What is Threat Detection and Response?

The rapid evolution of cyber threats makes it crucial for organizations to have robust threat detection and response capabilities. Failure to detect and respond to these threats can lead to data breaches, financial losses, and reputational damage.

Threat detection and response refers to promptly identifying and reacting to shut down potential cybersecurity threats and attacks. It involves using technology, processes, and human expertise to detect, analyze, and mitigate security incidents.

Your organization can effectively bolster its security defenses and protect against potential security risks by understanding the nuances of cyber threat detection and response. In doing so, cyber threat detection and response plays a vital role in building cyber resilience and protecting your organization from business disruption.

Understanding Threat Detection

Threat detection involves continuously monitoring potential attack vectors including networks, endpoints, cloud, logs, identity, and vulnerability data for signs of malicious activity and various types of cyber threats, such as:

• Malware: This is malicious software that’s designed to accomplish different tasks such as gain unauthorized access into your systems, disrupt operations, or damage sensitive data once deployed in your organization’s environment. Some examples include infostealers, remote access trojans, and ransomware.
• Phishing and Business Email Compromise (BEC) Attacks: This is a type of attack vector used by threat actors to gain access into your networks and manipulate unsuspecting users into deploying malware, stealing valid user credentials, and more. Most often, threat actors use phishing emails and BEC attacks to target businesses, but they have also used SMS and sophisticated drive-by social engineering tactics to gain access.
• Ransomware: This is a specific type of malware used to encrypt highly valuable data (e.g., customer data or employee data). Once encrypted, threat actors can demand a ransom for its release or threaten to expose the data on the Dark Web if they aren’t paid.
• Insider Threats: These threats originate from within the organization and can be either intentional, such as malicious insiders, or unintentional, such as accidental data leaks.
• Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs): These are sophisticated, prolonged attacks aimed at stealing information or compromising systems over an extended period.

Threat detection also involves using proactive threat hunting to search for signs of malicious activities or indicators of compromise (IOCs) before threat actors gain a deep foothold within your organization’s environment.

How Does Threat Detection Work?

There are four key methodologies that security experts use for threat detection:

Signature-based Detection relies on predefined signatures of known threats to identify malicious activities. When a match is found, it indicates the presence of a known threat. While effective against known malware, this method may struggle with zero-day attacks and polymorphic malware.

Anomaly-based Detection focuses on detecting unusual patterns or deviations from established baselines of normal behavior. When the system identifies activities that significantly differ from the norm, it generates alerts. This method is valuable for detecting novel and zero-day threats but can produce false positives.

Behavior-based Detection involves observing and analyzing user behavior to identify potential threats. It doesn't rely on specific signatures but on understanding how threats typically behave. This approach can catch previously unseen threats but requires sophisticated machine learning and behavioral analysis.

Heuristic-based Detection uses rules and algorithms to detect new or unknown threats that do not have predefined signatures. This method balances signature-based and anomaly-based detection and can detect new threats that exhibit suspicious behavior.

Threat detection involves several critical steps, starting with data collection and monitoring. First, data is gathered from various sources, including network traffic, system logs, and endpoint devices. Once the data is collected, it’s analyzed using techniques such as statistical analysis, pattern recognition, and anomaly detection.

Next, the data is correlated to identify potential threats, which involves integrating and analyzing data from different sources to detect complex threats that might be missed when examining data in isolation.

However, it’s important to recognize that your organization can only detect and respond to what you can see. For example, if you only monitor the host level (i.e., endpoint) and ignore the perimeter, user activities, applications, and log data, you won't have complete visibility. This lack of comprehensive monitoring leaves critical parts of your attack surface vulnerable to threats.

Therefore, a multi-signal coverage approach allows for the early identification of potential security risks on all attack surfaces (network, endpoint, cloud, log, identity and vulnerability) enabling swift action to reduce the impact of attacks no matter where they reside. Learn more about the importance of multi-signal visibility in our Understanding Why Multi-Signal MDR Matters Whitepaper here.

What are Threat Detection Tools?

Detection techniques often leverage advanced technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence for pattern recognition and predictive analytics. These tools are crucial in identifying and mitigating threats in real time.

Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) can be either network-based, monitoring network traffic, or host-based, monitoring individual systems for intrusions and anomalies.

Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems play a crucial role by centralizing log management, collecting, analyzing, and correlating security event data from across the organization to provide comprehensive threat detection and response capabilities.

Here are some commonly used threat detection tools:

Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Systems

SIEM systems collect and correlate data from various sources, such as network logs, system logs, and security devices. They provide a centralized platform for monitoring and analyzing security events and generating alerts when potential threats are detected.

Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) and Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS)

IDS and IPS solutions monitor network traffic and system activities to identify suspicious or malicious behavior. While IDS systems generate alerts, IPS systems can take automated actions to block or mitigate threats.

Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) Solutions

EDR solutions focus on monitoring and securing individual endpoints like computers and servers. They can detect and respond to threats granularly, offering visibility and control over endpoints.

Threat Intelligence Platforms

Threat intelligence platforms provide organizations with up-to-date information on emerging threats and vulnerabilities. They help security teams make informed decisions and prioritize threat response efforts.

User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) Tools

UEBA tools analyze user and entity behavior to detect anomalies and potential insider threats. They use machine learning to identify deviations from standard behavior patterns.

