Achieving Cyber Resilience with Integrated Threat Exposure Management

Welcome to the third and final installment of our three-part series Driving Cyber Resilience with Human-Driven MDR: Insights from the 2024 Gartner Market Guide. In the first two parts of this series, we explored the critical role of human-driven Managed Detection and Response (MDR) in enhancing security operations and why remote containment and active response are non-negotiable in modern cybersecurity. Now, we turn our focus to the integration of threat exposure management within MDR services and how it serves as a key pillar in achieving cyber resilience. Drawing from insights in the 2024 Gartner Market Guide for Managed Detection and Response (MDR), we’ll examine why addressing not just present threats, but also future vulnerabilities is essential for minimizing risk.

Moving Beyond Detection to Proactive Risk Management with Enhanced Security Control

Traditional MDR services have focused on identifying and responding to active threats, but as the cyber threat landscape becomes more complex, organizations are shifting toward a more proactive approach. The 2024 Gartner Market Guide for Managed Detection and Response (MDR) emphasizes that modern MDR must go beyond detection and response to include continuous threat exposure management.

At Critical Start, we recognize that effective MDR requires both asset visibility and comprehensive signal coverage. Through our Asset Visibility capabilities, we first help organizations identify and maintain an accurate inventory of their workstations and servers. Then, we monitor to ensure these assets provide the security signals needed for effective threat detection — from endpoint protection to vulnerability scanning. This two-step approach helps organizations maintain visibility of both their critical assets and the security signals coming from them.

Why Threat Exposure Management is Critical for Cyber Resilience

Gartner Insight: By 2028, Gartner predicts that 50% of findings from MDR providers will focus on threat exposures, up from just 10% today​. This shift is significant and underscores the growing need for businesses to adopt a more comprehensive risk management approach, where preventing threats is as important as detecting and responding to them.

Why Cyber Resilience Requires Proactive Measures: Relying solely on reactive security strategies leaves organizations exposed to potential blind spots. As attackers exploit increasingly complex vulnerabilities, identifying and managing these exposures early is critical to maintaining a resilient security posture.

Critical Start’s Proactive Approach: Our MDR service combines threat detection with asset and signal visibility to help identify potential security gaps. Through Asset Visibility, we help ensure security signals are being received from endpoints while also monitoring for gaps in vulnerability scanner coverage. This helps organizations understand both where they might be missing endpoint protection and where vulnerability scanning coverage may be incomplete.

Example: One Critical Start customer saw a marked reduction in security incidents after integrating asset visibility and vulnerability management into their MDR service, allowing them to focus on mitigating potential risks rather than just responding to attacks.

The Role of Asset Visibility in Threat Exposure Management

Gartner Insight: Asset visibility is a foundational element of effective MDR, helping security teams understand their attack surface and identify gaps in coverage that could be exploited​. Without a clear understanding of what assets exist and where they are vulnerable, organizations risk missing critical threats.

Asset Visibility: The First Step to Reducing Risk:

Understanding your security posture starts with knowing what assets you have and their importance to your business. Critical Start’s Asset Visibility provides:

• An accurate inventory of endpoint hosts (workstations and servers)
• Asset criticality ratings to understand potential business impact
• Monitoring for endpoint protection gaps
• Identification of areas where vulnerability scanning coverage may be incomplete

Critical Start’s Asset Visibility Module: With our asset visibility capabilities, organizations can maintain a dynamic and accurate inventory of critical IT assets in IT and OT environments. Our Cyber Operations Risk & Response^™ (CORR) platform continuously monitors asset inventory to identify gaps in coverage and prioritize responses based on asset criticality, ensuring that high-risk assets are protected first.

Example: A Critical Start customer using our asset visibility module was able to quickly identify an unprotected segment of their network, allowing them to remediate the issue before it was exploited by attackers.

Enhancing Risk Reduction with Vulnerability Management Gartner Insight: According to Gartner, MDR providers are increasingly expanding into exposure management, which includes offering vulnerability management services (VMS) as part of a comprehensive security strategy. The integration of VMS into MDR services allows organizations to address newly discovered weaknesses more effectively, helping to ensure continuous risk reduction and protection against potential attacks.

The Connection Between VMS and MDR: Vulnerability management strengthens MDR outcomes by continuously hardening an organization’s attack surface. Proactive and effective patch management ensures that vulnerabilities are identified, prioritized, and remediated in a timely manner, preventing attackers from exploiting these weaknesses. By incorporating VMS, Critical Start’s MDR service helps organizations stay ahead of emerging threats, delivering more comprehensive protection through continuous exposure management.

Critical Start’s Vulnerability Management Service: Critical Start’s MDR integrates a tiered vulnerability management service that continuously scans for vulnerabilities and provides organizations with actionable insights. By using dynamic risk scoring, we help security teams prioritize patching efforts and ensure that the most critical vulnerabilities are addressed first.

Example: A customer leveraging Critical Start’s vulnerability management services, integrated with the Qualys vulnerability scanner, was able to reduce their attack surface by prioritizing critical patches. This proactive patching approach, driven by continuous vulnerability scanning, led to fewer security incidents and improved operational resilience.

Achieving Cyber Resilience with Continuous Threat Exposure Management

Gartner Insight: Exposure assessment is becoming a common function of MDR, with buyers increasingly asking for adjacent exposure validation services. Integrating exposure management into MDR allows organizations to proactively identify and address potential vulnerabilities across their digital environments, ensuring that they stay ahead of evolving threats.

The Role of Exposure Management: Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) can enhance MDR outcomes by helping to continuously identify, prioritize, and address exposures before they become security risks. Our approach to exposure management starts with understanding both assets and signals. By maintaining visibility of endpoint hosts and their criticality level, monitoring the security signals we receive from them, and tracking vulnerability scanner coverage, we can help identify potential security gaps before they become security incidents. Integrating a CTEM strategy alongside MDR enables businesses to stay aligned with dynamic attack surfaces and prioritize security efforts based on real-time, business-critical risks.

Critical Start’s Integrated Approach:

Our MDR service combines threat detection and response with asset and signal visibility to help organizations:

• Know what endpoint hosts they have and their business importance
• Ensure they’re receiving security signals from these assets
• Understand where vulnerability scanning coverage may be incomplete
• Respond effectively to identified threats

Example: Through continuous threat exposure assessments, one Critical Start customer was able to identify a series of misconfigurations in their cloud infrastructure, allowing them to close security gaps and prevent potential breaches.

Conclusion: Threat Exposure Management is Key to Cyber Resilience

To build a truly resilient security posture, organizations must move beyond detection and response, embracing a more proactive approach that includes continuous threat exposure management. As emphasized in the 2024 Gartner Market Guide for Managed Detection and Response (MDR), businesses need MDR providers that can deliver comprehensive asset visibility, vulnerability management, and continuously assess for risk to stay ahead of evolving threats. Critical Start’s integrated MDR service offers exactly that — helping organizations not only respond to today’s attacks but also prepare for tomorrow’s risks.

To learn more about the critical role of threat exposure management in achieving cyber resilience, download the 2024 Gartner Market Guide for Managed Detection and Response (MDR). Don’t forget to review the earlier parts of this series and stay tuned for future insights from Critical Start on building a robust cybersecurity posture.

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