Displaying items by tag: mdr

One of the most commonly asked questions in cybersecurity is “where do I start?” This common question shows just how overwhelmed many organizations are when faced with the reality of the threats that are out there. From ransomware to business email compromise, the threat actors certainly seem to be ahead of the implementations when it comes to securing the data that organizations are responsible for. So where should an organization start when it comes to building or optimizing their cybersecurity program?

EDR, XDR, and MDR are acronyms that are well known to most organizations. The operative letters here are DR which stands for Detection and Response. The E, X, and M stand for Endpoint, E(x)tended, and Managed respectively. Each one of these is designed to monitor a device for threats and respond according to the profile/configuration/policy enabled for the device. This is different than the traditional “anti-virus/anti-malware” application in many ways. The most common is that an EDR is intended to do more than check files against a signature list and quarantine them if identified. The modern EDR does look for malware, but it also monitors script execution, process starts/stops, file and registry reads and writes and, in many cases, network activity that can indicate potential compromise.

Ransomware is a pain in the ass, no matter what type it is. You have a piece of code that comes in, encrypts all your files, steals them and then you must deal with paying a ransom of some sort to either get your files back or prevent potential disclosure of sensitive information. It is not exactly what you want to deal with on a given day. So, when a new method of deploying ransomware pops up you can excuse our thinking “oh what fresh hell is this”.