Aurora/Cylance MDR: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Description

Frequently Asked Questions about our Aurora (formerly Cylance) MDR offering.

  • Please note we are updating documentation to reflect Aurora instead of Cylance.

Sections

 

General

Is a Proof of Concept (PoC) available?

Yes, we offer a 21-day Proof of Concept for new partners.

What is involved with a Proof of Concept?
Will my licensing automatically convert to production at the end of the PoC?
  • Yes, the Aurora implementation will be automatically converted to production at the end of the 21 day PoC unless canceled before the conversion
What are the responsibilities of the partner?
  • Management of the deployment process
    • Deployment of the Aurora agents (Protect and Focus) to all workstations and servers
    • Creating a ‘Clean Baseline’ for the devices
    • Implementation of the Script Control feature
    • Creating and Assignment of tenant zones
    • Creation, assignment and maintaining of policy parameters.
  • Providing Level 1 support to direct end-user customers
  • Contacting SonicSentry for any Level 2 or Level 3 issues that you are unable to resolve
  • Monitoring of environment health
    • Removal of duplicate or retired machines
    • Address issues or inconsistencies identified from the provided report card
  • Further investigate, respond and remediate alerts sent from the SonicSentry SOC
What are the deliverables from SonicSentry?
  • Architecture setup and configuration
    • Initial provisioning of Aurora tenants in a non multi-tenancy environment
    • Provisioning of multi-tenancy environment (Where applicable per offering details)
    • Provisioning and staging of initial recommend policies and templates
    • Syslog/SIEM settings provisioning within the SIEM/SOAR platform
  • Training and Support
    • Provides training, support, and documentation
  • Security Operations Center (SOC) services (Where applicable per offering details)
    • Detection and alerting of identified abnormal, suspicious or malicious activity
    • Initial response as outlined by our EPP Alert Processing Summary
    • ‘Report Cards’ sent twice a month in assistance with monitoring of environment health
What are the differences between the endpoint offerings?
  • Aurora/Cylance Tier 1
    • Licensing for PROTECT
    • Training & Support (M-F 8 AM - 8 PM EST)
      • No emergency after hours support
    • No SOC Services
  • Aurora/Cylance Tier 3
    • Licensing for Protect and Focus (Formerly OPTICS)
      • Protect is the AV agent
      • Focus is the EDR agent
    • Training & Support (M-F 3 AM - 8 PM EST)
      • Emergency after hours support available
    • SOC Services
      • Ingestion and Analysis of security logs
        • 1 Year log retention
      • Detection of anomalistic security events
      • Initial Mitigation Steps Performed
      • Implementation ‘Report Cards’ sent twice a month
  • Aurora/Cylance MDR for Endpoint (Primary Offering)
    • Licensing for Protect and Focus (Formerly OPTICS)
      • Protect is the AV agent
      • Focus is the EDR agent
    • Training & Support (M-F 3 AM - 8 PM EST)
      • Emergency after hours support available
    • SOC Services
      • Ingestion and Analysis of security logs
        • 1 Year log retention
      • Detection of anomalistic security events
      • Initial Mitigation Steps Performed
      • Implementation ‘Report Cards’ sent twice a month
 

Implementation

What are the differences between the agents with my offering?
  • PROTECT
    • This is the AV product/agent
  • FOCUS (Formerly OPTICS)
    • This is the Aurora EDR agent developed by ArticWolf to integrate with the Protect agent
    • This is managed in the same dashboard as the Protect agent
    • Used for additional investigation of files that are quarantined/blocked by the Protect agent
    • This is used by our SOC team to respond and isolate a device when a Critical incident is identified
  • DattoEDR
    • This agent has been sunset and replaced with Focus
Do I need to install all of the agents?
  • PROTECT
    • Should be deployed on all devices
  • FOCUS (Formerly OPTICS)
    • Should be deployed by all Tier 3 and MDR partners
      • Is not available for Tier 1 partners
    • Should be deployed to any devices that have the Protect agent installed, as long as the following hardware requirements are met
      • i5 equivalent or better
      • 4 GB of Memory
      • 1 GB of Disk space for indexing and local caching
  • DattoEDR (Formerly Infocyte)
    • This agent has been sunset and replaced with Focus
Can I manage all the agents from the same portal?
  • Yes, now that we are transitioning away from DattoEDR to Focus
  • Both the Protect and Focus agents are managed in the same dashboard

