Improving your operational technology security: how MDR and XDR help!

In today's interconnected world, operational technology (OT) plays a vital role in various critical infrastructures. Prime examples are energy, manufacturing, transportation, and healthcare. As OT systems become increasingly integrated with information technology (IT) networks and connected to the internet, the risk of cyber threats and attacks targeting these systems has also grown.

Finding a way to combat these evolving threats should therefore be one of your top priorities. Turning to managed detection and response (MDR) solutions to bolster your OT security can be a huge step in the right direction. This blog post explores the benefits of having MDR in OT environments and highlights how this technology allows you to enhance security, threat detection, and incident response capabilities.

Never caught off guard thanks to MDR

A good and advanced MDR service provides your organisation with a comprehensive approach to threat detection by combining advanced technologies, real-time monitoring, and human expertise. In OT environments, where the consequences of a cyberattack can be severe and detrimental to your business and in-company processes, the ability to detect and respond to threats swiftly is crucial.

MDR solutions leverage advanced analytics, machine learning, and behavioural analysis to detect anomalous activities and potential security incidents within OT systems. By monitoring both network traffic and endpoint data, MDR helps you to identify indicators of compromise and detect previously unknown threats. The result? A much better overall security posture of your OT infrastructure!

Rapidly responding to incidents

In the event of a security incident or breach, you want to be able to respond quickly. Managed Detection & Response offers you this opportunity by providing rapid incident response capabilities. This allows you to mitigate the impact and minimise downtime. MDR providers have experienced security professionals who specialise in OT environments, understanding the unique challenges and complexities associated with these systems.

They possess the expertise to quickly identify and contain security incidents and investigate the root cause, allowing you to facilitate recovery processes efficiently. With MDR, your organisation can benefit from 24/7 monitoring and incident response, ensuring timely action is taken to protect critical OT assets and minimize disruption to operations.

Proactively finding and hunting threats

Apart from real-time threat detection and response, MDR also employs proactive threat-hunting techniques. These allow you to identify hidden threats and potential vulnerabilities within OT systems. Signs of compromise or malicious activities that may have evaded automated detection mechanisms no longer stay under the radar. MDR analysts conduct detailed investigations, leveraging threat intelligence, network logs, and other relevant data sources.

This makes it easier for you to identify stealthy threats and close security gaps before attackers can exploit them. Proactively hunting for threats allows you to continuously stay one step ahead of cybercriminals and prevent potential breaches in your business-critical OT infrastructure.

Become more flexible and increase your scalability

Other key advantages of MDR are its scalability and the flexibility to adapt to the dynamic nature of OT environments. When you expand your OT infrastructure or introduce new systems to accommodate customers or explore new markets, MDR solutions can easily scale to accommodate the increased workload.

MDR providers offer you customised solutions tailored to the specific needs of your OT environment. This ensures that your security measures are always spot on and align with the unique requirements of critical systems. For organisations, it can be challenging to have a global and extensive overview in one platform of all the technologies from different providers. With MDR you don’t have this problem. Whether it's a small-scale OT deployment or a large, distributed infrastructure, MDR can adapt to different environments, providing consistent and reliable threat detection and response capabilities.

Take MDR to the next level with XDR

As operational technology continues to evolve and become more interconnected, the need for robust security measures becomes increasingly critical. Managed detection and response (MDR) offers an effective solution that allows you to enhance your OT security. Comprehensive threat detection, rapid incident response, proactive threat hunting, enhanced visibility, and scalability will take your security to the next level. By leveraging the power of advanced technologies, real-time monitoring, and human expertise, MDR empowers your organisation to safeguard critical infrastructures against the ever-evolving landscape of cyber threats.

But you can take security even one step further by employing eXtended Detection and Response (XDR). XDR and MDR work together and make each other stronger. This way they deliver visibility across all data, including endpoint, network, and cloud data, while applying analytics and automation to address today’s increasingly sophisticated threats. By adding XDR on top of MDR you are even more secure. The enhanced visibility and monitoring that XDR offers, make your security toolkit more impressive than ever.

The biggest overall benefits of XDR are:

• Optimised reactivity. This is highly important when you face an attack and damage control is your primary objective. Thanks to sophisticated and complementary technologies threats are detected in real-time and breaches are stopped.
• Immediate information availability. This enables you to buy valuable time since you don’t have to look up the necessary information that you need to adequately deal with specific incidents or threats.

Get the best out of MDR and XDR with Nomios and TEHTRIS

TEHTRIS XDR Platform empowers our MDR service with enhanced capabilities. Integrating the platform with MDR gives you comprehensive visibility into OT networks and assets. By leveraging TEHTRIS XDR Platform's network of powerful sensors, including the endpoint detection and response (EDR) components, MDR gains access to a unified platform for efficient threat detection and response.

This dynamic synergy allows you to share information and automate security responses through integrated security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR). You receive exhaustive coverage because all the solutions are combined and work together seamlessly. No hassle and fragmentation, but centralised access to all of your advanced security solutions.

Are you looking for a solution that safeguards your critical infrastructures and protects the backbone of your current and future business endeavours? Then TEHTRIS XDR Platform is the way to go!