Solved: What’s up with insurance companies doing lame security asseessments and selling MDR?

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🚀 Executive Summary

TL;DR: Cybersecurity insurance often involves superficial assessments followed by a push for insurer-tied Managed Detection and Response (MDR) services, raising conflict of interest concerns and leading to generic recommendations. IT professionals should counter this by building robust, independent security programs, strategically evaluating MDR providers, or implementing hybrid models with vendor-agnostic orchestration to ensure genuine protection.

🎯 Key Takeaways

Implement a proactive, independent security posture through comprehensive vulnerability management (e.g., nmap, VMS), regular penetration testing, and a well-tested Incident Response plan to avoid reliance on insurer-mandated assessments.
Strategically evaluate Managed Detection and Response (MDR) providers based on robust threat intelligence, advanced detection capabilities (EDR, SIEM), defined response SLAs, and integration flexibility, rather than accepting bundled offerings.
Adopt a hybrid security model utilizing best-of-breed tools, API-driven integration, and Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) platforms to automate tasks and orchestrate incident response workflows across disparate security tools.

Navigating the complex landscape of cybersecurity insurance can be frustrating, especially when faced with superficial security assessments followed by pressure to adopt specific Managed Detection and Response (MDR) services. This post unpacks the common problems and offers actionable strategies for IT professionals to build robust security programs independent of insurer mandates.

The Curious Case of Insurance Security Assessments and MDR Sales

Symptoms: The Disconnect in Insurance Security Practices

Many IT professionals share a common frustration: an insurance company conducts what feels like a perfunctory security assessment, often checklist-oriented and lacking depth, only to then strongly suggest or even outright push their proprietary or preferred Managed Detection and Response (MDR) services. This scenario presents several symptoms:

Superficial Assessments: The initial “security assessment” might consist of a basic questionnaire, an automated vulnerability scan report with little context, or a high-level review that doesn’t delve into your specific operational risks or architectural nuances. It often feels like a checkbox exercise rather than a true evaluation of your security posture.
MDR Sales Pitch: Following this assessment, a robust sales pitch for an MDR service, often tied to the insurer or their partners, is delivered. The implication is that adopting this service will significantly improve your insurability or reduce premiums, sometimes without clear justification of its fit for your specific environment.
Conflict of Interest Concerns: It creates a perceived conflict of interest. Is the assessment genuinely about your risk, or is it an entry point for selling additional services? This erodes trust and makes it challenging to objectively evaluate recommendations.
Generic Recommendations: The advice provided might be generic, failing to address unique industry-specific threats, regulatory requirements (beyond basic compliance), or your organization’s specific threat model.
Vendor Lock-in Fears: Accepting an insurer-mandated MDR can lead to vendor lock-in, limiting your flexibility to choose best-of-breed solutions or integrate with your existing security ecosystem.

For example, you might receive a vulnerability scan report that lists hundreds of low-severity findings, but the accompanying advice focuses less on prioritized remediation and more on how the recommended MDR service would “handle” such findings proactively.

Understanding the “Why”: Possible Motivations

While frustrating, it’s important to understand the potential motivations behind this approach from the insurer’s perspective:

Risk Mitigation: Insurers aim to reduce their payout risk. By encouraging (or mandating) certain security services, they hope to decrease the likelihood of a cyber incident for their policyholders.
Standardization: Partnering with specific MDR providers allows insurers to standardize security controls across their customer base, simplifying their risk assessment models and potentially claims processing.
Revenue Stream: Providing security services can open up new revenue streams beyond just premiums.
Limited Internal Expertise: Some insurers may lack deep internal cybersecurity expertise to provide highly granular, tailored advice, relying instead on partner solutions.

Solution 1: Proactive, Independent Security Posture Management

Strategy: Build Your Own Robust Security Program

The most effective long-term solution is to take ownership of your security posture, building a robust, independent program that stands up to scrutiny, regardless of external mandates. This allows you to select best-of-breed tools and services tailored to your specific needs.

