As cybercriminals learn how to attack backup infrastructure, it’s become even more important to have a process to detect intrusion and respond quickly. This escalation has led Dell Technologies Inc. to announce an expansion of its managed detection and response, or MDR service, which can manage and monitor Dell’s entire backup systems portfolio.

“Think of it as a black hole where attackers are going after backup systems, and organizations have not been able to prioritize it as much,” said Mihir Maniar (pictured, left), vice president of product and services at Dell. “Data is important for organizations, and backup is a very important part of their entire infrastructure. It’s not being covered appropriately … and we are one of the first ever that can do this in the industry.”

Maniar spoke with theCUBE Research’s Christophe Bertrand at the Cyber Resiliency Summit, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. He was joined by Rob Emsley (right), director of data protection marketing at Dell, and they discussed the company’s latest announcements and approach toward data protection in a hybrid world. (* Disclosure below.)

CrowdStrike protection for backup systems

Dell’s latest MDR expansion will be offered as part of a strategic partnership with CrowdStrike Inc., according to Maniar. The service is powered using CrowdStrike’s Next-Gen SIEM, a platform for the integration of data, artificial intelligence, workflow automation and threat intelligence into a single platform.

“We are using the Next-Gen SIEM technology by which we integrate our telemetry, which is proprietary telemetry coming from Dell’s backup portfolio,” Maniar said. “We integrate that inside the Next-Gen SIEM from CrowdStrike to collect all of the log information. We built jointly with them 60 indicators of compromise that can be used to go and detect threats that could be occurring inside the backup portfolio.”

Dell has focused on three specific areas for customers, according to Maniar and Emsley. These areas include reducing the attack vector to minimize the opportunity for disruption, implementing technology that can speed detection and response in the event of an attempted intrusion and providing recovery mechanisms from an attack.

“With all of those elements, you really start talking about cyber resiliency versus simply cybersecurity,” Emsley said. “A lot of it comes down to breadth. One of the things that we’re able to do is to really work on a secure-by-design philosophy across all parts of your infrastructure.”

Dell’s MDR service has a global footprint in 75 countries, according to the company’s executives. This coverage, coupled with the firm’s focus on the hybrid computing world, is designed to provide users with as many options as possible for cyber resilience.

“It’s to provide our solutions wherever they’re needed, whether or not that be on-premises or whether or not that be within the public cloud and everything in between,” Emsley said. “It’s providing options for our customers to meet them with whatever demands that they have because sometimes they’re desperate and they need help. That’s where we can really bring the enormity of Dell Technologies to bear from a product portfolio perspective.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE Research’s coverage of the Cyber Resiliency Summit:

(* Disclosure: Dell Technologies Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Dell nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE