How MSSPs Amplify the Power of Microsoft Defender XDR, Sentinel and More

If your organization is adopting or considering adopting technology solutions like Microsoft Defender XDR and Microsoft Sentinel, you likely have questions, and rightfully so. But what if you don’t have the time or expertise on hand to manage a new solution? Before taking the plunge, it’s beneficial to understand how these tools can enhance your security posture and how a managed security services provider (MSSP) can fill in the skill or time gaps. Before we get into those FAQs, let’s clarify what these solutions are.

These tools work together to provide comprehensive visibility and control over modern security environments. Microsoft Defender XDR (previously known as Microsoft 365 Defender) is designed to help organizations detect and prevent cyberattacks across their digital landscape — including endpoints, identities, email, collaboration tools, software as a service (SaaS) applications, cloud workloads, and data.

Meanwhile, Microsoft Sentinel offers a scalable, cloud-native security information and event management (SIEM) and security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) solution that delivers intelligent threat detection, investigation and automated response.

Managed security services for Microsoft Defender XDR and Microsoft Sentinel play a significant role in helping organizations protect their digital environments. These services encompass the assessment, implementation and continuous monitoring of security solutions tailored to protect them effectively. For organizations navigating the complexities of Microsoft’s licensing agreements, having expert support can make a substantial difference.

CDW provides comprehensive services designed to facilitate this process. Our resolute team specializes in assisting your organization with assessing and implementing Microsoft licensing solutions.

Once the solutions are in place, we offer managed services that ensure these technologies are monitored 24/7, 365 days a year. Utilizing Microsoft’s infrastructure, CDW leverages a solution called Lighthouse, which enables secure remote access to the Microsoft security suite and Sentinel. This connectivity allows us to continuously monitor your networks, agreements and overall organizational environments.

When an alert is triggered, it initiates a workflow within our security operations center (SOC), creating a ticket that prompts our analysts to conduct triage and investigation. Following this, we take appropriate remediation actions or provide actionable intelligence to customers through our ticketing system. In this way, CDW collaborates and works shoulder to shoulder with your organization to manage your security environment effectively, ensuring you receive the maximum return on investment from your Microsoft solutions.

Commitment to continuous improvement: Managed security services for Microsoft Defender XDR and Microsoft Sentinel provide vital enhancements to your organization’s overall security. Rather than taking a set-and-forget approach, these services commit to continuous improvement.

What does that look like in practice? At CDW, it means we hold regular cadence calls with your organization  to review activities in your environment, optimizing and tuning your setup to align with your specific threat levels and risk appetite.

Expertise and comprehensive surveillance: A quality MSSP should have a wealth of experience that enables them to offer an abundance of knowledge, strategies and best practices. CDW is well-equipped to do just that, as we have encountered a wide range of security environments across different verticals.

Continuous monitoring of environments is a challenge for most organizations to manage alone, but it doesn’t have to be when you have a MSSP. Maintaining eyes on glass and constant surveillance requires between eight to 12 full-time staff members. While not all organizations have budgets outfitted to support this headcount, an MSSP can fill that gap.

Expedited incident response time and enhanced visibility: When it comes to your organization’s security, response time is critical. CDW’s service level agreements ensure that we respond to alerts within a period of 30 minutes to an hour, allowing us to address any emerging issues quickly and consistently. We also bring established operational discipline as a value-added service.

Our well-defined workflows enable us to manage ticket triage and utilize external threat intelligence feeds efficiently — and in so doing, enhancing and enriching the information we can provide to your organization. This visibility, paired with insights from other customer environments, allows us to deliver actionable intelligence for problem-solving. For example, when managing Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, we can isolate a host and remove malware, among other actions. This capability quickly contains incidents so that affected assets can be restored to operation.

CDW has a strong partnership with Microsoft, complemented by our knowledgeable security practice that has been in operation since 2007. Our team is highly skilled in technologies such as XDR, SIEM and endpoint detection, having worked with them for many years.

While other companies may offer similar services, CDW stands out due to our broader product portfolio. We not only support customers with Microsoft’s offerings, but can also assist them in areas like collaboration, Azure infrastructure and various applications, providing a comprehensive range of services beyond security.

As a vendor-agnostic provider, we recognize that no single brand of security solution meets everyone’s needs. For this reason, we are equipped to manage additional tools and services, including secure access service edge (SASE) platforms, next-generation firewalls, vulnerability scanning, backups and patching. This enables CDW to deliver tailored solutions that may not be exclusively reliant on Microsoft technologies.

Additionally, CDW can extend its managed services beyond the security and Microsoft ecosystems. This includes managing storage solutions, network routes and even mainframe systems. It is through this full-stack integration that true value is delivered.

One notable impact is the increased speed and consistency of responses to security incidents. We help your organization sift through a high volume of alerts, identifying actionable intelligence and prioritizing the most critical issues that need immediate attention. This process significantly reduces the noise in your environment.

As we actively collaborate with you in a co-managed scenario, we not only enhance our own processes but also help you improve your internal procedures. This approach offers a two-fold advantage: CDW enhances your security maturity while refining our own methods; and we provide our customers with valuable time back.

By managing tier one and tier two tasks, such as tactical triage and investigations, we enable your staff to concentrate on more strategic initiatives. Our focus on higher-level processes and policies allows them to move away from being bogged down in everyday tasks.

