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PlexTrac ConceptsMean Time to Detect (MTTD)

What is Mean Time to Detect (MTTD)?

Mean time to detect (MTTD) is a common and important key performance indicator (KPI) for IT incident management. MTTD is the average time passed between the beginning of an IT incident and the discovery of the incident. Essentially, it’s how long it takes a security team to identify an issue or breach.

How Do You Measure Mean Time to Detect (MTTD)?

Measuring mean time to detect (MTTD) can depend on the complexity of your infrastructure and the size of the IT team so it may be difficult to compare from organization to organization. However, there is an equation teams can use to calculate MTTD. If you add up the total time taken to detect all incidents within a specific period and divide that sum by the number of incidents, you should get the MTTD.

OR simply written:
MTTD = (Total Sum of Detection Time) / (Total Number of Incidents)

What is the Importance of Mean Time to Detect (MTTD)?

No matter the size or maturity of a security team, reducing detection and remediation time is critical to improving security posture. With attacks increasing in number and sophistication, security teams need to mitigate threats quickly to fortify their organization and keep it running as smoothly and efficiently as possible.

How Do You Improve Mean Time to Detect (MTTD)?

You can improve your mean time to detect (MTTD) by identifying issues faster. Here are a few practices you can leverage to reduce MTTD:

  1. Create an incident response (IR) plan and conduct a thorough root cause analysis of any past incidents.
  2. Implement comprehensive monitoring and proactive security testing using pentesting tools.
  3. Leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to automate incident response processes.
  4. Set up real-time alerts for anomalies and automate routine tasks.
  5. Provide ongoing security training on the latest threats, tools, and best practices.

How Can PlexTrac Empower Your Teams to Reduce MTTD?

PlexTrac is built to empower security professionals to get the real security work done, reducing MTTD by enabling full visibility of the attack surface. PlexTrac is the perfect security platform to centralize all of your security findings, analyze the data, and collaborate on remediation. 

 

PlexTrac’s powerful Assessments module allows you to identify and manage risks within your organization. Additionally, PlexTrac supports importing scanner findings from external tools like Qualys, Nessus, and Nexpose directly into the platform, thereby aggregating data from internal and external sources into one all-encompassing ecosystem. The platform gives you a 360-degree view of your security posture, enabling your team to make analytics-backed decisions on remediation.

 

Book a demo with PlexTrac today to see our award-winning platform in action.

Associated Words

Incident Response (IR)
Remediation
Risk Assessment
Risk Prioritization
Threat Intelligence