MDR, MSSP, and SIEM: Which Is Right for You?

With the rise in cybercrime, companies are looking for the best solution to protect against cyber threats. Most companies choose from one of three different security solutions: managed security services provider (MSSP), SIEM, and managed detection and response (MDR). More and more often, they are choosing MDR as the preferred security solution to stay safe from cyberattacks. In fact, technological research and consulting firm Gartner predicts that one-half of all organizations will use MDR services to monitor, detect, and respond to threats by 2025. 

In Chapter 4 of our new eBook Managed Detection and Response (MDR) for Dummies, we compare these three security solutions to help you decide what’s best for your company. We explain the key differences between MDR vs. MSSP vs. SIEM, which activities you must manage with each service once implemented, and why MDR is gaining ground as a security solution.

MSSP

This entry-level security solution can tackle some of the specific tasks of your information security workload. For example, an MSSP service can secure your network and evaluate security controls on your devices or it can configure your firewalls, run vulnerability scans, and validate policies for your virtual private network. Such tasks are helpful, especially if your company doesn’t have a dedicated cybersecurity staff. But is an MSSP able to fully protect your company from a sophisticated data breach or cyberattack? We explain why it’s important to understand the limited visibility of an MSSP and know how that limitation can result in undetected activity in your cyber environment.

SIEM

The SIEM platform collects relevant data from multiple security systems and forwards the data to a centralized management and analysis system. One of the best features of SIEM is that it collects data from so many sources, providing broad rather than limited visibility. However, such broad visibility can cause problems when an abundance of data leads to an overload of alerts. We’ll explain the pros and cons of broad visibility, discuss what you need to know about alert fatigue and false positives, and tell how SIEM uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to analyze data.

MDR

Great cybersecurity protection requires advanced technology, such as machine learning and artificial intelligence, and experienced security professionals. That’s where MDR excels. MDR uses both tools and humans to capture, integrate, and analyze data from multiple sources. Security professionals perform full scope analysis to detect novel attack patterns and proactively respond to attackers. In this section, we discuss how MDR integrates security silos, explain how MDR expands the scope of analysis to networks, endpoints, logs, and cloud environments, and tell why you must have humans in the loop to defend your company from cyberattack.

Conclusion

Cybercrime is a serious threat. You need to know the best way to protect your company from data breaches and attacks. 

Learn about the three most common security solutions and discover which option is right for your business.