Skills shortage, budgets biggest challenges for MDR

Cyber security services specialist Integrity360 has today announced findings from a Twitter poll gaining visibility into the value of managed detection and response services (MDR). 

The poll, with 2,000+ responses and conducted between 8-10 March, highlights the pitfalls of existing detection and response, with the skills shortage and low budgets cited as the biggest challenges when it comes to managed detection and response 28% respectively. 

Furthermore, a third (33%) of respondents believe that threat detection is lacking most when it comes to cyber security and incident detection and response. This was closely followed by training and testing (27%). Meanwhile 26% of respondents said slow response times and 18% selected lack of visibility. 

"Preventative measures, to protect and prevent threats targeting our critical systems and data are important, but not enough in this increasingly sophisticated cyber threat landscape," says Richard Ford, CTO, Integrity360.

"Organisations need security solutions and services that are effective peri-incident, that can detect, analyse and respond to threats that have bypassed preventative controls threats both internal and external. 

"Training and testing of these solutions, including platform tuning and training employees, is equally critical to maintaining a strong security posture.

"There remains a huge skills shortage in the cyber security industry, and particularly in high value skills and experience such as threat detection and incident response. MDR helps close the gap. In fact, organisations bridging the skills gap and utilising MDR services have a 62% reduction in the average number of security incidents per year."

The poll did reveal that respondents look set to take action to address issues around incident detection and response, agreeing that MDR should be prioritised and highlighting that they will allocate the most cyber security budget to managed security (29%). A further 25% noted that cyber security testing would receive a budget boost.  

This is positive given that four in ten (40%) believe cyber security testing is best outsourced over handling in-house. Additionally, over a third (35%) believe a service provider better manages cloud computing security. 

It appears in-house approaches may also require investment or improvement with the poll revealing that almost a third (31%) of respondents said that thirty percent of their cyber security budget is allocated to tools and solutions that are not used to their full potential. 

When it comes to what people see as the most damaging impact of a cyber security breach, financial loss came top of the list (46%), followed by loss of trust (28%). Meanwhile, reputational damage was selected by twenty percent of respondents. 

"We're currently experiencing a time of economic downturn, when cyber security budgets are tight, and risks are heightened," says Ford.

"However, slashing cyber security budgets can put a company at risk of losing their cyber security professionals which are already in short supply and can result in gaps in an organisation's defences. Organisations are visibly assessing the value and efficiency of their security solutions and its great to see that they are looking to put budgets to good use by investing money and trust in service providers."

Further, the poll found that over a third (36%) see increased defences as the most significant benefit of cyber security collaboration, with (36%) also seeing faster response times as being the biggest benefit of a managed detection and response service.  

Integrity360's MDR offering delivers real-time threat detection, proactive threat hunting, incident containment and response, security incident analysis and threat intelligence, compliance reporting, and 24/7 monitoring to businesses across Ireland and the UK. As well as enhancing organisations' detection and response capabilities and enabling the protection of systems and data, the service provides businesses with access to on-demand and proactive support via Integrity360's experienced security team. 

Integrity360 leverages the latest threat intelligence and solutions to deliver its MDR service to identify new threat actor Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) across networks, endpoints, servers, and the cloud. 

Integrity360 has also recently announced that it has been named as a Representative Vendor in the 2023 Gartner Market Guide for Managed Detection and Response (MDR) Services. 

"As cyber threats continue to evolve in frequency, sophistication and efficacy, companies must roll out a comprehensive service to meet their security needs," says Ford. 

"That's where MDR comes in. Through our offering we aim to deliver even deeper technical expertise and innovative technologies which enable companies to secure their operations and allow us to serve as an extension of their team."