The unseen cyber warriors keeping your company safe

In a room filled with monitors, insidious agents track the activities of multinational firms. Billions of bots make their way across the Internet, testing the defences of companies worldwide and probing for a mere sign of weakness. 

The mission is simple: steal precious data and turn it into a bargaining chip for ransom. According to Accenture’s 2021 Cyber Threat Intelligence Report, cyber attacks have increased in recent years, sparing no industry. 

Cybersecurity has become a top priority for organisations, given the potential impact that cyberattacks can bring in terms of both the tangible (data loss, ransomware payouts, and compliance fines) and intangible (brand loss and reputation). It has forced C-suites around the world to have tough conversations on how to better protect their companies. 

While the challenge of safeguarding an organisation may seem impossible, there are steps to minimise the risk of breaches. Managed Extended Detection & Response (MxDR) provides a compelling offer for those looking for comprehensive environment coverage, which includes response capabilities and 24/7 oversight.

Stepping up Cybersecurity Measures

Southeast Asian (SEA) companies have come a long way in their cybersecurity journeys. Some have introduced comprehensive regulatory compliance, while others are detecting threats faster. But the need for expertise to deal with breaches remains high, and in a growing economy, few companies here have the in-house knowhow.

With regional organisations treating cybersecurity as a whack-a-mole operation, continuous vigilance to stave off such attacks is critical. Waiting for problems to show up before extinguishing them is a reactive strategy.  

In a market with varying levels of maturity, the challenge to build resilience remains, and this must start with proactive round-the-clock, across-the-board monitoring. Yet, many fail to see the importance of cybersecurity as it is not part of their core business.

All for Visibility, Visibility for All

MxDR was built to ingest any and all security logs to provide the perfect high-definition picture that security organisations need in order to have eyes and ears everywhere. As a vendor-agnostic solution, MxDR allows clients to retain their existing security tools while sending all their logs through one main tool that collates information. 

With the monitoring done by MxDR, all that’s left to do is to respond to threats when they do come. Outsourcung such cybersecurity challenges to experts means companies and their security teams can focus on real challenges. 

With COVID-19 changing how we work, the start and end of a network has been blurred. Companies have to now adapt their work-from-home policies to include public places like coffee shops, and with more users on the move, proper monitoring is key to safer working.

Talent Shortage 

Another reason to utilise MxDR stems from the difficulty in hiring and retaining skilled talent. For instance, a company’s in-house team may face repetitive work, which could compel employees to leave for fresh challenges. What’s more, their threat visibility would be short-sighted as they work in the same environment daily.

Vendors, on the other hand, have a global team that can apply learnings from different regions to similar cases elsewhere.

A Fighting Chance 

When it comes to firepower, MxDR is the obvious choice with its rapid response time, tight integration with any client’s tools, and six global Security Operations Centers (SOCs) providing around-the-clock monitoring. 

What truly differentiates Accenture’s white-glove end-to-end service is that our SOCs allow the storage of unlimited logs from clients each day, which enhances our ability to proactively monitor and snuff out threats. 

The SOCs do not just report security incidents; we also quickly deploy responders to perform containment and conduct retrospective analysis to prevent future attacks. Our dedicated team of threat researchers create detections daily across all our clients. By supporting multitenancy, the platforms benefit all clients equally. 

We carry out threat hunts using over 100 different intel sources, and will be able to immediately put clients on heightened alert. They can also access and analyse their own logs to improve in-house cybersecurity. 

Our SOCs are an integrated network of analysts on the lookout for trouble and they can cover for each other across regions. The SOCs in Australia, Japan or India will be able to help out our SEA clients if there’s a surge in incidents, for instance. With aggregated client data, our cyber warriors can take learnings from similar industries in different regions to scale efforts.

Success Story

Our Accenture’s Analysis team identified a data breach affecting one of our clients in the manufacturing sector. The multistage chain attack infected endpoints, but more notably, the threat actor used legitimate tools to hide their activity. 

Having observed similar campaigns, our team leveraged additional data collected from endpoints, such as processes launched, network connections opened, and files or registry keys accessed, to provide the client with more information.

The Analysis team contained the threat and monitored it round the clock, giving the client some breathing room to figure out a solution. The team was able to leverage remote remediation to limit the potential damage of threats identified. Subsequently, these actions prevented the threat actors from deploying the ransomware. 

For Chief Information Officers (CIOs) in SEA, knowing the enemy and what they are after, and having a capable crew to eliminate them is crucial. A dedicated team also helps to streamline costs as opposed to undertaking wayward spending to boil the ocean.

A company’s security strategy must keep evolving to avoid being compromised, as attackers will also continue to advance their methodologies to exploit their victims. Even the best defences can fall to persistent threats. It is no longer a matter of if they will be breached, but when. The key is how organisations respond – swiftly and decisively.

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