Strengthen your cyber resilience with Managed XDR from NTT DATA

October is Cybersecurity Awareness month, and I want to take this opportunity to share some of my personal observations of the changing cybersecurity landscape along with exciting news from NTT DATA and Palo Alto Networks. 

I have met with many senior business and IT security leaders across the globe. Keeping ahead of increasingly sophisticated cybercrime and an ever-changing threat landscape remains their top priority, despite already using a number of tools and technologies designed to thwart attacks.

And, by introducing more AI into their processes and solutions, organizations are creating additional data to protect and expanding their potential attack surfaces.

New threats raise security spending

Today’s reality is that cyberattacks are happening more frequently, and they are becoming more severe. According to InfoSEC Information Technologies, last year 1 in 10 organizations around the world were targeted by ransomware attacks – up 33% from 2022. This trend shows no sign of slowing down, especially as GenAI gives attackers new firepower.

Leaders are taking these threats seriously, and it’s showing in their security spending. According to a new forecast from GartnerÒ, “Worldwide end-user spending on information security is projected to total $212 billion in 2025, an increase of 15.1% from 2024.”*

As investment in cybersecurity increases, a risk-based approach is important to identify and prioritize possible threats based on their likelihood and their potential impact.

When organizations identify their most critical assets as well as vulnerabilities and probable threats, it allows them to focus their efforts on areas that are most susceptible to cyberattacks and maximize the effectiveness of their cybersecurity measures. Managing interconnected risks in this way helps in building resilience to cyberthreats.

Steps toward cyber resilience

To mitigate risk and minimize the potential impact of attacks, you need to invest in cybersecurity measures that also contribute to your organization’s long-term cyber resilience – referring to the ability to keep your business operations going, with little downtime, even after being affected by cyberattacks or other events.

But, once you have a strategy to achieve this, you might still be held back by a shortage of security skills in the labor pool.

So, what options do you have to improve your cybersecurity and stay ahead of more sophisticated and prevalent threats? Simply put, the best defense is a strong offense – and extended detection and response (XDR) plays a critical role in strengthening your organization’s cyber resilience.

• ALSO READ → Securing success: why cyber resilience is crucial to business resilience and performance

From MDR to XDR: the evolution of managed security

Historically, MDR (managed detection and response) has provided organizations with comprehensive threat detection and response services that combined advanced technology with human expertise. This includes round-the-clock monitoring of IT environments, threat detection tools, alerts and analytics that allow your security team to immediately detect, analyze and respond to potential cyberthreats.

Extended detection and response (XDR) goes much further. It integrates multiple security products and sources into one comprehensive platform to provide end-to-end visibility of all your endpoints, networks and cloud environments. With improved, AI-driven responses, XDR minimizes your attack surfaces at a lower total cost of ownership because of the platform approach.

Because dealing with fewer disparate tools makes for stronger security, XDR breaks down silos between security tools by design, offering a more efficient defense against threats while streamlining your security operations – including through AI-enabled automation.

XDR plus managed services for extra protection

At NTT DATA, we are now applying our managed services expertise to XDR to offer Managed Extended Detection and Response (MXDR), powered by Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSIAM. We’re using AI-driven automation to detect, manage and respond to threats across your threat vectors, including cloud workloads, edge deployments and operational environments.

XSIAM, or extended security information and event management, is an evolution of traditional security information and event management (SIEM) that follows a more comprehensive and integrated approach to unifying data, threat detection and response.

Our MXDR service addresses your critical cybersecurity needs with end-to-end integrated and automated services that secure digital transactions and data. With XSIAM and MXDR, you benefit from a centralized view of your data and security operations on a single platform, which greatly reduces your total cost of ownership.

In this way, the combined capabilities of NTT DATA and Palo Alto Networks strengthen your cyber resilience by integrating innovative technologies and threat intelligence with global security expertise,

The main advantages of MXDR

MXDR improves your organization’s cyber resilience in the following ways:

• Comprehensive, edge-to-cloud security: Full visibility of devices and networks enables robust protection.
• An AI-infused security posture: You can rapidly detect and respond to advanced threats with AI and automation, resulting in a faster mean time to resolution.
• Reduced cyber risk: It becomes easier to align cyber risk with broader business risks to ensure the right prioritization of and response to security incidents.
• Stronger regulatory compliance: You gain access to highly skilled and dedicated information security managers, digital forensic experts and certified security and industry professionals to help you maintain regulatory compliance.

Why NTT DATA and Palo Alto Networks

NTT DATA and Palo Alto Networks have a strong partnership that greatly benefits our clients. We help you to create more robust, agile and predictive cybersecurity posture to meet the challenge of a constantly shifting threat landscape.  

NTT DATA is ranked fourth for Security Consulting Services by revenue in the Gartner® Market Share Analysis: Security Services, Worldwide, 2023,** and Palo Alto Networks is a Leader in the 2024 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Endpoint Protection Platforms (EPP) for Cortex XDR.***

Additionally, NTT DATA is a Leader and Star Performer in Everest Group’s Cybersecurity Services PEAK Matrix® Assessment 2024 – Europe, and a Major Contender in Everest Group’s Cybersecurity Services PEAK Matrix® Assessment 2024 – North America.

Bringing together our collective skills, capabilities and global reach, we are dedicated to protecting your business, your reputation and your assets – anywhere, at any time.

* “Gartner Forecasts Global Information Security Spending to Grow 15% in 2025”, Gartner, Inc. https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2024-08-28-gartner-forecasts-global-information-security-spending-to-grow-15-percent-in-2025

** Gartner® Market Share Analysis: Security Services, Worldwide, 2023. Shailendra Upadhyay, Rahul Yadav, Akshita Joshi, Matt Milone, Travis Lee. 22 May 2024

*** Gartner®, Magic Quadrant™ for Endpoint Protection Platforms, Evgeny Mirolyubov, Franz Hinner, Deepak Mishra, Satarupa Patnaik, Chris Silva. 23 September 2024.

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