What advice do you have for others considering Binary Defense MDR?

We have a great partnership with Binary Defense. They are like an extension of our team. I've never seen the level of commitment from any other provider. I'd rate the product ten out of ten.

I rate Binary Defense MDR 10 out of 10. We're partial to Binary Defense because they started in Ohio, and we're an Ohio company. We pride ourselves on staying local, and they've grown exponentially over the past few years. You get what you paid for. This is a pretty good deal for the level of service and product quality Binary Defense provides. I have a special connection with Binary Defense, so I feel they're a part of the team more than somebody else probably would.

I find Binary Defense to be less customizable. While they are flexible if we need changes, the current product we use doesn't offer much room for customization. Binary Defense doesn't currently integrate with other tools, but they are working on it. While it is not a problem now, the fact that they are actively addressing it is reassuring. Overall, I would rate Binary Defense MDR as a nine out of ten.

Binary Defense hasn't necessarily reduced the number of security alerts, but the fact that they handle it means I don't have to sift through them. Most of the time, they spot serious issues, saving me a lot of time and providing a sense of security. It has been great. I would say Binary Defense is at the top in terms of response times. As soon as something happens, I'm hearing about it. I love our partnership with Binary Defense. Bringing it to the board has made my life much easier and provides me with significant peace of mind. If you don't see your enterprise MDR provider as an extension of your team, you probably have a strong team. However, Binary Defense is so focused on security that they are top-notch in our view. They are a trusted partner for us. My advice to others is that if you choose Binary Defense, you will be in good hands. They are thorough, attentive, and always ready to help. Overall, I would rate Binary Defense MDR as a nine out of ten.

We have not done an integration of Binary Defense with other tools. We're looking at integrating it with our help desk, but we don't use ServiceNow. We use BMC Remedy and that's what we have to look into. I don't think any issues with the integration would be limitations of Binary Defense, but there might be with our older ticketing system. Binary Defense can work with many open APIs, if I recall correctly. They also have a great open XDR strategy for securing infrastructure, although we haven't started using it. Early on, I talked about it with the owner of the company who was part of the technical team. It was definitely on their road map and something they knew they had to do and they were working on it. Overall, our partnership with Binary Defense is excellent. If someone at another company that is using MDR doesn't think that their provider is an extension of their team, they have the wrong provider. Maybe they don't have Binary Defense, because it shouldn't be that way.

If you're looking at purchasing Binary Defense but concerned about the cost, my advice would be to consider the fact that the leadership at Binary Defense is committed to making sure that the teams that are working on all of their accounts are well-trained and that they understand the fundamental principles of the task at hand. They continue to invest in their teams to make sure that their product is more the team, rather than just the tooling that is used by the teams. You're not really purchasing a tool as much as you're purchasing a real security team. Reach out to Binary Defense and explain what you're trying to solve. And, if you have a toolset in mind, let them know what you're coming to the table with. And if you want to change that, Binary Defense will help you do it. They'll also provide you with recommendations on other directions that you could go. Go in with an open mind and explain what your use cases are and they'll be more than happy to help create a solution. We're still at the stage of getting our own tooling into a better place, but everything that we've dealt with them on has been very transparent and reactive. They come to us with suggestions for how we can do things better. We're still early enough in the relationship that everything is proactive. We're getting what we're looking for and the help that we need. I really struggle to come up with something where they could do better. They're doing really well for everything that they're doing for us. I would typically have a list of issues with a given vendor, but I don't really have that list with Binary Defense. They've been extremely responsive and supportive in helping us build what we're trying to build. This has been one of the better vendor engagements that I've ever had. They even went out and partnered with our SIEM solution so they could get better access to and understanding of the product.

I rate Binary Defense MDR a ten out of ten. If you're considering Binary Defense, I recommend looking at your cybersecurity program and deciding whether 24/7 endpoint monitoring will help you meet your objectives. Most people will find that Binary Defense fills the gaps in their cybersecurity and offers a better value than competing solutions.

