6 Principles That Comprise The MDR Lifecycle

The ability to swiftly adapt to changing personnel and working methods in as little as two years has driven the use of cloud computing, multi-cloud, and hybrid cloud architectures by businesses. Nevertheless, the MDR has introduced new security concerns.

The key reasons for this include:

• Workers are connecting to providers and individual data resources remotely, which opens entry points for cyberattacks.

• Employees are relying more on cloud-hosted services to enhance workplace collaboration.

• Remote workers are becoming more and more susceptible to ransomware websites.

• Employees fail to frequently practice cyber hygiene.

Organizations investing in remote employees and their cybersecurity must figure out how to approach risks as they develop and that a packed threat set can hamper rather than improve stability. Factors need to be researched rather than guessing how to safeguard assets. Producing intelligence and providing SecOps teams with intelligence about threats can help create detailed use cases.

By defining threat scenarios in your security operations lifecycle, you can fulfill the needs of remote workers using cloud-based and mobile network services, while still maintaining security.

We can establish a six-phase threat detection and response strategy that accounts for risk uncertainty and the steps are:

Identify

It is crucial to develop a protocol that gives clear guidance and tools to direct security operations teams.

This methodology starts with identifying attacks’ use cases. In this context, use cases define and analyze an attack method. In addition to the type of attack, use cases contain step-by-step detail on how an attack develops, such as the exfiltration of information from an organization or privileged login, and possible control points for use in mitigation. Developing a protocol that SecOps can utilize to find and establish new applications is essential to guaranteeing the organization sustains a robust security posture.

Use case identification and analysis provides a strong foundation for your detection and response process by giving insights into use case relevancy and effectiveness in protecting organizational assets.

Organizations that employ a well-defined process for uncovering, gathering, improving, validating, and applying alterations to use cases address a significant shortcoming in “set it and forget it” programs. These programs presume the security policies and use cases conceived at the time of implementing advanced operations tools will stay static – an assumption that can leave behind gaping holes in your threat visibility.

Prioritize

The prioritization of use case development is of utmost importance, as it directly reflects the speed at which your organization can respond to potential threats. debates on which use cases to prioritize, as well as how to assess the importance and feasibility of each use case, often arise. However, basing the prioritization on importance is likely to be more effective, as it balances the importance with the feasibility (e.g. how complex and risky the use case is to implement) and the speed of the business.

Developing a framework to prioritize use cases will assist you in maintaining this equilibrium. One approach is to create comparative categories. For example:

• ‘Control’-based use cases are those that relate to a regulatory objective, such as the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)

• Threat-based use cases benefit from intelligence regarding Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTP).

• ‘Data or Asset’ based use cases refer to specific datasets or assets that could pose an increased risk to the company.

Develop

As we discovered previously, having a set process for identifying and prioritizing threat scenarios lets you stay consistent and disciplined during the security operations lifecycle.

Here’s an example of what SecOps teams could do when making a use case:

• It is essential that the risks are accurately described and the necessary steps are taken to mitigate them.
• Monitoring tool deployment and configuration must be carried out to ensure successful operation.
• It is essential to confirm the data sources.
• It is important to validate the sources of information to ensure that the context is accurate.
• Identify areas where security operations procedures can be improved.

Evaluate

It is important to will review or reevaluates the function of the use case to avoid the “set it and forget it” approach. This often leads to security teams losing sight of the need for this part of the lifecycle. It is better to define clear notification criteria. This way, when thresholds are met, or when there is a change or update to the context data, use cases can be re-evaluated.

For example, compliance changes, threats, and data security can require monitoring tools, contexts, and validation metrics or they could make a use case redundant entirely.

Deploy

This phase involves the following tasks:

• Training security teams to respond to new alerts with a clear action mindset
• Updating the runbooks, and ops guides.
• Promoting code through testing and production environments

Once deployed, use cases must be incorporated into the evaluation workflows.

Enhance

Unlike the evaluation phase, a use case is not driven by network changes. Instead, it is driven by the evolution of trends, tactics, and procedures, as well as changes in data and context. The purpose of this phase is to supply clients with clear choices and remove any uncertainty.

The first phase in the lifecycle allows for teams to effectively manage the continually changing world.

Elements that could justify a reassessment include:

• Event grouping settings, thresholds, and metrics.
• Mainly as a result of impact and urgency.
• Environments that employ automation are successful.
• Additional selections are available.

Once finishing the previous phase, you should address operational processes, update runbooks, and provide training to the Security Operations Center inspectors.

To sideline these activities in order to delegate them to analysts, you could lose ground in the competitive landscape. This may result in analysts being pressured to manage more prompts than they can handle, which may lead to a spike in errors, leading to delays throughout the investigation process, and an increased workload.

Developing clear procedures for performing regular activities will have various implications, such as diversifying your jobs within the group and sustaining your employee development program.

Learn From The Experts

If you have trouble keeping up with the evolving threat landscape, TerraEagle’s Managed Detection and Response (MDR) system may help. We employ the findings of security researchers from Talos plus documented processes to ensure your infrastructure stays secure around the clock.

TerraEagle can help you streamline the security aspects of your organization and focus on the things that matter to you. Get in touch with us today.