How do you overcome today's talent gap in cybersecurity? This is a crucial issue — particularly when you find executive leadership or the board asking pointed questions about your security team's ability to defend the organization against new and current threats.

This is why many security leaders find themselves turning to managed security services like MDR (managed detection and response), which can offer an immediate solution. The right MDR partner can act as an extension of your existing team, while offering a fast and budget-friendly option for uplevelling security at organizations of virtually any size.

Here's a look at common staffing challenges that MDR helps solve:

Overcoming Cybersecurity Talent Challenges

From stopping ransomware to securing the attack surface of the environment, most security teams have more to do than they can manage. This leads to security gaps that increase both cyber risk and frustration for stakeholders across the business. The challenges of today's lean IT and cybersecurity teams are legion. Problems arise when any of the following takes place:

• Digital transformation projects are placed on hold to focus on security.
• Digital transformation projects proceed while critical security tasks are left undone.
• Attempts to cover all holidays, vacations, and leaves-of-absence lead to staff burnout.
• Experienced but exhausted staff resigns.
• Junior staff is hired, but find cutting-edge technology too complex to use effectively.
• Staff matures and gains more responsibilities, diluting their efforts.
• The entire cycle repeats itself.

Add the time-consuming process of hiring and training, and this cycle becomes even more problematic; in fact, it's often considered one of the top reasons to consider MDR. Furthermore, ramping up an in-house SOC (security operations center) can take months — or, in some cases, years — andcost millions.

Benefits of Managed Detection and Response

In contrast, subscribing to an MDR service can help you rapidly scale your security team — at a fraction of the cost. More importantly, a reliable MDR partner can instantly extend your team's capabilities, providing immediate access to highly experienced cybersecurity professionals who will focus on your organization's risks 24x7, and help you minimize them without burning out your in-house staff.

Even when you experience staff turnover in-house, the MDR team can preserve both budgets and efficiency by maintaining the continuity of your security posture, and helping train your new hires.

These are just a few of MDR's potential benefits. To learn more, I suggest reading the IDC Market Perspective report, "How MDR Providers Can Delight Their Customers." It provides additional examples of how organizations can benefit from MDR, what to look for in a service, and why BlackBerry offers an exceptional solution.

BlackBerry MDR

The defining characteristics of the BlackBerry® MDR service, CylanceGUARD®, are best expressed in terms of its people, process, and technology.

• People — BlackBerry security analysts have an average of 15 years of threat-hunting experience, and are the current SOC X™ Championsafter prevailing against 49 other professional teams in real-world adversary emulation scenarios. BlackBerry analysts pride themselves on quickly understanding your unique security needs to provide an effective, customized protection plan, and helping to upskill your team.
• Process — CylanceGUARD analysts utilize BlackBerry's proprietary cyberthreat intelligence and award-winning Cylance® AI (artificial intelligence) to deliver fewer, more accurate, more actionable alerts. This process can save your team a tremendous amount of time, so they can accomplish more while focusing on other important IT and cybersecurity initiatives. CylanceGUARD also helps simplify your scheduling process, because you are protected every day — around the clock — by our dedicated team.
• Technology — Cylance AI puts advanced cybersecurity technology into the hands of our experts, and yours, leading to better outcomes. This includes mean-time-to-detect in under one minute, and mean-time-to-investigate in under eight minutes. Additionally, your team gains visibility across your environment, and sees key security metrics in real-time via a single console.

Managed detection and response solutions like CylanceGUARD are critical for scaling a security team quickly and adapting to meet the needs of your organization, regardless of its size. For more real-world examples, read how our actual customers — such as Prospect Capital Management and Robinson, Grimes and Co. — have succeeded with MDR.

Let us know how we can help achieve the same results at your organization.

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Note: This article is expertly written by Nathan Jenniges, Vice President of Cybersecurity Product Strategy at BlackBerry. He manages people, strategy, roadmaps, and go-to-market for P&L business, delivering new technologies and user experiences across enterprise and consumer products. Nathan spearheaded a new business strategy in a mature product line, earning C-level approval. He also led the development and successful launch of a new portfolio of products, which generated over $25M in revenue within the first 6 months. Additionally, he built and developed product management, marketing, and business operations teams, overseeing 3 to 15 direct staff and indirectly influencing over 30 to 400+ R&D staff.