What is MDR?
MDR is a comprehensive managed service combining advanced technologies, analytics, and security operations expertise to reduce the risk and impact of cyberattacks. By swiftly identifying and responding to anomalies and potential breaches, MDR solutions enable rapid containment, investigation, and remediation, helping to minimize damage from incidents.
Crucial components of MDR include 24/7 threat monitoring, vulnerability scanning, integrated detection (endpoint, network, cloud), log management, automated response, guided remediation, real-time reporting and dashboards, analytics, and threat hunting.
An Evolving Threat Landscape
Organizations today face relentless threats of compromise and disruption from security breaches. These attacks are growing more sophisticated, leveraging advanced techniques and intricate social engineering tactics.
“By 2025, 60% of organizations will be actively using remote threat disruption and containment capabilities delivered directly by MDR providers, up from 30% today.”
– 2023 Gartner® Market Guide for MDR
MDR and other threat detection solutions have become a top priority as organizations recognize that no amount of investment can guarantee 100% protection against threats. The growing scale and complexity of today’s threat landscape make it clear: Many businesses, regardless of size, lack the internal resources to effectively tackle these escalating security challenges.
What Challenges Does MDR Solve?
Common challenges that are addressed with MDR include an evolving threat landscape, lack of security expertise, dynamic environments, prioritizing risk, unrealized security outcomes, and regulatory compliance requirements.
Evolving
Threat Landscape
EvolvingThe rising sophistication and relentless frequency of cyberattacks have made detection and defense more daunting than ever. MDR confronts these threats head-on, proactively diminishing the risk of attacks and swiftly mitigating damage when breaches occur.
Lack of
Security Expertise
Lack ofDynamic
Environments
DynamicPrioritizing
Risk
PrioritizingToday’s security teams juggle countless tools every day, each with its own console and limited integration. This fragmented approach leaves them unable to effectively correlate, analyze, or prioritize the most critical threats to their environment. MDR revolutionizes this process by delivering a unified, real-time view of the entire security landscape. With dynamic threat and vulnerability dashboards, teams can zero in on high-risk activities — whether it’s unpatched servers or active threats — empowering them to act swiftly and decisively where it matters most.
Unrealized
Security Outcomes
Unrealized Regulatory
Compliance Requirements
RegulatoryNavigating complex regulatory requirements can be overwhelming, with organizations often burdened by the time and effort needed to prepare for and prove compliance. MDR transforms this challenge into an opportunity, empowering you to fortify your security compliance strategy. With actionable insights into your current compliance status, expert guidance to enhance your environment, and continuous monitoring supported by audit-ready reporting, MDR streamlines the entire process — making compliance smarter, faster, and more effective.
How Does MDR Work?
MDR elevates security by integrating a powerful platform, advanced analytics, and expert-driven services to deliver unmatched threat detection and response across cloud, hybrid, and on-prem environments. It starts with a complete inventory of organizational assets and a detailed risk assessment. Logs, events, networks, endpoints, and user behavior data are meticulously analyzed to reveal the complete threat landscape. MDR providers proactively anticipate emerging threats and vulnerabilities, turning insights into decisive, actionable intelligence. With round-the-clock monitoring, expert analysts swiftly validate threats, escalate critical incidents, and craft effective response strategies. This empowers organizations to neutralize risks with speed and precision, while strengthening their defenses against future attacks.
Integrating technology and analytics with human expertise to protect the entire attack surface.
