How your organisation can benefit from Softcat’s Managed Microsoft Sentinel Service

As one of Microsoft’s largest partners globally, we have a huge pool of customers who are currently looking at, or using Microsoft Sentinel - but not to its full potential. These customers are looking for managed services, so we have built a solution that is both scalable and cost effective for organisations of any size. Microsoft predict that by 2025 over 50% of their SMC (small medium corporate) customers will want a managed service across their security portfolio.

As the landscape of technology and cyber threats continues to change, companies are under constant pressure to keep their environments safe. But navigating a plethora of incident alerts to identify what actually poses a threat, is both time consuming and leaves room for error. The volume of monitoring required, combined with the pressure of ensuring genuine incidents aren’t missed, creates a catalyst for burnt out IT teams, and poses significant risks for organisations. To combat this, many companies are turning to cloud-based solutions to help protect their digital assets.

One such solution is Microsoft Sentinel, a cloud-native security information and event management (SIEM) platform offered by Microsoft, which was recognised as a leader in the 2022 Gartner Magic Quadrant for security information and event management. In this blog post, we will explore the key features and benefits of Microsoft Sentinel and how it can help organisations enhance their security posture.

Microsoft Sentinel uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to provide intelligent security analytics for enterprises. With the ability to easily collect, analyse, and act on security data from different sources, Microsoft Sentinel allows security teams to quickly detect, investigate, and respond to threats across their entire enterprise network. Additionally, Microsoft Sentinel is scalable, flexible, and can be customised to meet the unique security needs of any organisation.

The power of integration

One of the most significant benefits of Microsoft Sentinel is its integration with other Microsoft security solutions, including Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Cloud App Security, and Azure Active Directory, as well as third-party security products. This integration provides real-time visibility across an organisation's entire IT infrastructure, including on-premises and cloud-based environments, allowing for the identification and response to threats as they occur. By allowing integration with other Microsoft security solutions, Microsoft Sentinel reduces the resource-heavy and time-consuming, manual methods of looking through multiple systems or log sources required to track cyber-attacks and threats, therefore increasing the efficiency of security operations and incident responses.

Streamlining operations

Another critical feature of Microsoft Sentinel is its use of automation and ML to streamline security operations. By automating routine tasks and using ML to identify patterns and anomalies, security teams can focus on the most critical threats and respond faster and more effectively. The workload is subsequently reduced and frees up time for security teams to focus on the most critical threats and respond faster and more effectively.

Considering costs

Cost optimisation is a critical consideration when it comes to Microsoft Sentinel. If not built correctly, it can become expensive. Therefore, it's essential to ensure that the design is optimised, and that the environment is built in the most efficient way possible. Additionally, creating custom content is vital, and organisations should consider whether they have the capabilities in-house to create KQL (Kusto Query Language). Finally, resource considerations are important. Does the organisation have the ability to run the platform on a 24x7 basis with eyes on?

At Softcat, we have spent considerable time and effort building a service that leverages the power of Microsoft Sentinel to deliver a customer focused solution to our clients. Our service is designed to ensure the environment is built in the most effective way following Microsoft best practices. We have developed onboarding playbooks and automation to help customers get up and running quickly.

Our approach to onboarding allows us to bring log sources into the environment, based on the customer’s security value and the value that will be provided to the customer by the pre-canned or custom-created use cases. Custom content is at the heart of our service, and we take a consultative approach to create a customer-by-customer design that optimises their environment for both performance and cost.

In conclusion, Microsoft Sentinel is a comprehensive security solution that can help organisations detect, investigate, and respond to security threats quickly and effectively. Softcat's Sentinel Service allows customers to use Microsoft Sentinel as the underlying platform for our SOC (Security Operation Centre) service, providing optimised design, cost optimisation, custom content creation, and resource considerations. Softcat's service is structured to deliver real value to customers in the shortest possible time, making it a valuable addition to any organisation's security posture.

If you’d like to find out more, please visit this managed Microsoft Sentinel page on our website.