6 Reasons Why Enterprises are Making the Switch to MDR

As modern threats make security breaches more difficult to prevent, enterprises are turning to Managed Detection and Response (MDR) services to protect their IT systems. A survey by IBM revealed that 94% of enterprises not already using an MDR service are currently evaluating or have plans to evaluate MDR over the next 18 months.  

At the same time, Frost & Sullivan estimate that the size of the global MDR market will reach $1.9 billion by 2024. There are many reasons for this growth in adoption, but at a high level, MDR’s combination of 24/7 network monitoring, proactive threat hunting, incident detection, and investigation is giving enterprises the ability to remediate security incidents quickly regardless of how complex they are.  

In other words, MDR provides the most comprehensive framework to respond to threats that have bypassed security controls on a level that traditional cybersecurity tools cannot. However, at a more granular level, there are six core factors that are contributing to the growth in MDR adoption:  

1. Concerns Over Cost-Efficiency  

One of the top reasons for the growth in the popularity of MDR solutions is that the cost of maintaining an on-site SOC has dramatically increased as organizations require more advanced tools to detect sophisticated cyber-attacks. One report shows that organizations spend an average of $2.86 million annually on their in-house SOC.  

MDR offers organizations a way to move from these high costs by eliminating the need to purchase infrastructure and staff up front. Instead, an organization can pay a monthly retainer fee to access support from a SOC that a managed service provider takes responsibility for maintaining.  

For example, an organization can pay a managed service provider for continuous monitoring support and benefit from the expertise of a team of qualified cybersecurity professionals without having to invest millions in an on-site SOC. 

2. Addressing The Cyber Security Skills Shortage  

Another key challenge faced by organizations with on-site SOC is the cyber security skills shortage. Many enterprises find it difficult to discover qualified employees to protect their critical IT systems. In fact, 39% of companies struggle with SOC staff shortages and finding qualified employees.  

The shortage of staff not only reduces the effectiveness of an organization's cyber security defenses but also places a tremendous burden on small teams that are expected to process an extremely high volume of alerts, with limited access to the tools or employees necessary to do this effectively.  

The end result of understaffing is a stressful and unproductive working environment. One survey of IT and SOC decision-makers found that 51% feel their team is being overwhelmed by the volume of alerts, and 55% admit they aren't entirely confident in their ability to prioritize and respond to them.  

3. The Need to Reduce MTTD and MTTR  

As cyber criminals become more experienced, they need less time to cause a devastating amount of damage. However, most organizations still aren't able to detect and resolve intrusions quickly. For example, the average time it takes to identify and contain a breach is 280 days.  

The slow Mean-time-to-detect (MTTD) and Mean-time-to-respond (MTTR) of many organizations give cyber criminals ample opportunity to steal all the protected information they need, amplifying the overall financial, legal, and reputational impact of a data breach.  

Now many businesses are trying to fix sluggish response times by adopting MDR solutions with on-demand SOC support that can guide them on how to remediate security incidents faster. A faster response lessens the operational impact of a data breach. 

4. Navigating a Complex Regulatory Landscape 

Every year, regulators create new regulations to help mitigate the risk of cybercrime. While this helps to protect consumers, it has resulted in a convoluted regulatory landscape, where companies are expected to comply with standards including PCI DSS, HIPAA, SOX, CIS, ISO 27001, SOC 2, ISO 27017, GDPR, ISO 27701, and NIST.  

In this regulatory landscape, enterprises need to be able to ensure the integrity of their systems or they are at risk of considerable legal liabilities and potential fines. Just a single data breach can cause enough financial damage to put a company out of business.  

MDR plays a key role in helping enterprises survive in this regulatory landscape by increasing transparency during security incidents with continuous network and event log monitoring, identifying threats, and highlighting vulnerabilities throughout an enterprise's entire IT environment.  

5. The Increase in Ransomware Attacks 

Modern enterprises are attacked by ransomware every 11 seconds, and with such a high volume of malware threats on the horizon, it's difficult for enterprises to stop all these attacks with traditional cybersecurity solutions alone. Unfortunately, the stakes couldn't be higher, as the cost to remediate a single ransomware attack rose from an average of $761,106 in 2020 to $1.85 million in 2021.  

With anti-malware solutions failing to address new ransomware strains adequately, companies are using MDR to flag up early indicators of compromise so they can take action to contain attacks before an attacker has a chance to establish lateral movement in a network.  

6. Steeper Consumer Demands 

Over the past few years, consumers have become less tolerant of data breaches. For instance, research shows that 80 percent of consumers will defect from a business if their information is compromised in a data breach.  

Consumers are also less forgiving of downtime. In fact, 37% of SMB's report that they have lost customers due to downtime. The writing on the wall is that consumers are willing to abandon companies that do a poor job of protecting their personal data or their end-user experience.  

As a consequence, enterprises are using MDR as a way to optimize their organizational resilience and ensure that they have the security measures necessary to minimize the risk of a breach. In doing so, they're minimizing the risk of alienating customers due to security incidents. 

The Most Complete Cyber Security Framework  

Above all, enterprises are moving to MDR because it provides the most complete framework for addressing modern cyber threats on a cost-effective basis. For most companies, trying to maintain an on-site SOC to combat modern threats is a losing battle that costs an extraordinary amount of time and money. 

Finely tuned MDR services enable organizations to augment their existing security capabilities while providing guaranteed access to expert support that can help them prevent and remediate the next generation of cyber threats.  

Want to find out more about how MDR can enhance your business?

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