New cybersecurity innovations continue to fill the market each year as organizations attempt to stay ahead of threat actors. Sifting through all the options to find the solutions that best fit your healthcare organization’s needs can be a confusing and time-consuming challenge.

Compounding the issue are the increasing pressures from cyber insurance providers and governing bodies, both of which have become more prescriptive in their requirements.

To solve for these challenges, many health systems deploy solutions such as Security Information Event Management (SIEM), Endpoint Detection & Response (Managed EDR), and the monitoring and management of connected medical devices. 

Adding to the Security Operations Center (SOC) solutions toolkit is Managed Extended Detection & Response (XDR).

But what’s right for you?

What’s the difference between SIEM, MDR, and XDR?

While SIEM and EDR are complementary, they play very different roles.

Managed SIEM collects, stores, and analyzes threat event data. It’s a useful, but passive tool that requires continuous intervention and fine-tuning by security analysts to define what threats are both credible and critical. SIEM also isn’t typically focused on detailed activity at the endpoint.

Managed EDR is a service that monitors endpoints (Endpoint Detection Response (EDR)) for threats, and delivers automated responses to isolate or remediate detected threats. EDR/MDR also has limited visibility to the network and cloud.

Managed XDR can provide the next step in your cybersecurity defense. XDR takes things a step further by combining the capabilities of SIEM and EDR/MDR, and adds in feeds like IoMT. A holistic XDR solution also provides visibility into network threats rather than just endpoints.

Many view XDR as the natural progression in the cybersecurity stack, as it brings intelligence, visibility, and response into a single management console.

Why does managed extended detection and response (XDR) matter?

Managed XDR helps cybersecurity teams become more effective and faster in their response to threats.  Speed is a huge advantage for teams using XDR to mitigate or respond to incidents. The faster the response, the lower the downtime and remediation costs.

Organizations that have deployed XDR technologies experienced an average lower cost of $4.15 million compared to organizations that haven’t, according to IBM Cost of Data Breach Report 2022. What’s more is that many cyber insurance providers require specific security capabilities, such as what XDR provides, to maintain coverage.  

Managed XDR in healthcare

Finding experienced cybersecurity professionals who have hands-on experience with XDR can be difficult.

If you’re considering a Managed XDR solution, understand that not all XDR solutions are created equal. Although approaches, integrations, and features aren’t guaranteed or standardized, the primary two tend to include:

1. Endpoint vendors acquiring or partnering with technology vendors that have traditionally focused on network and cloud monitoring

2. SIEM vendors acquiring or partnering with endpoint vendors

Both approaches can be valuable, and often success is dependent upon how well the tools can be merged into a single platform. Understanding what integrations you need today and in the future is a great starting point.

Ensure integrations are available for your:

  • Critical apps
  • Endpoints
  • Network monitoring
  • Identification (e.g. Active Directory)
  • Cloud services

Once you have that important information, you can start to evaluate the level of effort and resources needed to make the XDR transition for your organization. Due to the complexity and expertise required for effective integration, many healthcare organizations choose to work with an outside provider for one or all of these services.

To learn more about MDR cybersecurity services in healthcare, check out our on-demand webinar.