--- title: "MDR: Choosing the Best Partner for Healthcare | ClearDATA" description:   Healthcare providers are constantly seeking to optimize business performance and build future-proofed infrastructure, especially as the industry --- [Log in to the CyberHealth™ Platform](http://cyberhealth.cleardata.com/) [Talk to a Cloud Expert](https://www.cleardata.com/consultation/) [![Clear data](https://cspm.cleardata.com/hubfs/Cleardata_February2025/images/cleardata-logo.svg)](https://www.cleardata.com/) - [CSPM for Healthcare](https://www.cleardata.com/cspm) - - [Safeguards: HIPAA, HITRUST, GDPR, ISO, NIST, PCI](https://www.cleardata.com/cspm/#cspm-features) - [Automated Compliance](https://www.cleardata.com/cspm/#cspm-features) - [Cloud Risk Identification & Remediation](https://www.cleardata.com/cspm/#cspm-features) - [Compliance Risk Scores](https://www.cleardata.com/cspm/#cspm-features) - [PHI Leak Discovery](https://www.cleardata.com/cspm/#cspm-features) - [Audit-Ready Reporting](https://www.cleardata.com/cspm/#cspm-features) - Services - Managed Services - [Cloud Compliance](https://www.cleardata.com/cloud-compliance/) - [Managed Detection & Response](https://www.cleardata.com/cspm/managed-detection-and-response/) - [Cloud Operations](https://www.cleardata.com/cspm/cloud-operations/) - [Professional Services](https://www.cleardata.com/cspm/cloud-transformation/) - [Cloud Migration & Modernization](https://www.cleardata.com/cspm/cloud-transformation/#migration) - [Cloud Assessments](https://www.cleardata.com/cspm/cloud-transformation/#assessments) - [End-to-End Cloud Resilience](https://www.cleardata.com/cspm/cloud-transformation/#end2end) - Solutions - By Market - [Healthcare Software & Services](https://www.cleardata.com/solutions-by-market/healthcare-software-services/) - [Medical Devices & Equipment](https://www.cleardata.com/solutions-by-market/medical-devices-equipment/) - [Healthcare Providers](https://www.cleardata.com/solutions-by-market/medical-devices-equipment/) - [Healthcare Payers](https://www.cleardata.com/solutions-by-market/healthcare-payers/) - By Topic - - [Risk Visualization & Prioritization](https://www.cleardata.com/risk-visualization-prioritization/) - [Threat Detection & Protection](https://www.cleardata.com/security-threat-protection/) - [Cost & Performance Optimization](https://www.cleardata.com/cost-performance-optimization/) - [Healthcare Cloud Compliance](https://www.cleardata.com/healthcare-cloud-compliance/) - [Analytics & Reporting](https://www.cleardata.com/analytics-reporting/) - [GxP for Life Sciences](https://www.cleardata.com/gxp-life-sciences/) - [EHR Deployments in the Cloud](https://www.cleardata.com/ehr-cloud-deployments/) - Resources - - [View All](https://www.cleardata.com/resources/) - [Blog](https://www.cleardata.com/blog/) - [What Is Compliance Debt?](https://www.cleardata.com/blog/eliminating-compliance-debt-the-key-to-healthcare-tech-innovation/) - [Customer Stories](https://www.cleardata.com/stories/) - [Events](https://www.cleardata.com/events/) - [About](https://www.cleardata.com/about-us/) - - [Leadership Team](https://www.cleardata.com/about-us/leadership-team/) - [Careers](https://www.cleardata.com/about-us/careers/) - [News](https://www.cleardata.com/about-us/news/) - [Partners](https://www.cleardata.com/supported-clouds/) - [CSPM for Healthcare](https://www.cleardata.com/cspm) - - [Safeguards: HIPAA, HITRUST, GDPR, ISO, NIST, PCI](https://www.cleardata.com/cspm/#cspm-features) - [Automated Compliance](https://www.cleardata.com/cspm/#cspm-features) - [Cloud Risk Identification & Remediation](https://www.cleardata.com/cspm/#cspm-features) - [Compliance Risk Scores](https://www.cleardata.com/cspm/#cspm-features) - [PHI Leak Discovery](https://www.cleardata.com/cspm/#cspm-features) - [Audit-Ready Reporting](https://www.cleardata.com/cspm/#cspm-features) - Services - Managed Services - [Cloud Compliance](https://www.cleardata.com/cloud-compliance/) - [Managed Detection & Response](https://www.cleardata.com/cspm/managed-detection-and-response/) - [Cloud Operations](https://www.cleardata.com/cspm/cloud-operations/) - [Professional Services](https://www.cleardata.com/cspm/cloud-transformation/) - [Cloud Migration & Modernization](https://www.cleardata.com/cspm/cloud-transformation/#migration) - [Cloud Assessments](https://www.cleardata.com/cspm/cloud-transformation/#assessments) - [End-to-End Cloud Resilience](https://www.cleardata.com/cspm/cloud-transformation/#end2end) - Solutions - By Market - [Healthcare Software & Services](https://www.cleardata.com/solutions-by-market/healthcare-software-services/) - [Medical Devices & Equipment](https://www.cleardata.com/solutions-by-market/medical-devices-equipment/) - [Healthcare Providers](https://www.cleardata.com/solutions-by-market/medical-devices-equipment/) - [Healthcare