Comprehensive Vulnerability Management: Implement a continuous vulnerability assessment program using industry-standard tools. Don’t rely solely on basic scans; incorporate asset discovery, patch management, and configuration hardening.
Regular Penetration Testing & Red Teaming: Engage independent, reputable third-party firms for regular penetration tests. These go far beyond automated scans, simulating real-world attacks to uncover exploitable weaknesses. Consider Red Team exercises for evaluating your detection and response capabilities.
Develop a Strong Incident Response (IR) Plan: Create, document, and regularly test an IR plan. This includes roles, responsibilities, communication protocols, and technical steps for containment, eradication, and recovery. Conduct tabletop exercises to ensure your team is prepared.
Employee Security Awareness Training: Invest in ongoing, engaging security awareness training for all employees, covering topics like phishing, social engineering, and secure coding practices.
Leverage Open-Source or Independent Commercial Tools: Utilize tools that provide deep insights without vendor lock-in.

Example: Proactive Vulnerability Discovery and Management

Instead of waiting for an insurer’s scan, proactively discover and map your network assets. Here’s how you might start with nmap, followed by more advanced vulnerability scanning:

# Discover active hosts on a subnet
nmap -sn 192.168.1.0/24

# Perform a service version detection and OS detection scan on a target
nmap -sV -O 192.168.1.100

# Perform a script scan for common vulnerabilities on standard web ports
nmap -sV -p 80,443 --script http-vuln-* 192.168.1.100

# Integrate with a dedicated Vulnerability Management System (VMS)
# For example, using OpenVAS (Greenbone Security Manager) or a commercial solution like Nessus/Qualys:
# (These typically involve web UI interaction or API calls, not direct shell commands for full scans)

# Example (conceptual API call to trigger a scan with a VMS, not a direct shell command):
# curl -X POST -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
#      -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
#      -d '{"target_ip": "192.168.1.100", "scan_profile_id": "full_discovery"}' \
#      https://your-vms-api.example.com/api/v1/scans

This proactive approach ensures you’re identifying and addressing vulnerabilities on your terms, providing a stronger security baseline for any insurer’s assessment.

Solution 2: Strategic Engagement with MDR/MSSP Providers (on your terms)

Strategy: Evaluate and Leverage, Don’t Just Accept

MDR services can be invaluable, especially for organizations with limited in-house security teams. The key is to strategically evaluate and select a provider that truly meets your needs, rather than passively accepting an insurer’s bundled offering.

Define Your Requirements: Before looking at any vendor, clearly articulate your needs. What specific threats are you most concerned about? What existing tools do you have? What level of response do you expect?
Independent Evaluation: Conduct a thorough, independent evaluation of multiple MDR/MSSP providers. Look beyond basic marketing materials to their actual capabilities, threat intelligence, and incident response processes.
Key Evaluation Criteria:
- Threat Intelligence: Does the provider have robust, actionable threat intelligence? Is it specific to your industry?
- Detection Capabilities: How do they detect threats? What technologies do they use (EDR, SIEM, network sensors)? Can they integrate with your existing systems?
- Response & Remediation: What are their incident response capabilities? Do they offer full remediation or just guidance? What are the SLAs for detection and response?
- Transparency & Reporting: How transparent are their operations? What kind of reports and dashboards do they provide? Can you access raw logs or alerts?
- Integration & Flexibility: Can they integrate with your cloud environments, custom applications, or existing security tools? How flexible are their service models?
- Compliance Expertise: Do they understand and help you meet your specific regulatory compliance requirements?
Negotiate Terms: Don’t hesitate to negotiate contracts, SLAs, and service scope. Ensure that your agreement protects your interests and provides the security outcomes you expect.

