwords to emerge in the world of cyber security over the past few years. However, we’d argue it’s “buzzing” for a very good reason. It’s incredibly effective and quickly becoming the best (and perhaps only) choice to secure your business.

For starters, XDR technology is cutting edge. It leverages advanced analytics, artificial intelligence, machine learning and automation to identify and mitigate threats more efficiently. Because it’s crunching data across different layers of your environment, XDR helps security teams prioritise alerts, reduce false positives and streamline incident response processes.

However, XDR is about more than just the tools. Like all the best tech solutions, there’s also the human factor to consider. We love it because it takes care of so much of the day-to-day work of securing the environment – not only identifying the threats, but also taking mitigation or remediation steps – that the highly-skilled people overseeing things have much more time to focus on the work that really requires human skills and knowledge. This includes identifying and dealing with the emerging or novel threats that can’t be handled automatically, and have the potential to cause a lot of damage.

XDR also helps to ease the staffing challenges most organisations are currently facing, by reducing the need for a handful of people having in-depth tech knowledge across a variety of tools. Which, let’s face it, just isn’t practical, particularly amidst the current skills shortage.

And because so much of this work is automated, you’re going to be in a far better position to avoid the dreaded “stage two” of a ransomware attack (when a bad actor has breached your systems, and is spending up to two weeks looking around to find out what they can steal, or how they can cause trouble). XDR can proactively block and contain most of these declared security vulnerabilities, often without you even realising it.

Ultimately, XDR’s integrated approach not only improves the accuracy of threat detection but also enhances the overall security posture of your business; making it more resilient against sophisticated cyber attacks, safeguarding your digital assets and preserving business continuity.
World-class cyber security becomes a natural, embedded component of your tech ecosystem, working around the clock to keep you secure.

Next steps for implementing XDR.

If you’re already accessing our award-winning MDR solutions, the good news is that you’re only a few steps away from XDR. Our Managed XDR solution, powered by Microsoft Defender, seamlessly protects your organisation’s data, users and devices in an integrated manner.

Say goodbye to blind spots as Managed XDR seamlessly integrates data from diverse security sources, empowering you with real-time insights into potential threats. It’s all backed by our team’s more than 20 years of experience protecting sovereign workloads.

If you’re brand new to the world of managed security services, don’t wait any longer. We can get your security posture to where it needs to be – quickly, effectively and with minimal disruption to your BAU. Reach out to us today at 1800 004 943 or drop us an email at enquiries@macquariecloudservices.com to explore how we can help you.