Certain industries significantly benefit from managed security services, particularly those where cybersecurity is not a core competency. The healthcare, manufacturing and retail sectors are prime examples. In these environments, it often doesn't make sense to invest heavily in internal cybersecurity resources, as there is generally no competitive advantage gained from maintaining an in-house team solely for operational cybersecurity purposes.

Organizations in these industries that require a strong and swift response to security incidents will find such services especially valuable. By leveraging managed security services, these organizations can focus on their core operations while ensuring robust protection against cybersecurity threats.

First, your organization must understand the value of bringing in a MSSP. It’s important to evaluate whether you can trust a partner with a critical part of your business. This situation often involves transferring risk to the partner, which requires a high level of trust. Look for established providers with a proven history of success.

Here are seven important questions to ask potential MSSPs:

1. How do your managed security services align with organizations similar to ours, and how familiar is your team with the technology in our environment?
2. Can you provide assurance regarding the maturity and expertise of the personnel who will be overseeing our operations?
   
3. What details can you share about your team, including their locations, professional backgrounds and training experiences?
   
4. What is your typical response time to incidents?
   
5. Can you outline the specific parameters of your service-level agreements (SLAs) and your success ratio for meeting those SLAs?
   
6. What processes do you follow when a routine alert transitions to a potentially significant issue, and how is this transition managed?
   
7. Does your organization provide additional services?

CDW approaches the evaluation process from a security operations perspective. Your organization will also benefit from our professional services, incident response capabilities and virtual chief information security officer (CISO) services. These resources can assist you with mapping to frameworks and other critical elements for long-term success within the cybersecurity field.

• Your organization has experienced a security breach.
• Your organization struggles to hire, train and retain staff. This is a strong indicator your organization needs an MSSP, but know that you’re not alone. There are over 450,000 unfilled cybersecurity positions in the United States, making it challenging to find and maintain skilled personnel.
• Your team is often preoccupied with daily tasks, resulting in minimal time for strategic planning and policy development. Consequently, projects may be delayed or fail to be completed on time, indicating that the focus is on daily operational needs rather than long-term strategic goals.
• Your organization faces challenges responding promptly to alerts from its security tools.
• Your organization experiences difficulty integrating its security tools and systems, hindering its ability to obtain accurate insights into your cybersecurity environment.

Understand and rate the tools in your environment. First, it’s crucial to avoid overlapping with other tools. This area can be confusing, but you need to have a clear understanding of all the tools in your environment and rate them on how well they're deployed or utilized. Establishing a confidence factor for each tool will help to identify any duplication or overlap. Aim for getting this information right by measuring twice and cutting once.

Determine your risk appetite. Knowing how much risk your organization is willing to accept is vital, as these programs have financial implications. Striking a balance between acceptable risk and budget is often a significant consideration, so going through this process is imperative. It can be frustrating for both the organization and the service provider if there isn’t sufficient budget to ensure a comprehensive coverage plan.

Outline all impending events that could affect the integration process. The best transitions allow time for planning and implementation. Ensure that there are no impending events, such as contracts with current providers, which are set to expire in the immediate or near future that would impact integration.

Identify your key collaborator(s). Take a minute to assess how much time this collaboration will require and determine who will manage the vendor relationship. Clearly define who is responsible for ongoing collaboration with the service provider to ensure a continuous improvement cycle, avoiding an “I told you to do it” scenario with no feedback. At CDW, we consider this a better-together approach.

One major issue with Microsoft products is the confusion surrounding licensing and the need for technical expertise. Often, it’s a matter of either lacking the right knowledge or not having enough time to invest in understanding these complex tools. CDW addresses these issues by providing valuable guidance to help you maximize your return on investment in Microsoft solutions.

In addition, organizations may have originally purchased the E5 stack for features like collaboration or other functionalities rather than security, leaving their security teams with the challenge of optimizing these tools. CDW simplifies this process, making it easier for teams to integrate and utilize the security features of E5 effectively.

One significant trend is the consolidation between endpoint protection and centralized logging, specifically within SIEM systems. For example, Microsoft Sentinel is a SIEM system, while Microsoft Defender is an endpoint protection solution. In addition to Microsoft Sentinel and Microsoft Defender, other major players in the industry such as CrowdStrike, Palo Alto and SentinelOne are doing the same thing.

Endpoint devices generate a substantial amount of meaningful security data. However, ingesting this data into SIEMs for analysis typically incurs costs. As a result, we are witnessing a rise in platform solutions where endpoint protection and SIEM capabilities are offered by the same vendor. This often includes low-cost or no-cost options for ingesting security-related data for analysis. Therefore, the most critical trend to be aware of is the significant increase in log volume generated by endpoints and how this growth will affect your centralized logging and analysis processes.

When determining if this solution is right for you, remember that confidence and trust cannot be given immediately; they must be earned over time. Collaborating with your CDW account representative — from initial phase discussions such as scoping out the potential investment with Microsoft to understanding what day two will look like — will naturally build confidence in the solution.

As you navigate this process with CDW, you will have the opportunity to meet with the analysts who will support your business and visit our primary SOC in Mississauga, Toronto, Canada. This visit will reinforce our commitment and capabilities.

It’s important to note that CDW Managed Security Services for Microsoft Defender XDR and Sentinel involves a collaborative effort with Microsoft, ensuring both parties have skin in the game when it comes to your success. This partnership extends what we’ve been doing with Microsoft in other areas, and our long-standing work in security with other technologies since 2007.