Comparison Table: In-House vs. Independent MDR vs. Insurer-Bundled MDR


Feature	In-House Security Team	Independent MDR/MSSP	Insurer-Bundled MDR
Control & Customization	Highest (full control over tools, policies, response)	High (can customize services, integrations, and SLAs)	Moderate to Low (often standardized, less customization)
Expertise Depth	Variable (depends on hiring/training budget)	High (specialized, dedicated security analysts)	Variable (depends on insurer’s partner, may be generic)
Cost	High (salaries, tools, training, 24/7 ops)	Moderate to High (subscription-based, economies of scale)	Often appears “cost-effective” due to bundling, but hidden costs/gaps possible
Threat Intelligence	Requires dedicated resources to develop/subscribe	Integrated, often advanced & specific	May be generic or tailored to insurer’s broader risk profile
Incident Response	Requires internal expertise & on-call rotations	Built-in expertise, defined SLAs for response	Defined by partner, may lack flexibility or deep remediation
Integration with Existing Tools	Full control	Usually good, designed for multi-vendor environments	May prioritize integration with insurer’s ecosystem
Perceived Conflict of Interest	None	None (vendor is focused solely on your security)	High (provider tied to the insurer assessing your risk)

Example: Custom Detection Rule in a Preferred SIEM/MDR

If you opt for an independent MDR, you should be able to define custom detection logic or at least understand how their generic rules apply to your environment. Here’s a conceptual example of a detection rule you might discuss or implement, regardless of the specific SIEM syntax:

# Pseudocode for a detection rule targeting suspicious activity after a new user account creation

rule_name: "Suspicious Activity Post New User Creation"
description: "Detects unusual network connections or command executions shortly after a new local administrator account is created, indicative of potential privilege escalation or abuse."
severity: High
category: Privilege Escalation, Initial Access

log_source:
  service: [security_logs, windows_event_logs]
  type: [process_creation, network_connection, user_management]

detection_logic:
  # Stage 1: New local admin user created (Windows Event ID 4720 - A user account was created)
  condition_1:
    event_id: 4720
    user.account_name: "*"
    target_user.privileges: "Administrator" # Or group membership check

  # Stage 2: Suspicious activity from the newly created user within a short time window
  condition_2:
    AND:
      - user.account_name: "$condition_1.target_user.account_name" # Reference user from condition 1
      - timeframe: "5m" # Within 5 minutes of user creation
      - OR:
        - process_creation.command_line:
            - "*net user /add*"
            - "*whoami /all*"
            - "*dsquery*"
            - "*nltest*"
            - "*certutil -urlcache -f*"
            - "*powershell -e*"
            - "*Invoke-Mimikatz*"
        - network_connection.destination_port: [445, 3389, 5985] # Common lateral movement/RDP/WinRM ports
        - network_connection.destination_ip: "EXTERNAL_IP_RANGE" # Connects to external C2, replace with actual TI

  final_condition: "condition_1 AND condition_2"

Solution 3: Hybrid Model & Vendor-Agnostic Orchestration

Strategy: Combine Strengths and Maintain Control

For organizations with more mature security teams, a hybrid approach offers the best of both worlds: leveraging specialized external services for 24/7 monitoring or advanced threat hunting, while maintaining core security operations and strategic control internally. This often involves vendor-agnostic orchestration using Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) platforms.

Best-of-Breed Tool Selection: Choose security tools (EDR, SIEM, firewalls, threat intelligence feeds) based on their individual strengths and suitability for your environment, rather than being limited to a single vendor ecosystem.
API-Driven Integration: Prioritize tools with robust APIs that allow for integration and automation. This is crucial for a hybrid model.
SOAR Platform Implementation: Deploy a SOAR platform (e.g., Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR, Splunk SOAR, open-source options like Shuffle) to automate routine security tasks, orchestrate incident response workflows, and integrate disparate security tools.
Internal Oversight and Tuning: Even with external MDR, maintain internal expertise to oversee their operations, review their findings, and tune detection rules to your specific environment.
Threat Intelligence Aggregation: Aggregate threat intelligence from multiple sources, including commercial feeds, open-source feeds, and your chosen MDR, to enrich your detection capabilities.

