The Invisible Shield: How MITRE-Driven Security Saved Meridian Financial
Diane DelBello, CISO of Meridian Financial Services, stared at her monitor, coffee growing cold beside her keyboard. The notification that had just flashed across her screen shouldn't have been possible.
"Initial access detected: Spear phishing attachment. MITRE technique ID: T1566.001."
For most financial institutions, this would be just the beginning of a long, painful breach. But Meridian wasn't most institutions.
The Attack That Never Had a Chance
It was 2:17 AM when the first alert came through. A highly sophisticated spear phishing email had bypassed traditional filters, targeting Meridian's wealth management team with a convincing but malicious Excel document. The document contained a zero-day exploit that traditional antivirus couldn't detect.
For the attackers, it should have been the perfect entry point. But they didn't count on Meridian's partnership with XeneX SOC.
"The system caught it immediately," Diane later explained to the board. "Not because it recognized the malware signature—it didn't. It caught it because XeneX's Managed SOCaaS MITRE-mapped detection identified the behavior consistent with initial access techniques."
Within minutes, XeneX SOC's AI-powered system had:
Detected the unusual behavior mapped to MITRE ATT&CK framework
Isolated the affected workstation
Alerted Meridian's security team with precise MITRE technique identification
Launched automated response playbooks designed specifically for this attack pattern
From Detection to Response in Record Time
Roger Conroy, the XeneX SOC analyst on duty, received the alert with full MITRE context. Rather than wasting time determining if this was a real threat, he could immediately see it was an attempt at credential harvesting (MITRE Technique ID: T1555) following initial access.
"We could see exactly what the attackers were trying to do," Roger recounted. "The beauty of the MITRE framework is that it's like having a translator for attacker behavior. We knew their next moves before they made them."
Within 17 minutes of the initial detection, XeneX SOC, a Managed SOCaaS had:
Mapped the entire attack chain using MITRE ATT&CK
Identified the financial data the attackers were targeting
Deployed countermeasures to block lateral movement
Provided Meridian with a real-time incident report with full MITRE context
The Difference That Saved Millions
The next morning, while other financial institutions were dealing with a sector-wide attack that would eventually cost victims an average of $4.2 million in damages, Meridian's executive team reviewed a comprehensive incident report.
"What impressed me most wasn't just that we stopped the attack," CEO Ken Billings noted, "but that we understood exactly what happened, why it happened, and what we needed to do to prevent similar attacks in the future. The MITRE mapping gave us a crystal-clear picture."
The report showed how the attackers had attempted to move through Meridian's network using techniques that aligned with MITRE's persistence and credential access tactics. But at each step, XeneX SOC's MITRE-aligned detection had identified and blocked their progress.
Beyond Detection: Preparation Makes Perfect
Three months earlier, Meridian had participated in XeneX's purple team exercise, where security experts had simulated attacks based on MITRE techniques commonly used against financial institutions. The exercise had identified gaps in Meridian's defense against specific credential access techniques.
"That exercise was the reason we were ready," Diane explained. "We knew our weak spots and had strengthened them. Without that MITRE-based simulation, we might have been telling a very different story today."
A New Standard for Financial Security
Six months after the attempted breach, Meridian Financial presented its security transformation at the annual Financial Services Security Summit. Their case study demonstrated how MITRE-driven security operations had not only prevented a major breach but had also:
Reduced false positives by 87%
Accelerated mean time to detect (MTTD) from hours to minutes
Improved regulatory compliance reporting with precise threat documentation
Saved an estimated $3.7 million in potential breach costs
"In financial services, we often talk about risk management," Diane told the audience. "What XeneX SOC showed us is that modern risk management means understanding attacker behavior in a structured way. The MITRE framework isn't just a nice-to-have—it's the foundation of effective security operations in today's threat landscape."
The Invisible Shield
Today, Meridian Financial stands as a model for MITRE-driven security in the financial sector. Their partnership with XeneX SOC has created what Diane calls "an invisible shield"—security that works so well clients never see the threats that are constantly being neutralized.
"The highest compliment in security is when nothing happens," she says. "And with MITRE at the core of our operations, nothing happens a lot more often than it used to."
As financial institutions face increasingly sophisticated threats, Meridian's experience demonstrates that the difference between security success and failure often comes down to one thing: a systematic, MITRE-based approach to understanding and countering adversary behavior.
For Meridian Financial, that difference was everything. Contact XeneX SOC to learn more.