Managed Extended Detection & Response (MxDR)

Managed Extended Detection and Response (MxDR) is a comprehensive cybersecurity service that provides 24/7 threat monitoring, proactive threat hunting, and rapid incident response to protect your organization against sophisticated cyber threats. Unlike traditional security monitoring that simply alerts you to potential threats, MxDR combines advanced technology, expert security analysts, and proven processes to actively detect, investigate, and respond to threats before they can cause damage. C3’s MxDR service provides continuous protection with human-in-the-loop analysis and response capabilities. 

Traditional antivirus and endpoint protection rely primarily on signature-based detection to block known threats. MxDR goes far beyond this by providing extended detection capabilities across your entire environment (endpoints, network, cloud, email), using behavioral analysis and threat intelligence to detect unknown and emerging threats, employing proactive threat hunting to find threats that evade automated detection, providing 24/7 human expert analysis rather than just automated alerts, and delivering rapid incident response and remediation when threats are discovered. MxDR is a comprehensive, active defense rather than a passive prevention tool. 

Extended Detection and Response (XDR) means security monitoring and response that spans across multiple security layers and data sources rather than focusing on a single area. C3’s MxDR integrates telemetry from endpoints, networks, cloud environments, email systems, and other security tools to provide comprehensive visibility into your entire security posture. This extended approach allows C3’s security analysts to correlate events across different systems, detect sophisticated attacks that span multiple vectors, and respond more effectively by understanding the full scope of an incident. 

C3’s Security Operations Center (SOC) is a 100% U.S.-based team of cybersecurity experts who monitor, analyze, and respond to security threats 24/7/365. The SOC leverages advanced security tools, threat intelligence, and proven processes to protect client environments continuously. Unlike offshore or partially staffed SOCs, C3’s SOC is fully U.S.-based with qualified analysts who understand the specific compliance and security requirements of defense contractors and the Defense Industrial Base. The SOC provides the human expertise that makes MxDR effective. 

Proactive threat hunting is the practice of actively searching for threats that may have evaded automated detection systems. Rather than waiting for alerts, C3’s security analysts use their expertise, threat intelligence, and advanced analytics to hunt for indicators of compromise, suspicious behaviors, or attack patterns within your environment. This human-in-the-loop approach discovers threats that automated tools miss, including advanced persistent threats (APTs), insider threats, and zero-day exploits. Threat hunting is a key differentiator of C3’s MxDR service. 

C3’s MxDR service provides rapid incident response when threats are detected. The SOC operates 24/7, so threats are identified and responded to immediately regardless of when they occur. When a threat is detected, C3’s team acts swiftly to contain the threat, investigate the scope and impact, remediate the issue, and communicate with your team about the incident and response actions taken. This rapid response minimizes downtime, prevents data loss, and reduces the potential damage from cyberattacks. 

C3’s incident response capabilities include immediate threat containment to stop attacks from spreading, forensic investigation to understand what happened and how the attacker gained access, root cause analysis to identify vulnerabilities that were exploited, breach remediation to remove threats and restore normal operations, endpoint forensics to analyze compromised systems, compromise assessments to determine the full scope of an incident, and post-incident reporting and recommendations. These capabilities ensure thorough response and recovery from security incidents. 

Yes, C3’s MxDR service includes managed vulnerability scanning to continuously identify security weaknesses in your environment. This includes regular automated scanning of your systems, prioritization of vulnerabilities based on risk and exploitability, tracking of remediation efforts, and reporting on vulnerability status through the client portal. By identifying and helping remediate vulnerabilities proactively, C3 reduces the attack surface that threat actors could exploit, making your environment more resilient against attacks. 

C3 provides a client portal that gives you full visibility into your security posture and MxDR service status. Through the portal, you can view real-time service status, access managed vulnerability scanning findings and reports, review security insights and threat intelligence relevant to your environment, see incident reports and response activities, track remediation progress, and access security metrics and dashboards. This transparency ensures you’re always informed about your security status and C3’s protective activities. 

C3’s MxDR service integrates real-time threat intelligence from multiple sources including industry partners, commercial threat intelligence feeds, government sources, and C3’s own internally-sourced threat intelligence based on real-world incident response expertise gained from protecting defense contractors and other clients. This intelligence informs threat hunting activities, enhances detection capabilities by identifying emerging attack patterns, provides context for security events, and helps prioritize response activities based on current threat actor tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs). 

C3’s MxDR can detect and respond to a wide range of cyber threats including ransomware and malware infections, phishing and credential theft attempts, insider threats and data exfiltration, advanced persistent threats (APTs), zero-day exploits, lateral movement within your network, command and control (C2) communications, brute force and password spray attacks, suspicious privileged account activity, and policy violations. The combination of advanced technology, expert analysis, and threat intelligence enables detection of both common and sophisticated threats. 

Key differentiators of C3’s MxDR include a 100% U.S.-based SOC rather than offshore or mixed teams, specialization in defense contractors and the Defense Industrial Base with deep CMMC expertise, active human-in-the-loop threat hunting rather than purely automated monitoring, rapid hands-on incident response rather than just alerting, integration with C3’s other services (managed IT, compliance advisory, CMMC solutions) for comprehensive support, real-world incident response experience informing detection and response strategies, and a focus on being a true security partner rather than just a monitoring vendor. 

A compromise assessment is a thorough investigation to determine if your environment has been breached and to what extent. C3’s security team analyzes logs, examines endpoints, reviews network traffic, searches for indicators of compromise, identifies any malicious activity or unauthorized access, determines what data or systems may have been affected, and provides a comprehensive report of findings. Compromise assessments are valuable after suspected incidents, during mergers and acquisitions, or periodically to validate that your environment is clean. 

Root cause analysis is the process of investigating a security incident to determine the underlying cause—not just what happened, but how and why it happened. This includes identifying the initial attack vector, discovering what vulnerabilities or misconfigurations were exploited, understanding the attacker’s tactics and objectives, and determining what security gaps allowed the incident to occur. Root cause analysis is critical for preventing recurrence by addressing the fundamental issues rather than just cleaning up the immediate damage. C3 performs thorough root cause analysis as part of incident response. 

Getting started with C3’s MxDR service begins with a consultation to understand your current security posture, environment, compliance requirements, and specific concerns. C3 will assess your needs and design an MxDR solution tailored to your organization. Implementation typically includes deploying necessary security tools and agents, integrating with existing systems, establishing monitoring baselines, and onboarding to the SOC. Once operational, you’ll have 24/7 protection and can immediately access the client portal for visibility into your security status.