Example: Automating a Threat Response with a SOAR Platform via API

A SOAR playbook can automate actions like blocking a malicious IP address across your firewall, querying a threat intelligence platform, or enriching an alert in your SIEM. Here’s a conceptual Python snippet that could be part of such an automation, interacting with a hypothetical firewall API:

import requests
import json
import os

# --- Configuration (would typically be securely stored/fetched by SOAR) ---
FIREWALL_API_BASE_URL = os.environ.get("FIREWALL_API_BASE_URL", "https://your-firewall.example.com/api/v1")
FIREWALL_API_KEY = os.environ.get("FIREWALL_API_KEY", "YOUR_SECURE_API_KEY")
THREAT_INTEL_API_KEY = os.environ.get("THREAT_INTEL_API_KEY", "YOUR_TI_API_KEY")
THREAT_INTEL_BASE_URL = os.environ.get("THREAT_INTEL_BASE_URL", "https://threatintel.example.com/api/v2")

def check_ip_reputation(ip_address):
    """
    Checks the reputation of an IP address using a hypothetical threat intelligence API.
    """
    headers = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {THREAT_INTEL_API_KEY}"}
    response = requests.get(f"{THREAT_INTEL_BASE_URL}/reputation/{ip_address}", headers=headers)
    response.raise_for_status()
    data = response.json()
    return data.get("is_malicious", False), data.get("threat_score", 0)

def block_ip_on_firewall(ip_address, reason="Automated block by SOAR"):
    """
    Blocks an IP address on a hypothetical firewall via its API.
    """
    headers = {
        "Authorization": f"Bearer {FIREWALL_API_KEY}",
        "Content-Type": "application/json"
    }
    payload = {
        "action": "block",
        "ip_address": ip_address,
        "reason": reason
    }
    response = requests.post(f"{FIREWALL_API_BASE_URL}/security_policies", headers=headers, data=json.dumps(payload))
    response.raise_for_status()
    print(f"Successfully sent block request for {ip_address} to firewall.")
    return response.json()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    malicious_ip = "192.0.2.1" # Example IP from an alert
    is_malicious, threat_score = check_ip_reputation(malicious_ip)

    if is_malicious and threat_score > 70: # Threshold for blocking
        print(f"IP {malicious_ip} identified as malicious with score {threat_score}. Initiating block.")
        try:
            block_ip_on_firewall(malicious_ip, f"Automated block due to high threat score ({threat_score})")
        except requests.exceptions.RequestException as e:
            print(f"Error blocking IP {malicious_ip}: {e}")
    else:
        print(f"IP {malicious_ip} reputation check: Malicious={is_malicious}, Score={threat_score}. Not meeting block threshold.")

This script exemplifies how a SOAR platform can seamlessly integrate various security tools, allowing you to build automated, custom responses without being tied to a single vendor’s ecosystem.

Key Takeaways for IT Professionals

The tension between insurance mandates and effective cybersecurity is real, but it doesn’t have to dictate your strategy. Here’s how to navigate it:

Own Your Security Posture: Invest in robust, independent security measures first. This puts you in a stronger negotiating position and ensures your organization is genuinely protected, not just compliant on paper.
Question and Verify: Don’t blindly accept insurer recommendations. Ask for detailed justifications, compare offerings, and seek independent reviews.
Demand Transparency: If you consider an insurer-bundled MDR, demand transparency on their capabilities, integrations, SLAs, and the underlying technologies they use.
Prioritize Your Business Risk: Focus on mitigating the cyber risks most relevant to your business operations and industry, rather than simply ticking boxes on an insurer’s questionnaire.
Leverage External Expertise Strategically: Use MDR/MSSP services to augment your team, fill skill gaps, and provide 24/7 coverage, but ensure you select providers based on merit and fit, not just a recommendation.

By taking a proactive, informed, and strategic approach, IT professionals can ensure their organizations are both insurable and truly secure, minimizing the impact of potential conflicts of interest in the cybersecurity insurance market.