How Prepared Are You?
What do large enterprises, mid-market, and small businesses all have in common? The answer: they’re all vulnerable to cyberattacks. Unfortunately, this reality isn’t likely to change in the foreseeable future, but that doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t fight back. Preventive measures like security awareness training, data hygiene best practices, and comprehensive antivirus software are critical frontline defenses in your security strategy. But what happens when a threat gets past those defenses? This is where the value of a human ThreatOps expert comes into play. Our ThreatOps team consists of analysts, researchers, and technical support—and each has a vital role in protecting your network.
The Unknown Unknowns
According to the 2021 DBIR Executive Summary, ransomware is now the third most common type of cyber breach. While some malware and ransomware attack strategies are common enough that security solutions can easily detect them based on their digital footprint, the same can’t be said for new or previously unseen threats. These “unknown unknowns” will consistently evade detection. Next-gen AV tools are usually programmed to fail open when confronted with these new attack methods not to disrupt business operations.
Unfortunately, this is also true if your security strategy relies solely on automation or machine learning. Both are prone to false positives and likely leave critical gaps in your threat detection capabilities. So, how do you know if an attack is happening in your network? Human expertise is a necessary complement to automation if you want to optimize threat detection and analysis.
When our automated detector can’t tell if an event is good or bad, a human ThreatOps analyst begins a thorough investigation to determine if it’s malicious. The same applies if a Ransomware Canary is tripped. If the incident is found to be credible and poses an actionable threat, we will notify you with detailed remediation steps.
Expert Insight
When an attack occurs in your network, how do you determine if it’s real? Most security solutions provide little more than a notification when an incident occurs. And that assumes that the incident you’re alerted to is legitimate and not just a false positive. A security solution backed by a human-led ThreatOps team can:
- Find the signal through the noise, ensuring that only verified threats warrant an alert.
- After each critical threat, provide the expert insight that you need to understand existing network vulnerabilities better and protect against future attacks.
Our ThreatOps analysts don’t just report incidents. We verify the legitimacy of each alert so that we can effectively allocate time and resources to the most urgent problems. We isolate the infected host to prevent it from spreading in your network if necessary. Once an attack is verified and the infected host isolated, our analysts decide the best method to remedy the problem and correct the issue.
Managed Antivirus, which utilizes Microsoft Defender—a top-ranked antivirus solution pre-installed onto every Windows OS—provides management and visibility into network activity. With it, analysts can see what attackers are doing as they try to move through your network laterally. This insight, coupled with human contextual analysis, empowers analysts to react to an attack before the main objective (e.g., ransomware, data theft, etc.) can be achieved.
Proactive Research & Development (R&D)
A 2020 RSM Cybersecurity Report found that mid-market businesses are now “ground zero” for cyber threats—with 18 percent of those surveyed reporting a breach within a year. And if you’re a small business owner, you’re not far behind, especially if you’re not up-to-date on your security maintenance.
Our researchers actively assess internal and external trends in the threat landscape, including everything from the threats that analysts see in their investigations to the latest insider news about trending threats and attack organization activities. Many questions are top-of-mind for our researchers as they seek ways to further our detection and prevention capabilities. Hackers and harmful agents are always looking for ways to improve the effectiveness of their attacks. And so are we—with R&D experts leading the way.
Support When You Need It Most
When it comes to cybersecurity, no solution can protect you 100 percent of the time. So when an attack does occur, the speed and decisiveness with which you react can be the difference between a minor inconvenience and a four-alarm fire. Our ThreatOps analysts only alert you once a critical incident has been confirmed.
Likewise, with 24/7 threat hunting from the US/Canada to the UK and Australia, analysts keep an eye out for threats on weekends, holidays, and even in the middle of the night, when attacks are most likely to occur. In some cases, they can even detect and isolate an attack before it reaches hosts in another part of the world.
To learn more about our human ThreatOps experts and how vital they are to your business, reach out to your Pendello Solutions team today. It is time to let our ThreatOps experts be your secret weapon.
At Pendello Solutions, we turn technology hurdles into powerful assets. Our technology solutions fuel growth, productivity, and efficiency, through continuous innovation and strategic solutions, empowering your business beyond the imaginable. Contact us today to discover the Pendello Method.