Dell Technologies today expanded its managed detection and response (MDR) platform to address the needs of the mid-market and customers facing skills shortages. The vendor also added CrowdStrike as a partner to further enhance its threat management capabilities.

The new MDR Pro Plus “is targeted in the sweet spot with mid-market set of customers because there is a tedious shortage of skills, [and it's] very hard to get decent security experts and threat analysts,” explained Mihir Maniar, VP of Dell Technologies' ISG, Edge, and Security Services Portfolio. “It becomes a system integration nightmare when you have to go and cobble up all these different solutions.”

Dell's Pro Plus offers breach and attack simulations designed to ensure an organization’s existing security controls are configured properly; penetration testing to find vulnerable pathways into an organization’s environment; and continuous security training, including employee awareness training. It also offers Incident Recovery Care.

“In North America, within two hours [after] the breach happens, we can have an initial call set up ... with experts to go and help them to recover from the breach,” Maniar said.

Dell’s MDR package leverages its certified security experts and artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) capabilities to provide continuous threat detection and investigation, he noted.

“These are analysts who can provide security operations, complementing the customers,” Maniar said. “We have an ML-based detection platform to reduce the noise from signals and focus on those areas that need to be responded to. And then our analysts perform things like threat investigation, threat hunting, and forensics so that the responses can be curated for what needs to be handled.”

Manir also noted the service “provides massive value in terms of a full range of cyber-recovery services with zero-trust advisory,” which enhances Dell’s ability as a systems integrator (SI) to support a customer's zero-trust journey.

Dell also added CrowdStrike’s Falcon platform to its SafeGuard and Response portfolio. CrowdStrike will be available across a broad set of Dell’s offerings including its commercial personal computers (PCs) in the coming months.

J R Balaji, director of product management at Dell Technologies, explained the SafeGuard and Response portfolio offers threat management solutions designed to prevent, detect, respond, and remediate attacks.

Matt Baker, SVP of corporate strategy at Dell Technologies, noted the company plans to include more partners in the future. “The landscape today is pretty vast and somewhat difficult to navigate," Baker said. "And so our goal is to assemble an ecosystem of what we believe are the best partners to deliver these types of services, products, etc.”

In addition to MDR Pro Plus, Dell also introduced its Product Success Accelerator (PSX) for Cyber Recovery service that streamlines the implementation of its Cyber Recovery Vault.

Dell's PowerProtect Cyber Recovery portfolio included an on-premises, air-gapped Cyber Recovery Vault. It partnered with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to offer a cyber vault for the public cloud in 2021.

The new service is the latest addition to Dell’s PSX family of products. It can “protect critical data and maintain business continuity in the event of a security incident,” Baker said. “We hear quite frequently that the challenge of what to put in the vault is one of the biggest ones in the designing process and therefore the service will help solve that issue.”