Aurora Agent Implementation

What are the methods that I can deploy the agents?
  • PROTECT
    • Download the install file from the Aurora console
      • Settings > Deployments
    • Install can be run manually or through a scripted command prompt
  • FOCUS (Formerly OPTICS)
    • Download the install file from the Aurora console
      • Settings > Deployments
    • Install can be run manually or through a scripted command prompt
Is there a Multi-tenancy option for the Aurora/Cylance Portal?
  • A Multi-Tenant Console (MTC) is available by request
  • Multi-tenancy is setup with a ‘Parent-Child’ architecture
    • Partners will be able to create their own customer tenants and maintain template policies
    • Customers will not be able to create their own tenants within the partners MTC
  • The benefits of multi-tenancy include
    • Granular separation of customers for management and reporting
    • Single login capabilities for multiple customer tenants
    • Enhanced reporting capabilities
Can I use 2FA/MFA to log into an  Aurora/Cylance console?
  • Native OTP/2FA is now available for logging into the Aurora Tenants.
  • There is the ability to configure an SSO (Single Sign On) and enforce 2FA/MFA through the SSO
    • The SSO must support SAML 2.0
    • Available documentation to assist with setting up an SSO can be found here: Enhanced Authentication
 

Support

How do I contact support?
How do I access Cylance documentation?
Is training provided?
  • SonicSentry provides training on both administrative and technical operations related to the service.

 

Monitoring

How are the logs retained?
  • Aurora logs are maintained on each endpoint on a rotating 30 day schedule
    • C:\Program Files\Cylance\Desktop\Log (Requires Admin Rights)
  • Protect and Focus events and syslogs are sent from the central management console to our SIEM/SOAR for SOC services
    • These logs are maintained for 1 year
Do I get access to the SM?
  • Tier 3 and MDR partners are granted access to our SIEM (by request) for visibility and reporting purposes
Is your SOC outsourced?
  • No. Our SOC is a 24x7x365 in-house Security Operations Center
    • NOAM partners work with our US based and full time employees
    • EMEA partners work with our EMEA based and full time employees
Can you monitor Windows Defender if it’s still enabled with Cylance?
  • No, we are not currently able to monitor Windows Defender activity/alerts with Aurora
How will partners be contacted about alerts or incidents?
  • Each partner should provide designated contact information for the following:
    • Aurora/Cylance General: General communications, updates and release notes
    • Aurora/Cylance Audits: Delivery of regular implementation reports twice a month (opt-out available)
    • SOC Alerts: Notification of detected threats or alerts from the SOC
    • SOC Emergency Contact: After-hours for emergencies phone contact
  • More details are available here: SOC EPP Alert Processing Summary
 

Billing

How is licensing handled?
  • For Monthly Billed Partners:
    • Licensing is based on the number of active PROTECT devices,  pulled monthly on the last business day of the month
    • Invoices are issued on the first business day of each month, for the previous month's usage
  • For Yearly Committed Partners: 
    • If your monthly usage is over your annual commit, you will be invoiced for the overage for that month
    • Licensing is based on the number of active PROTECT devices, pulled monthly on the last business day of the month
How can I view a breakdown of the number of devices per customer?
Will duplicate or retired devices be billed?
  • Retired devices that are still in the portal ARE included in invoice numbers
  • Duplicate devices with the same DNS Hostname are NOT included in invoicing numbers
  • It is recommended to routinely audit and remove duplicate or retired devices from the portal to avoid unnecessary charges

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Categories

Managed Security Services
Endpoint Managed Detection and Response
MDR for Cylance
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