Payers](https://www.cleardata.com/solutions-by-market/healthcare-payers/) - By Topic - - [Risk Visualization & Prioritization](https://www.cleardata.com/risk-visualization-prioritization/) - [Threat Detection & Protection](https://www.cleardata.com/security-threat-protection/) - [Cost & Performance Optimization](https://www.cleardata.com/cost-performance-optimization/) - [Healthcare Cloud Compliance](https://www.cleardata.com/healthcare-cloud-compliance/) - [Analytics & Reporting](https://www.cleardata.com/analytics-reporting/) - [GxP for Life Sciences](https://www.cleardata.com/gxp-life-sciences/) - [EHR Deployments in the Cloud](https://www.cleardata.com/ehr-cloud-deployments/) - Resources - - [View All](https://www.cleardata.com/resources/) - [Blog](https://www.cleardata.com/blog/) - [What Is Compliance Debt?](https://www.cleardata.com/blog/eliminating-compliance-debt-the-key-to-healthcare-tech-innovation/) - [Customer Stories](https://www.cleardata.com/stories/) - [Events](https://www.cleardata.com/events/) - [About](https://www.cleardata.com/about-us/) - - [Leadership Team](https://www.cleardata.com/about-us/leadership-team/) - [Careers](https://www.cleardata.com/about-us/careers/) - [News](https://www.cleardata.com/about-us/news/) - [Partners](https://www.cleardata.com/supported-clouds/) [Azure](https://cspm.cleardata.com/cleardata-blog/tag/azure), [Customer](https://cspm.cleardata.com/cleardata-blog/tag/customer), [GCP](https://cspm.cleardata.com/cleardata-blog/tag/gcp) # Partner With the Best, Ignore the Rest: Top MDR Attributes  October 19, 2022 10 minute read [mailto:?body=https://cspm.cleardata.com/cleardata-blog/blog/top-mdr-attributes](mailto:?body=https://cspm.cleardata.com/cleardata-blog/blog/top-mdr-attributes) ### [![2024-Threat-Report-data-1](https://cspm.cleardata.com/hubfs/Cleardata_February2025/images/2024-Threat-Report-data-1.jpg) Guide 2024 Healthcare Threat Report Learn More](https://www.cleardata.com/resources/healthcare-threat-report/) #### Table of Contents   Healthcare providers are constantly seeking to optimize business performance and build future-proofed infrastructure, especially as the industry faces regulatory headwinds and constricted margins. One of the most effective ways to achieve security and [compliance](https://www.cleardata.com/blog/security-healthcare-cloud-services/) is to partner with a trusted third-party cloud expert. As we discussed in our article, [*Prioritize the Right Partner – MSSP vs. MXDR vs. MDR*,](https://www.cleardata.com/prioritize-the-right-partner-mssp-vs-mxdr-vs-mdr/) there are multiple managed service constructions available to meet your needs.     Those who foretell the value of a Managed Defense provider and want to evaluate MDRs should be sure to dig into partners’ capabilities and fact-check their claims to avoid later complications. Below we have provided guidance on the most relevant [services](https://www.cleardata.com/services-descriptions/) and offerings that you should require of any [MDR](https://www.cleardata.com/blog/mdr-for-healthcare-your-buyers-guide/) at the table.    ### **HITRUST Certification is Non-Negotiable**    First, the need for [HITRUST](https://www.cleardata.com/healthcare-cloud-compliance/) certification has never been higher stakes for healthcare. With constantly shifting regulatory landscapes, the stamp of approval from HITRUST certification means that your HCO has cleared a high bar and adheres to best practices. Although you can achieve HITRUST certification on your own, doing so typically takes 12 months to share all relevant documentation, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in labor and expenses. You can time-collapse the entire process by partnering with an MDR that already has cloud certification to operate under their HITRUST Certification.    A leading MDR partner will bring much more to the table – in addition to the HITRUST Certification. Here are the top attributes every healthcare provider should insist on seeing their MDR partner deliver.    ### **Healthcare Cyber Threat Intelligence**    **Active Defense Capabilities:** Defenders proactively utilize denial, disruption, degradation, and deception to interrupt attackers’ operational tempo — forcing them to go off script, revealing themselves in instances where they may have already bypassed traditional reactive security technologies. MDRs with numerous clients can collect anonymized indicators of attacks and compromised defenses sourced from one subscriber’s managed [cloud environment](https://www.cleardata.com/partners/) — which are then validated and imported into curated blocklists, and continuously disseminated to the MDR’s entire suite of security technologies.      **Threat Intelligence Advisories**: Operationally relevant and industry-specific intelligence deliverable that provides healthcare organizations with proactive insight into today’s threat landscape.    **Threat Indicator Management:** A service to answer the question: “Who is targeting my organization and others like mine?” The MDR may collect and analyze attack information sourced from sensors deployed within the organizations cloud estate and industry vertical.    **Public Attack Surface Monitoring:** The MDR monitors the public facing IP addresses of all your organizational assets for poor reputation scores, which could indicate that an asset has been compromised and is being used for malicious activity.      ### **Virtual Machines & Container Hosts**    **Malware Protection:** Provides both real-time and on-demand protection against file-based threats including ransomware and other potentially unwanted applications.    **Host Intrusion Prevention System (HIPS):** Protection from both known and zero-day vulnerability attacks (ex. Log4j, Spring4shell, etc.), and web application vulnerabilities.    ### **Application Runtime Protection**    **Application Log Monitoring:** Application logs provide a detailed picture of client and server interactions. They must be analyzed to determine if an attack against a web application was valid and/or successful. This service continuously collects and analyzes application logs for indicators of attack and compromise.        **Container [Threat Detection](https://www.cleardata.com/security-threat-protection/):** Identify and alert suspicious behaviors and other anomalies that occur inside containerized workloads and their supporting infrastructure. Alerts created by the technology are surfaced, triaged, and investigated by analysts on the MDR team.        **Cloud Network Threat Protection**: A combination of cloud native service logging, real-time analysis, and event correlation to provide timely and high confidence detection of malicious network activity to all [customers](https://www.cleardata.com/cloud-case-studies/) the MDR serves.         ### **Cloud Platform Protection**      **[Audit](https://www.cleardata.com/blog/cleardata-soc-2-audit-completion/) Log Management:** Technology that configures and deploys logging of subscriber resources to make them available and accessible during an audit or during troubleshooting.         **Cloud-Native Threat Detection:** Monitoring and response for alerts created by native security threat detection tools such as GuardDuty, Azure Advanced Threat Protection, and GCP Event/Container/ VM Threat Detection.    **Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS), and Penetration Testing as a Service (PTaaS):** The use of validation-type capabilities to test and understand threat scenarios in an environment on a continuous basis — rather than traditional, single test or annual test mechanisms.      **Bandwidth to build out a tailored “squad model” for relevant vertical expertise and culture fit.** Because MDRs maintain a large staff of analysts, responders, and customer support specialists, they have the unique ability to assign certain team members to customers based on the customer’s vertical and specific needs.      **Strong threat detection, proactive threat intelligence, and scaled response capabilities.** MDRs with numerous clients in a specific industry, like healthcare, can provide data-driven insights about emerging threat vectors that a single HCO with an in-house cybersecurity team cannot. The reason is that MDRs can source data from a host of HCOs, extrapolate potential threats to other clients in similar verticals, and introduce scalable solutions that can be tailored to each client’s unique operating environment.       **Highly skilled, adaptable talent.** IT, security, and [privacy](https://www.cleardata.com/legal/privacy-policy/) leaders at HCOs are frequently highly educated and capable individuals. As a result, they need an MDR team that brings just as much intelligence and ability to the table, if not more. The ideal MDR vendor will seamlessly sync with the client’s existing cybersecurity technology, and act as a trusted advisor to help their client [augment](https://www.cleardata.com/blog/cybersecurity-skills-gap/) their security capabilities.    ### **Choose The Right MDR Partner**    As a healthcare entity, your MDR partnership may be one of the most critical partnerships you decide on. Not only is your MDR partner responsible for protecting the IT systems your organization uses on a daily basis, your MDR partner is also a major stakeholder in your public reputation and perception. A single cybersecurity incident can irreparably destroy patient trust and cause major financial harm to the business.     For those reasons, we recommend every healthcare provider diligently evaluate potential MDR partners and select the organization that has a proven track record of specializing in [healthcare cybersecurity](https://www.cleardata.com/blog/finally-a-necessary-response-to-todays-healthcare-cybersecurity-crisis/) and is committed to keeping your organization secure.     [Reach out for a consultation](https://www.cleardata.com/consultation/) to learn more about ClearDATA’s MDR services.  Secure Your Healthcare Cloud ## Speak with a healthcare cybersecurity and compliance expert today. [Speak with an expert](https://www.cleardata.com/consultation/) ### [![Taking a Closer Look at AWS Relational Database Service](https://cspm.cleardata.com/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/Taking-a-Closer-Look-at-AWS-Relational-Database-Service-2.png) AWS Taking a Closer Look at AWS Relational Database Service](https://cspm.cleardata.com/cleardata-blog/blog/aws-relational-database-service) ### [![From Chaos to Confidence – Streamline Cloud Security with ClearDATA](https://cspm.cleardata.com/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/AdobeStock_1601759322.jpg) Blog From Chaos to Confidence – Streamline Cloud Security with ClearDATA](https://cspm.cleardata.com/cleardata-blog/blog/streamline-cloud-security-with-cleardata) ### [![Why HITRUST Matters in the Digital Healthcare Age](https://cspm.cleardata.com/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/shutterstock_2203803811-2.jpg) Blog Why HITRUST Matters in the Digital Healthcare Age](https://cspm.cleardata.com/cleardata-blog/blog/hitrust-compliance) [![Clear data](https://cspm.cleardata.com/hubfs/Cleardata_February2025/images/cleardata-logo.svg "Clear data")](https://www.cleardata.com/) - [CSPM for Healthcare](https://www.cleardata.com/cspm) - [Safeguards: HIPAA, HITRUST, GDPR, ISO, NIST, PCI](https://www.cleardata.com/cspm/#cspm-features) - [Automated Compliance](https://www.cleardata.com/cspm/#cspm-features) - [Cloud Risk Identification & Remediation](https://www.cleardata.com/cspm/#cspm-features) - [Compliance Risk Scores](https://www.cleardata.com/cspm/#cspm-features) - [PHI Leak Discovery](https://www.cleardata.com/cspm/#cspm-features) - [Audit-Ready Reporting](https://www.cleardata.com/cspm/#cspm-features) - Services - Managed Services - [Cloud Compliance](https://www.cleardata.com/cloud-compliance/) - [Managed Detection & Response](https://www.cleardata.com/cspm/managed-detection-and-response/) - [Cloud Operations](https://www.cleardata.com/cspm/cloud-operations/) - [Professional Services](https://www.cleardata.com/cspm/cloud-transformation/) - [Cloud Migration & Modernization](https://www.cleardata.com/cspm/cloud-transformation/#migration) - [Cloud Assessments](https://www.cleardata.com/cspm/cloud-transformation/#assessments) - [End-To-End Cloud Resilience](https://www.cleardata.com/cspm/cloud-transformation/#end2end) - Solutions - By Market - [Healthcare Software & Services](https://www.cleardata.com/solutions-by-market/healthcare-software-services/) - [Medical Devices & Equipment](https://www.cleardata.com/solutions-by-market/medical-devices-equipment/) - [Healthcare Providers](https://www.cleardata.com/solutions-by-market/healthcare-providers/) - [Healthcare Payers](https://www.cleardata.com/solutions-by-market/healthcare-payers/) - By Topic - [Risk Visualization & Prioritization](https://www.cleardata.com/risk-visualization-prioritization/) - [Threat Detection & Protection](https://www.cleardata.com/security-threat-protection/) - [Cost & Performance Optimization](https://www.cleardata.com/cost-performance-optimization/) - [Healthcare Cloud Compliance](https://www.cleardata.com/healthcare-cloud-compliance/) - [Analytics & Reporting](https://www.cleardata.com/analytics-reporting/) - [GxP For Life Sciences](https://www.cleardata.com/gxp-life-sciences/) - [EHR Deployments In The Cloud](https://www.cleardata.com/ehr-cloud-deployments/) - Resources - [View All](https://www.cleardata.com/resources) - [Blog](https://www.cleardata.com/blog/) - [What Is Compliance Debt?](https://www.cleardata.com/blog/eliminating-compliance-debt-the-key-to-healthcare-tech-innovation/) - [Events](https://www.cleardata.com/events/) - [Customer Stories](https://www.cleardata.com/cloud-case-studies/) - About - [Leadership Team](https://www.cleardata.com/about-us/leadership-team/) - [Careers](https://www.cleardata.com/about-us/careers/) - [News](https://www.cleardata.com/about-us/news/) - [Cloud Partners](https://www.cleardata.com/supported-clouds) - [Microsoft Azure](https://www.cleardata.com/cspm/microsoft-azure/) - [Amazon Web Services (AWS)](https://www.cleardata.com/cspm/aws/) - [Google Cloud Platform](https://www.cleardata.com/cspm/google-cloud/) © 2026 CLEARDATA All rights reserved - [Privacy Policy](https://www.cleardata.com/legal/privacy-policy) - [Notice of Copyright Infringement](https://www.cleardata.com/legal/notice-of-copyright-infringement) - 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