Offering security services is almost a given for MSPs today, but most face many challenges. If you’re struggling with having too many tools and not enough people to manage them, or getting too much data from different platforms and spending too much valuable time weeding through irrelevant or duplicate alerts — you’re not alone.
The fragmented view from disparate security tools drains resources and delays response. But you can address the challenges cost-efficiently with an open XDR (Extended Detection and Response) platform. Let’s look at what open XDR is, how it benefits MSPs, how it helps you protect your clients, and how to cut through the hype to find one right for your MSP.
What is Open XDR?
An open XDR platform collects data from all your existing security tools and uses AI-driven analytics to correlate the information. It provides complete visibility and a “single pane of glass” view to support threat detection and response across your entire attack surface effectively and efficiently.
Unlike a “closed” system, an open XDR platform integrates with any security tools — including EDR, SIEM, NDR, SOAR, and more — to provide a unified view. It gives you complete control over your security stack while consolidating the applications to simplify management.
How Open XDR benefits MSPs
An open XDR platform helps MSPs and MSSPs expand their security offerings to meet market demand, stay competitive, and increase revenue. You can deliver all the security services today’s organizations expect cost-efficiently and eliminate barriers that may limit your flexibility and agility to grow your market share.
AI analytics and automation technologies correlate all alerts from disparate tools and provide a holistic view of an incident. Your team doesn’t have to parse through numerous notifications and perform repetitive tasks — they can implement appropriate responses to address issues promptly.
By streamlining workflows and eliminating manual processes, open XDR helps you drive operational efficiency. Instead of coordinating multiple applications and reports, you can focus on delivering outstanding services and growing your customer base without adding staff.
Moreover, an open XDR platform allows you to leverage existing tools. You don’t have to spend time and resources migrating to a different tool stack or using applications from a single vendor — which may cause added challenges down the road due to vendor lock-in.
Furthermore, consolidating your security operations and products means fewer licenses, less employee training, and easier onboarding. The simplification helps you save on capital and ongoing costs for running your security operations to help boost your long-term profitability.
Open XDR use cases: All-around protection for MSPs
MSPs and MSSPs must cover all their bases in today’s threat landscape. Here’s how a robust XDR solution like inSOC powered by Stellar Cyber offers the protection you need:
- Consolidate security management for IT and OT environments.
- Prevent malware and ransomware attacks with complete visibility and reliable automation.
- Limit lateral movements with security analytics and automated response.
- Identify and protect against compromised credentials with advanced identity management.
- Detect and mitigate insider threats and phishing attacks with a multi-layer security approach.
- Automate incident response with advanced threat hunting and trigger-based automation.
Choosing the right Open XDR platform for your MSP
XDR platforms are gaining popularity, but they can be quite different. Many “closed” systems require specific security controls and/or operations tools, hampering your flexibility and agility to adapt to shifting requirements. On the other hand, you can overlay an open XDR solution on top of your current tools to leverage existing investments and speed up time-to-value.
You should choose an open XDR platform that accommodates the unique needs of MSPs/MSSPs to reap all the benefits and maximize your ROI. Here are some MSP-specific features to look for:
Intelligent Multi-Tenancy
A unified dashboard where you can manage different client infrastructures and access security analytics in one place without commingling their data.
Flexible Data Sourcing
Robust, pre-built integrations for incorporating data from your existing security, IT, and productivity tools to create a holistic view of your infrastructure.
Sensor-Driven Data Collection
Sensors for collecting raw network and log data from client infrastructures to identify threats that may slip through their existing security stacks.
Threat Assessment Reporting
Comprehensive reports tailored to different audiences (e.g., tech team, executives) with detailed recommendations to help you improve client communication and provide proactive support.
Machine Learning Correlation
Graph machine learning techniques analyze and correlate alerts to help your team focus on top-priority incidents.
inSOC x Stellar Cyber: The power of Open XDR in your SOCaaS package
Stellar Cyber is one of the industry’s most trusted open XDR platforms. As one of their first MSP partners, we leverage its robust MSP-specific functionalities in our SIEM tool to provide our clients with all-around detection and response capabilities.
By incorporating Stellar Cyber’s robust open XDR tool into our SOC as a Service packages, we enable our MSP clients to gain 360-degree visibility across customer infrastructures, manage all their security tools via a unified view, leverage intelligent threat detection to shorten response time, use machine learning analytics to form a holistic view of an incident, and scale to support native or hybrid cloud environments.
Our partnership also allows us to bring all the benefits of open XDR to our MSP clients without the huge upfront costs or the ongoing enterprise-level price tag. Through our comprehensive onboarding, we’ll help you integrate your existing security tool stack with the platform and ensure it works seamlessly with your workflows. The proven process will help you quickly expand security services and grow revenue.
Ready to take the complexity out of managing your security tool stack and expand your offerings? Let’s talk and see how we can help you make security services a profit driver instead of a constant headache.
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