A recent prediction from Cybersecurity Ventures states that the cybersecurity sector is going to have as many as 3.5 million unfilled positions by the year 2021. That is why managed detection and response (MDR) services are now more important than ever. In fact, the arms race that is currently happening between organizations and threat actors is one of the main reasons for this.

But with the great demand for MDR services comes great expectations on the part of providers. These high expectations are causing providers to face numerous challenges that come with a constantly evolving industry.

In this article, we will take a look at the challenges MDR service providers are facing and how subscribing to third-party enterprise data feeds can augment their capabilities.

Challenges for MDR Service Providers

Since they offer an outsourced service, MDR providers are constantly pressured to give clients top-notch cybersecurity. These firms not only have to handle sensitive data, but they are always relied on for proactive measures in identifying and responding to threats. This involves persistent scanning for indicators of compromise (IoCs) to repel malicious activities before these can cause harm.

Aside from that, MDR service providers always have to stay abreast of the latest in the threat landscape as they are expected to provide clients with actionable intelligence whenever needed. Businesses are advised by experts to consider MDR service providers that incorporate the latest information into their solutions, which can leave those who practice obsolete threat intelligence gathering methods behind.

Additionally, knowing where an attack is coming from, how infections spread, and if any systems are already affected is important for MDR service providers. And they can only achieve this by utilizing numerous data inputs that come from a variety of intelligence feeds to monitor tons of internet activity coming in and out of a client’s networks and detect latent issues.

What Can Enterprise Data Feeds Contribute?

One of the main benefits of enterprise data feeds is that they provide users with a comprehensive set of information. These feeds contain essential domain information—including WHOIS records, passive Domain Name System (DNS) data, IP netblocks, and geolocation addresses—for analytics and data enrichment. All of these can be especially useful since the majority of attack campaigns carried out by threat actors involve the use of several domains at once.

By having unrestricted access to these accurate data feeds, MDR service providers can deliver a complete defense solution using near real-time information. Security teams can collect as much threat intelligence as needed for threat hunting and cyber forensic analysis. For instance, they can get a general direction of how threat actors breached a network’s defenses and what tools they used by studying historical data.

What to Expect from WhoisXML API

A service provider like WhoisXML API is capable of supplying users with a complete set of data feeds through the Enterprise Data Feed packages. This means that companies don’t have to purchase different data feeds individually, as these can all be found in one product.

Besides providing for all of the aspects mentioned above, the data sets can also be downloaded and accessed offline. This is ideal for MDRs who must minimize latency in their solution delivery time and, therefore, may prefer avoiding external API calls for the monitoring of their clients’ networks.

However, MDR service providers can still find Enterprise APIs useful to conduct more thorough investigations or when live information is required.

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With the growing demand for MDR services comes the increasing need for providers to step up to meet today’s cybersecurity challenges. By using reliable enterprise data feeds, they can ensure that they have all the bases covered to detect and analyze cyber threats.