You’ve paid for enterprise-grade security, but it might not be protecting you yet. CloudGuard’s Microsoft Defender XDR ACCELERATE is a hands-on deployment engagement where our security engineers configure, tune, and switch on the full Defender XDR suite, endpoint, identity, email and cloud apps, so you leave with a production-ready security platform.
Defender XDR is only as effective as the configuration behind it, and most organisations are running it with significant gaps they don’t know are there.
Microsoft licenses like Microsoft 365 Business Premium and E5 include powerful security tools. But licences don’t configure themselves. Without proper deployment, you’re paying for capability that isn’t running, and your risk exposure stays exactly where it was before the upgrade.
Defender XDR is built to correlate signals across endpoints, identities, email, and cloud apps, but only when each component is properly deployed and tuned. Fragmented tooling means fragmented visibility, alert fatigue, and slower triage. Attackers know how to find the gaps; the right baseline closes them.
Whether you’re building an in-house SOC or moving toward a managed service, you need a clean, validated Defender baseline first. Without it, you’re handing an MSSP a half-built environment and paying them to make sense of it.Â
If a security incident exposed detection gaps, or you’re replacing an aging AV or email security platform, there’s a window where risk is elevated. Getting Defender fully operational closes that window quickly and puts you back on solid ground.
Our Microsoft Defender XDR deployment covers the full Microsoft Defender XDR suite in a single, structured engagement. Here’s what each capability area involves and why it matters to your security posture.Â
EDR live across 200 your devices, security baselines applied, endpoint visibility switched on and working.Â
Suspicious identity activity detectable across Active Directory, the attack path most teams can’t see, made visible.Â
Shadow IT brought into view, risky and unsanctioned app usage flagged, governance controls in place.Â
Safe Links, Safe Attachments, and anti-phishing controls active across Exchange, Teams, SharePoint, and OneDrive, not just enabled, actually tuned.Â
Where appropriate, policies are introduced in audit mode first, validated against your environment before enforcement, no surprises, no disruption.Â
Documentation, a close-out walkthrough, and a knowledge transfer session so your team can run and extend Defender without coming back to us.
Every Defender XDR Accelerate engagement follows the same four-phase structure, designed to move fast without cutting corners.
We start by confirming your business objectives, security priorities, licensing readiness, and key stakeholders. This isn't boilerplate, it's how we make sure every configuration decision targets real risk in your specific environment, not a generic template.
Core Defender XDR capabilities are deployed using Microsoft-recommended configurations, prioritised by the controls that deliver immediate protection and visibility. We do the work, policies are set, capabilities are switched on, and your environment starts moving toward a validated security baseline.
Where full enforcement would disrupt operations, we use audit and monitoring modes to validate behaviour before we lock things in. This gives you confidence that what's deployed is accurate and appropriate, not just technically correct in isolation.
We close out with documentation, a validation walkthrough, and a knowledge transfer session with your team. You leave the engagement with a production-ready platform and the internal capability to run it, not a dependency on us to maintain it.Â
We’re a Microsoft partner with strong expertise in Microsoft’s Defender stack, which means we know where the standard configuration falls short, where audit mode needs to stay on longer than the documentation suggests, and where a misconfigured policy quietly undermines everything around it.Â
That operational depth is what makes the difference.  Â
Defender XDR Accelerate works best when the conditions are right. Here’s how to know if this is the right engagement for where you are.
You’re running Microsoft 365 E5 or equivalent Defender XDR licensing, but the security capabilities aren’t fully configured yet. You need to realise value from what you’ve already bought, fast, without burdening a stretched IT team.
You’re retiring legacy AV or email security tools, or still relying on Active Directory with identity-based threats a concern. The Microsoft platform needs to be properly deployed before anything else changes.
You’re preparing for MSSP onboarding or SOC uplift, or a recent security incident exposed detection gaps. Either way, you need a validated Defender XDR baseline in place before the next step.
CloudGuard is embedded in the cybersecurity industry – recognised, accredited, and trusted to protect real organisations every day.
Assess is read-only, we audit your existing configuration, compare it to best practice, and hand back a prioritised report. No changes made. Accelerate is where we make the changes ourselves. If you know deployment work is needed, start here. If you’re not sure what state your environment is in first, Assess gives you that clarity before you commit.Â
Most engagements run over a few weeks, depending on scope. We agree the timeline during scoping once we understand your environment. It’s a defined engagement with a clear close-out, not open-ended.Â
Defender XDR ACCELERATE is managed carefully. We use controlled enablement, introducing policies in audit or monitored states before full enforcement, so we can validate behaviour in your environment before anything user-facing goes live.Â
No. Most environments we work in are partially deployed. We start by understanding what’s already in place, what’s correctly configured, and what needs to be added or corrected. The engagement picks up from where you are.
During the engagement we’ll need appropriate Security Administrator access and a named internal contact. After, you’ll have documentation and a knowledge transfer session. Our goal is to leave your team self-sufficient, not reliant on us for day-to-day operation.Â
Defender XDR Accelerate is fixed-price at ÂŁ7,199. That covers the full four-phase engagement, deployment across endpoint, identity, email and cloud apps, policy validation, controlled enablement, documentation, and a knowledge transfer and handover session. No hidden costs. If you want to talk through what’s included before booking a scoping call with our advisory team.
Both engagements are fixed-price and fully scoped before anything starts. You’ll know exactly what you’re getting, exactly what it costs, and exactly when it ends, so there’s nothing to second-guess when you’re making the case internally.
Hands-on engagement where we configure, deploy or adopt a technology or security practice. We make the changes, policies are tuned, baselines applied, capabilities switched on.
Book a scoping call with one of our Microsoft security engineers. We’ll take 30 minutes to understand your environment, confirm whether Accelerate is the right engagement for where you are, and give you a clear picture of scope, timeline, and investment.
