FIGHTING CYBERCRIME WITH PROACTIVE SECURITY

WE BROUGHT TOGETHER A GROUP OF TOP CYBERSECURITY PRACTITIONERS TO DISCUSS THE EVER-EVOLVING THREAT LANDSCAPE AND WAYS TO SWAT AWAY THREATS.

The pandemic-induced digital transformation initiatives in the Middle East have increased the attack surface available to cybercriminals. As a result, it is estimated that cybercrime will cost the world $10.5 trillion annually by 2025.

In this context, CXO Insight ME, in association with eSentire and its local partner MMA Infosec, organised a roundtable event on the sidelines of its ICT leadership awards event to discuss how managed detection and response (MDR) helps enterprises to fill security gaps.

Piers Morgan, GM-EMEA at eSentire, kicked off the event. “We specialise in MDR. We started two decades ago by offering pen testing to local hedge funds in Toronto as a business. Incidentally, our founder coined the MDR acronym. MDR means different things to different people – by verticals, solutions, and partners. We have two global 24/7 SOCs in Canada and Ireland, and we see over 20.5 million pieces of data ingested through by our XDR platform every single day. And we deliver over 6000 daily human-led threat investigations with a mean time to contain of 15 minutes,” he said. Morgan said eSentire is onboarding a record number of customers with an NPS score of 85 percent while the industry average is around 35-50 percent. “We have zero churn in customers in the last ten years, and we have grown 40-50 percent in terms of revenue year on year. We have also made acquisitions along the way, and we will continue to look at M&A activity to add best in class services to our portfolio.”

In 2020, eSentire launched its cloudnative Atlas XDR platform, which delivers full-spectrum threat visibility and containment across hybrid environments to stop evolving cyberthreats. “All of the data that we look at and monitored is ingested through this underlying XDR platform, which is built on AI technologies. This enables us to stop breaches and reduce risks in ways unattainable by legacy security products and traditional MSSPs. In tandem, eSentire threat hunters typically actively respond to and contain threats in individual customers’ environments on average once every two minutes,” said Morgan.

He added the rapid-fire adoption of digital transformation had expanded the attack surface, and bad guys are always two or three steps ahead. “Cybersecurity is now a data problem, and no matter how many layers of security you have, bad guys will always find a backdoor to your corporate network. We specialise in setting up alarms and watching those corporate networks 24/7 so that CISOs can sleep better at night. In addition, our analysts are familiar with customers’ business context to maintain operational integrity and lower risk.” eSentire’s services are divided into three buckets – managed risk services, traditional MDR, and digital forensics and incident response. “We work with central government agencies globally. If you look at the US Federal Government, there are two companies accredited to carry out 24/7 security monitoring, and we are one of those companies. As your business continues to scale and grow, we can ensure that your enterprise becomes even more secure. We work with incountry third-party data centre providers to address data sovereignty requirements mandated by regulators, especially in the Middle East,” commented Morgan.

When it comes to incident response, eSentire offers Incident Response Retainer services, whereby it deploys remote technology for threat containment within four hours, anywhere in the world. “Our time to value in terms of accelerating investigation and closing the incident response cycle is unparalleled. We have a bestof-breed MDR approach by partnering with different technology platforms in analytics, log management, and cloud SIEM. We can also protect your existing investments by offering to bring our own license (BYOL) scenarios,” said Morgan.

The roundtable attendees included: Amit Kumar from MMA Infosec; Ahmed Salim Nasser Al Jabri from Ministry of Health, Oman; Sumith Poolappan from flydubai; Vivek Gupta from GEMS Education; Mohammad Shahzad from Dubai Developments; Wael El Khatib from Enova Facilities Management; and Bashir Shaikh from GCAA.