Understanding Threat Response

An effective defensive posture requires process, technology and most importantly human expertise for combat-level containment and response. Threat response should include real action against threats including host isolation, hash blocking, account suspension, retroactive email purges, system reboots and more.

Some threat response actions can be automated, but more advanced attacks will require manual action to contain and remediate the threat and limit disruption. Threat response and remediation includes three key elements:

Threat Response Speed

When you are under attack every minute matters to limit disruption to your business. Effective threat response ensures that incidents are identified, contained, and mitigated swiftly, thereby protecting your business operations and assets.

Investing in advanced threat detection and response solutions, such as Managed Detection and Response (MDR) services, can enhance your organization's ability to respond to threats in real-time, reducing the window of opportunity for attackers and safeguarding your business continuity.

Threat Response Expertise

Different attack vectors, such as phishing, ransomware, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS), and advanced persistent threats (APTs), each require specific knowledge and strategies to counteract. So, expertise against different attack types is important to understand how to respond to a threat.

Leveraging the expertise of cybersecurity professionals, particularly those specialized in Managed Detection and Response (MDR) services, enhances your team's capability to respond to evolving cyber threats with precision and confidence.

Threat Response Coverage

Cyber threats can target various entry points within your organization's network, including endpoints, servers, cloud environments, and IoT devices. Therefore, you need response across your complete entire attack surface to ensure you are fully protected against different types of threats. A holistic approach to threat response involves monitoring and defending all potential vulnerabilities to prevent attackers from exploiting any weak spots.

With Managed Detection and Response (MDR) services, you can achieve round-the-clock surveillance and rapid response capabilities across your entire infrastructure. This ensures that no aspect of your attack surface is left unprotected, significantly reducing the risk of successful breaches and enhancing your overall cybersecurity posture.

Not All Threat Response is Created Equal

When working with a security service provider, it is important to consider the threat response spectrum and how far a provider will go in terms of threat response and remediation. MDR vs MSSPs provide a different level of response.

Real MDR goes beyond alerting to provide multi-signal visibility, threat containment, and complete response to cyberattacks on your behalf. In contrast, Fake MDR and MSSPs crush you with alerts, have limited threat visibility and leave you to contain cyber threats on your own with “guided remediation.”

Here are the levels of threat response you can expect from different security service providers:

When working with a real MDR provider, standard threat response procedures include:

• Preventing infected endpoints from spreading to other machines
• Isolating ransomware, data exfiltration and hands-on keyboard attackers
• Quarantining malicious files and terminating processes
• Stopping/removing service and registry keys
• Preventing compromised email accounts from forwarding compromised communications
• Reporting, investigating, and remediating phishing attempts
• Purging emails retroactively organization-wide
• Suspending accounts and user access to stop compromised users from corrupting data or applications
• Correcting critical misconfigurations across your multi-cloud environments
• Preventing any devices on the network from communicating with known bad actors
• Tactically disrupting network connections involved in investigations or incidents

When Can Threat Response Be Automated?

Threat response can be automated if you are using an XDR platform and can confidently answer the following questions:

• Which of these pieces of information are relevant?
• Which of these events are related?
• Which activities are obviously, clearly and demonstrably malicious?
• When is it appropriate to initiate an automated response workflow?
• What requires further analysis and human attention?
• How many IT assets do I have, where are they, and how has that number changed over time?
• How does my external risk compare to my industry peers?

Automating threat response entirely removes human effort from the process. Where there is some ambiguity, human intuition is required to respond to cyber threats. 

Managed Detection and Response for Threat Detection and Response

Managed Detection and Response (MDR) services allow you to build a more responsive security operation by combining advanced security monitoring capabilities proactively with ongoing 24/7 threat detection, investigation, and response so you can eliminate cyber threats before they disrupt your business.

An Extended Detection and Response (XDR) platform makes the outcomes driven by MDR possible. An XDR platform should provide multi-signal correlation for complete visibility and coverage into your attack surface. It should eliminate noise and automatically block attacks so your MDR provider can focus on your highest priority security events.

MDR Benefits for Threat Detection and Response

Rapid, robust response capabilities: MDR provides the ability to disrupt, isolate, and stop the most advanced threats.

Full threat visibility and investigation: Your team can see your entire attack surface with multi-signal cyber threat intelligence that enables deeper data correlation and threat investigation capabilities.

24/7 proactive threat hunting and disruption: An MDR provider will have a team of highly skilled security experts who will rapidly investigate, contain and shut down threats when an automated threat response isn’t possible.

Leverage an XDR platform: Your team will be able to stay ahead of new and emerging threats with high fidelity threat detection and automated real-time cyber threat disruption.

Original threat intelligence: Partnering with a proven MDR provider means that you’ll gain access to threat researchers who will develop, and deliver, original research, curate new cyber threat intelligence, and build advanced detection models to ensure your organization stays ahead of cyberattackers.

24/7 eSentire Threat Detection and Response

At eSentire, we believe a 24/7 multi-signal approach is paramount to protecting your complete attack surface. We ingest high-fidelity data sources from endpoint, network, log, cloud, identity, and vulnerability data that enables complete attack surface visibility around the clock.

eSentire owns the R in MDR by disrupting, isolating, and stopping threats on your behalf across your full attack surface with a Mean Time to Contain of less than 15 minutes. We detect in seconds and contain in minutes, so your business is never disrupted.

Contact us to learn more about our 24/7 MDR services for cyber threat detection and response.