Microsoft Defender for Business is a new (2022) Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) cyber security tool designed for smaller organisations (<300 users) and one which many organisations already have access to, via their Microsoft 365 Business Premium license, but aren’t necessarily leveraging effectively to reduce cyber risk. A lack of human resource or skills is a major concern for many organisations along with the ability to have eyes on 24/7.

One of the biggest challenges across cyber security is the over-reliance upon technology itself, without due consideration for the people and processes that are needed to make the technology truly effective. The same is true for Microsoft Defender and that is where we come in. It takes many years, and significant spend, to build a Security Operations Centre that can deliver effective cyber security monitoring. Luckily, we have invested in building out that expertise and can support smaller organisations in improving their cyber security and help mitigate their risk at a fraction of the cost of doing it in-house. Whilst bringing Enterprise grade services into the budget of smaller organisations.

Microsoft Defender Managed Services (MDS) Coverage

The two e2e-assure MDS offerings are targeted at Microsoft 365 Business Premium customers, utilising one or more of the relevant Microsoft Defender services. Defender for Business forms the core service, to which Defender for Cloud Apps (Discovery) and Defender for Office 365 (Pack 1) services can be added.

Utilising Azure Lighthouse as appropriate to support in triaging and investigation, ensuring the right roles are in place and that our people can work with any in-house resource to provide timely and accurate incident response is a core part of this managed service.

The e2e-assure Microsoft Defender Services are available at two levels dependent upon the customers attitude to cyber risk and budget. Both services have Security Cleared e2e expert analysts monitoring the customers environments 24/7, these are Monitored and Managed.

Monitored MDS

The e2e-assure Monitored MDS service is designed to give base-line coverage of the Defender toolset and access to our experts.

The monitored service gives 24/7 monitoring of your Defender for Business toolset, with alerts analysed and intelligence applied. e2e-assure reduce the noise and only pass on relevant alerts to the customer, with remediation advice, all delivered in a time relevant manner through the e2e-assure Microsoft Teams SOC app.

A monthly report, covers both the service itself, including SLAs, and looks at security events which occurred during that month. This is complimented with advice on improving the customers security posture going forwards. This leverages both the Microsoft Defender toolset capabilities and the e2e-assure proprietary management platform.

Managed MDS

The e2e-assure Managed MDS service looks to build upon the features of the monitored service by adding extended functionality and higher service levels.

In addition to delivering the remediation advice the e2e analyst will work alongside the customer to resolve the issue and assist in building out automated responses to certain threats.

The monthly report is delivered by a collaborative Teams session where an analyst or consultant will discuss their findings and help prioritise any broader remediation plans. Custom rules will also be created to address any customer specific scenarios.

Service Levels

There are two constituent parts to the e2e-assure MDS Service levels: Average Response Time, to alerts, and the Uptime of the service.

Average Response Time (ART)

e2e-assure categorise alerts into the four same categories as Microsoft. Generally High alerts require a response as soon as possible and informational is just that. The SLA for High level incidents is 30 minutes on the managed service.

Service Uptime

Both the Monitored and Managed services have a 99.9% uptime guarantee.

Pricing

Pricing is on a per user per month basis, based upon the required service, Monitored or Managed. This typically sits around £6 pupm but is dependent upon numbers of users, numbers of services and is subject to a minimum spend.

Contract length

Typically from 12 - 36 months.