March 24, 2022
Whether you have an in-house team or outsource your security operations to a managed services provider, the potential for a security breach is always lurking about. Technology alone isn’t the answer. Although managed detection and response (MDR) is designed to detect, slow, and halt risks, there’s no guarantee it will catch every attempt.
An around-the-clock team of highly skilled security analysts in addition to MDR is what’s required to provide never-interrupted coverage effectively. The team provides 24/7 monitoring, analysis, detection of, and response to all known and unknown threats to your system’s security.
The Challenge of Building an In-House Security Operations Center
Some organizations feel that building an in-house security operations center (SOC) is smart. However, this can be an incredibly challenging and cost-prohibitive setup due to:
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- Purchasing and implementing expensive technologies
- Hiring expert analysts, threat researchers, and detection engineers
- Maintaining 24/7 coverage
- Ensuring detection effectiveness through evolving tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs)
Add all this together, and your organization is looking at spending $750,000 in the first year alone. That’s what’s necessary to continuously monitor all your networks and endpoints to stay one step ahead of attackers.
It’s much easier and more productive to outsource your MDR security operations to the experts who already have the systems and processes in place to protect your data.
MDR Security Operations
To ensure optimal visibility and coverage, Castra’s MDR security operations include a threat intelligence team, engineering team, and security analysts to perform the following nine processes:
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- Use multiple technologies and tools to collect and log various data types from network and endpoint devices. Doing so detects any real-time threats.
- Ensure all identified indicators of compromise (IOCs) counter any threats.
- Develop analytic and customized detections for existing and emerging threats.
- Incorporate all vulnerabilities and attacks to inform on granularity, noise, and recurrency.
- Perform a full analysis for every triggered alert.
- Triage and investigate evidence to determine malicious intent.
- Discover the incident’s overall impact.
- Recommend extensive guidelines for remediation and future mitigation strategies.
- Deliver efficient, customized service to every customer.
Castra’s Glass Box MDR Approach
With other MDR providers, your information and data are put into an inaccessible mystery box that’s off-limits to you. If you ever choose to change MDR providers, everything stays with the old one, and you have to start again from scratch.
Castra doesn’t work this way. We take a glass box approach to MDR. Your data is always yours. You always have access to it, and you take it with you wherever you go. This is a huge advantage you’ll only get with Castra.
Too many of our competitors have an identity crisis and are too focused on developing proprietary threat detection and automation technology as opposed to delivering world-class service. They’re focused more on their valuations as opposed to focusing on the customers' experience.
Learn more about the Castra Glass Box Experience
Castra doesn’t have an identity crisis. We know we’re service providers. We don’t try to re-invent SIEM/SOAR, Threat Intelligence, and XDR technology. We do leverage and master the best tools on the market and give our customers 100% control and transparency into how we use them. Castra customers own their tech and data, and they never get pigeonholed into a technology or service they don’t like.
We are advocates and partners for our customers—not just a vendor. We are always educating our team and our customers on best-in-class tools and processes that result in the strongest security posture possible.
Most SOCs are international, but Castra’s SOC is 100% domestic, based in Durham, North Carolina.
Castra’s MDR Solutions
Castra offers a full range of 24/7 MDR solutions because we want you to rest easy at night knowing your company is safe from being hacked. No longer will you be worried about cybersecurity staff shortages, organizational liability, or security threats connected to your supply chain, edge computing, or WFH policy.
Our tools and team monitor your systems, network, and other critical elements to identify suspicious activity and act before it’s too late.
Here’s how Castra does it.
24/7 MDR for Exabeam
One of Castra’s favorite MDR tools is Exabeam, for many reasons:
- Data Lake, Advanced Analytics, Case Manager, Entity Analytics, and Cloud Connectors
- Accurate, scalable data usage model
- Machine learning for modeling account and/or asset behavior
- Customizable rules and models
- Easy, smart timeline extraction
- Long term intuitive, active searching
- Robust automated incident response
SIEM + 24/7 Managed Detection and Response
Castra has a deep understanding of SIEM (Security Information and Event Management), having deployed it in over 2,500 organizations worldwide.
- Logs and stores data
- Detects threats
- Gains security visibility
- Meets compliances
Other SIEM features we utilize to its full potential include:
- Threat Intelligence - Anomali ThreatStream
- Extended Detection and Response - SentinelOne
- Remote Logging - Wazuh
To be frank, building a SIEM product is very challenging, and most vendors fail. Cyber attacks and detection capabilities are incredibly dynamic. Unless you have over 20 years of experience like we do, you’ll find yourself at a significant disadvantage. After all, SIEM is only as effective as the practitioner using it.
Related Read: Castra’s Top 5 Managed Detection and Response Tools We Cannot Live Without
Connect with Castra
Consider the monumental cost of cyberattacks regarding time, budget, and reputation. Can you afford to compromise? No one can.
For effective 24/7 managed detection and response that integrates up-to-the-minute technology with expert-level human experience and a glass box approach, connect with Castra.