CASE STUDY
Reducing Security Risks Without Additional Security Infrastructure Investments
CHALLENGES:
Had suffered two security breaches in a single year
Critical Vulnerabilities in their cyber defense strategy
Lacked visibility into whether EDR tools effectively mitigated threats
TIDAL CYBER SOLUTION:
EDR Coverage Analysis
OUTCOMES
Closed Detection Gaps
Addressed 42 critical coverage opportunities.
Maximized Security ROI
Enhanced defenses without additional investments in new tools.
Reduced Breach Risk
Improved detection and response
INDUSTRY
Manufacturing
ANNUAL REVENUE
$950 Million
EMPLOYEES
10,000
LOCATIONS
United States
We couldn’t afford another breach, but lacked the skilled resources and time to identify priority threats, close gaps, and mitigate risks. Tidal Cyber gave us the visibility, prioritized action plan, and efficiency we needed to reduce security exposure and ensure success—with the resources we already had.
– CISO
THE CHALLENGE
A U.S.-based manufacturing company suffered two security breaches in a single year, exposing critical vulnerabilities in their cyber defense strategy.
With the average cost of a breach reaching $4.88M per incident—not including brand damage and long-term credibility risks—taking swift, strategic action was imperative.1 Despite investing in endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions, the organization lacked visibility into whether these tools effectively mitigated threats.
Security leaders wanted to assess their current detection coverage, validate whether their EDR solution was delivering on its promise, and ensure they were not leaving critical gaps in their defenses. Additionally, the company was evaluating potential investments in upgrading their EDR platform but needed data-driven insights to justify any further spending.
The key questions were:
- How well did their existing security stack protect against known threats?
- Would upgrading their EDR improve their security posture, or would additional tools be necessary?
- Could they reduce exposure without costly new investments?
The team previously struggled, taking 17 and 33 days to assess each threat, including evaluating tool efficacy against the identified threat techniques, finding configuration coverage gaps, and developing mitigation strategies.
This would take 136 to 264 person hours, and between $11,424 to $22,176 per threat (at an $84/hour fully loaded rate). Across 50 relevant threats based on this Manufacturers profile, each assessment cycle was estimated to consume 3.6 to 7.0 full time security analysts, resources the organization didn’t have to dedicate to this task, inflating risks, and a key contributor as to why the organization had experienced recent security breach issues.
THE SOLUTION
Tidal Cyber for EDR Coverage Analysis
The company integrated their EDR solution with Tidal Cyber, allowing them to instantly evaluate their actual detection coverage and identify areas for improvement.
Within moments of deployment, Tidal Cyber provided:
- A comprehensive assessment of their security stack’s ability to detect and respond to relevant threats.
- Visibility into coverage gaps, highlighting potential weaknesses in their current setup.
- A prioritized list of 42 specific opportunities to improve detection effectiveness—without requiring additional security investments.
Tidal Cyber gave us instant visibility into what our EDR was actually protecting us against. Instead of spending more, we optimized what we already had— reducing our exposure without needing additional investments.
– Security Operations Lead
THE OUTCOME
Strengthened Security Without Additional Investment
By leveraging Tidal Cyber, the manufacturer quickly identified threat vulnerabilities and techniques that needed to be addressed to close gaps in the existing security posture.
What previously required 17 to 33 days of manual effort for every identified threat was streamlined with Tidal Cyber automation, reducing time-to-action by two-thirds—from as much as a month to less than a week. The biggest benefit: empowering the team to go beyond merely assessing a subset of priority threats to now getting a continuous, thorough understanding of all the threats the team should be addressing - both key threats today and emerging threats in the future.
Across 50 threats, what would have taken from 3.6 to 7.0 full time security analysts to organize, synthesize and operationalize—resources the company did not have available— was automated with Tidal Cyber, delivering the equivalent of $380K to $731K boosted productivity value annually.
Moreover, the team was able to rapidly reduce security risk exposure without costly new tool investments. Instead of blindly upgrading their EDR or purchasing additional solutions, the security team optimized their existing security stack, achieving:
Closed Detection Gaps
Strengthened EDR effectiveness by addressing 42 critical coverage opportunities.
Maximized Security ROI
Enhanced defenses without additional investments in new tools.
Reduced Breach Risk
Improved detection and response, minimizing future security incidents.
By adopting a data-driven, automated threat informed defense approach with Tidal Cyber, the manufacturer gained full visibility into their security coverage, allowing their existing team with existing security solutions, to proactively detect, prevent, and mitigate threats before they could escalate into costly breaches.
