Sophos has been at the forefront of next-generation cybersecurity for many years, leveraging cloud-native solutions and (artificial intelligence) AI-powered solutions to secure endpoints and networks to protect 400,000 organizations of all sizes in more than 150 countries from cyber threats.

These threats include increasing incidences of ransomware attacks, with respondents to the second edition of the Sophos Future of Cybersecurity in Asia Pacific and Japan report confirming that the biggest cyber threat they face is ransomware followed by malware, with phishing coming in third.

For the Philippines, the report found that more than one third (31%) of Philippine organizations surveyed suffered a data breach in 2020. Further exacerbating this is the fact that the cybersecurity skills gap continues to be a problem for businesses in the Philippines. Nearly 45% of Philippine businesses have said that lack of cybersecurity skills is challenging for their organization, with almost half of the organizations (48%) surveyed saying they struggled to recruit candidates with qualified skills in 2020.

Cybersecurity skills gap

This gap in cybersecurity skills is concerning and leaving business’ vulnerable to attacks, especially when the end of 2020 demonstrated just how bad a global supply-chain attack could be. This year’s recent zero-day vulnerabilities in widely deployed email platforms, which were quickly taken advantage of by ransomware such as Dear Cry and Black KingDom, also highlights how hard and fast threats are coming at businesses.

Incidents like these are proof that organizations, big and small, can’t afford to be complacent when it comes to protecting their businesses from cyber criminals. However, few organizations have the right tools, people, and processes in-house to effectively manage their cybersecurity program around the clock while proactively defending against new and emerging threats.

Sophos Managed Threat Response

Sophos Managed Threat Response (MTR) service is designed to bridge this gap. As a fully managed service offering, Sophos MTR provides a dedicated 24/7 security team to rapidly identify and neutralize sophisticated and complex threats that can sometimes go undetected. Combining the best tools with the brightest minds, MTR fuses Sophos’ consistently top-rated endpoint protection and intelligent EDR, with a world-class team of cybersecurity experts.

While other services stop at notification, Sophos takes action. Similar services simply notify customers of attacks or suspicious events — then it’s up to the business to manage things from there. Going beyond simply notifying of attacks or suspicious behaviors, the Sophos MTR team takes targeted actions on a customer’s behalf to neutralize even the most sophisticated and complex threats.

Cybercriminals are “always-on,” and therefore an organization’s cybersecurity team should also be always on. But as Sophos’ research showed, finding experienced cybersecurity staff is a challenge for most organizations, therefore, Sophos MTR can augment an internal team to cover second and third shifts that are notoriously difficult to recruit, train, and retain security talent.

Sophos’ enhanced telemetry

While Sophos does the work, the customers own the decisions. This means the customer controls how and when potential incidents are escalated, what response actions they want to take, and who should be included in communications.

Furthermore, with unparalleled experience in detection and investigation techniques, Sophos MTR easily recognizes tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) used by attackers. Coupled with enhanced telemetry from Sophos Central, which provides a detailed, full picture of adversary activities as part of the service, the scope and severity of threats can be determined for rapid response.

While speed is of vital importance in stopping an attack, Sophos employs meticulous assessments to validate and provide valuable insights into managed and unmanaged assets, vulnerabilities for better-informed impact assessments and threat hunts. Organizations need an expert opinion to execute cybersecurity hygiene practices to ensure that future attacks are immediately detected and prevented.

To see how Sophos MTR can help protect your business from threat attackers, click here.