I give Binary Defense MDR a seven out of ten. For someone who wants to purchase a managed detection response solution but is concerned about the cost, I would like to understand the primary concern, whether it's related solely to cost or to the cost model. Depending on the company and its requirements, the reason for cost concerns can vary greatly. If the concern is cost, I may not have much to say. However, if I ask questions to better understand their concerns and where they should focus their security monitoring, perhaps they can reduce the volume they send and focus on a smaller solution, such as an EDR, instead of sending their firewall logs. The maintenance is performed by either Binary Defense or their technology provider. Binary Defense MDR has demonstrated a willingness to invest in our relationship to the same extent as we do. As a result of our ongoing collaboration, they have reciprocated our efforts. Although having a third party as an extension of our team can be challenging, we believe that frequent communication and nurturing this partnership will lead to better outcomes. Our experience with Binary Defense has been positive overall. To evaluate the solution, individuals should consider running a proof of value or a proof of concept, if possible. It would be beneficial to have Binary Defense demonstrate the value and services they can offer to gain an understanding of the type of service provided by their MDR solution.

Technology and gadgets are wonderful things, but customer support is probably more important than the technology itself. Our partnership with Binary Defense is fantastic. It's my third company, and I appreciate them as much as they appreciate me being a customer. To someone at another company who doesn’t think that their enterprise MDR provider is an extension of their team, I'd say that they are wrong because there's only so much you can do as an organization, especially if you're a nine-to-five business without a second shift or third shift. This is 24/7/365. They're always looking at your company, and they've got your back and your best interest in mind. That's how they keep you as a customer. We spent six months working with them to tune everything up to be specific and actionable the way we wanted. If you are looking at implementing it, one of the biggest things I can tell you is to take time on the front end of the engagement to tune your systems to set up the alert you want to be set so that they're tested in the first six months. Once it's going, it's almost set-and-forget. You have to test them every once in a while, but they catch every one of the tests that we give them. I don't think anybody's perfect, but they're pretty close to a ten. So, I would rate them a ten out of ten because I'm pretty happy with them.

Anybody who is looking for an MDR needs to have a serious conversation with their leadership about their needs or what problem they are trying to solve. That's what we did. In our case, the problem was that we didn't have enough people to keep our eyes on every single bit of day-to-day operations from a security perspective. We needed a partnership, an extension to our staff. And it has been great. The big "gotcha" is you need to figure out what you need and what your expectations are for the cost. You have to weigh what it would cost to pay a full-time security person throughout, because they're not cheap. The market is screaming for security people right now. There are hundreds if not thousands of companies looking for security people. IT leadership has to say, "We can either pay X dollars per year for a SOC service to help us manage things, or we can get a manager and a handful of SOC analysts to bolt on to our existing staff and pay them 2X dollars a year." Another driving factor is cyber security insurance. That space has changed a lot, especially in the last five years. That was a big talking point within our organization because we needed to tick the boxes or we were not going to be able to get cyber insurance. Another factor to be aware of is long-term stability. Mandiant was on our shortlist when sourcing our prior MDR solution, and we didn't go with them because they were way overpriced. But what ended up happening was that the company was split up. So that was a concern of ours with Binary Defense. You see that in the market. There are companies that are really hot, they do really well, and then they get to a certain level and they're bought by a larger company. That was a conversation we had with our account manager. We asked what their "five-year" looked like and what their growth looked like. That was the big concern for our CIO: Are we going to be replacing you in a year or two? Are we going to reevaluate this conversation because the relationship has changed or the quality of the product has changed because you've decided to have a third party invest in you and now you're not giving us the same product stack or customer service that we had? That has not been an issue so far. Based on the outlook that they gave us, it seemed that it was not going to be an issue.

I rate the solution eight out of ten based on AT&T's portion, as they have to be ranked together because of the integration. Regarding the Binary Defense portion of the product, it's nine out of ten. AT&T sometimes doesn't consider how their updates apply to everybody else, which is a typical IT problem. My assessment of our partnership with Binary Defense is ten out of ten, and I wouldn't want anyone else to be doing it. To those looking at buying a managed detection and response solution but concerned about the cost, every information security professional is likely aware there is a general lack of money spent in the industry on information security. It is an easy budget for organizations to cut, and it can be challenging to expand it. Although the cost is somewhat high, Binary Defense provides two services quoted as one. I cannot overstate how much of a load the combination of SOC and SIEM provided by the MDR provider that provides MSSP takes off an internal security team, freeing them up for other security projects. You spend some money but make a lot more in the end. Comparing response times from Binary Defense versus competing solutions is challenging as I have yet to experience competing solutions. However, if we were to remove the SOC element that manages alerts, which many solutions either don't have or integrate as well, then the time spent looking at false positives would increase so much that we would lose any benefit from the service. A provider who can't offer the SOC and SIEM integration Binary will always be at a loss to them because the way those two elements work together can only be found in their product. I advise anyone evaluating the solution to do a POC; you won't be sorry. The product offers peace of mind that can't be found with a singular solution alone.