| MDR Platform Technology to collect and analyze security data |
MDR Services Experts augment the technology, validating, and provide human expertise to effectively remediate |
|||
| Collect | Analyze | Validate & Augment | Report & Inform | Respond |
| Assets | Correlation | 24/7 Monitoring | Escalate Incidents by Phone, Email, Ticketing, or Messaging Integration | Incident Review |
| Logs | Behavior | Investigation | Periodic Security Value Review | Remediation |
| Events | Anomalies | Validate Incidents | Custom Event and Log Reports | Response Automation |
| Network Activity | Parsing | Qualify Threat Severity | Provide Security Context | |
| Endpoint Telemetry | Threat Hunting | |||
| Cloud Workloads/Activity | Tuning | |||
| User Behavior Activity | Security Content | |||
| File Creations/ Deletions/Modifications |
||||
| Security Control Telemetry | ||||
| 3rd-party Integrations & Sources | ||||
See how it works: Watch a short demo video to see MDR in action >
MDR Benefits
Advantages of securing your IT environment with MDR include:
- Continuous monitoring of the entire environment
- Visibility across the entire IT estate, including network, endpoints, and cloud
- Minimizes the risk of successful attacks by addressing vulnerabilities in the environment
- Reduces the impact of an attack by swiftly detecting and reducing the time it remains unnoticed
- Improves security posture
- Access to security resources who are intimately familiar with an organization’s IT environment
- Cyber-risk experts serve as an extension to your organization
- Actionable insights and remediation guidance from highly experienced security experts
What Drives Effective MDR?
24/7 Monitoring
Active monitoring and threat detection with around-the-clock visibility across the entire environment, leveraging technology and augmented with human insights to deliver actionable guidance.
Human Expertise
A global SOC with a team of cyber-risk experts who provide remediation guidance and insights to proactively protect against threats and improve your overall security posture.
Threat Intelligence and Analytics
Continuous Research
Performed by experienced analysts, security content is constantly updated with newe research on emerging threats and vulnerabilities, enhancing the effectiveness of security tools and technology.
Response Automation
Balance automation with human-guided response enabling organizations to adopt automation at their own pace.
Ongoing Innovation
In an environment where threats evolve rapidly and unpredictably, continuous technological innovation is essential. MDR vendors must demonstrate an unwavering dedication to innovation, ensuring that feature enhancements are consistently delivered to customers at no extra cost.
Audit-ready Reporting
Easy reporting for audit and regulatory compliance purposes, with self-serve reports and security benchmarks that simplify the audit process and measure continued security progress and posture.
Not all MDR solutions are created equal. The differences can be vast, from the quality of services and depth of expertise to the sophistication of threat intelligence, analytics, and the overall customer experience. Choosing the right one can mean the difference between mere detection and true protection.
See how Alert Logic MDR can help your organization achieve the desired security outcomes you have set.
Considering MDR for Your Organization?
When evaluating vendors, it’s crucial to carefully assess key factors for each potential managed detection and response service provider. Check out our blog on MDR Vendor Evaluation Tips to learn what “good” looks like and the questions you need answered.
For more guidance on vendor selection, check out these resources:
MDR Buyer’s
Guide
How to choose an effective managed
detection and response provider
G2 Grid®
for MDR Software
Compare MDR software providers
and streamline the buying process.
2023 Bloor Research MDR Market Update
Key developments in the
maturing MDR market
MDR vs. MSSP, SIEM, XDR and More
MDR vs MSSPs
What’s the difference between MDR and MSSPs?
Managed detection and response service vendors deliver comprehensive detection and response services to their customers. MDR integrates a curated set of technologies, advanced analytics, and human expertise in a single service they manage, ensuring all the components remain current, updated, functioning, and working seamlessly together.
In contrast, managed security service providers’ (MSSP) range of services includes third-party security tool installation, administration, monitoring, and reporting. Typically, their focus is on operating multiple security toolsets and they do not invest heavily in specific areas which an MDR provider does such as threat research, threat intelligence, or threat analytics. MSSP is most successful when integrating third-party tools into processes for which they cannot control the roadmap. As this solution centers on prevention, they do not focus nor adequately invest in the research or staffing required to perform managed detection and response. Some MSSPs recognize this and outsource the detection and response aspects of their service to managed detection and response vendors.
Continue learning: MDR vs. MSSP: 6 Major Differences
MDR vs. SIEM
What’s the difference between MDR and SIEM?
SIEM (security information and event management) is a security solution that gives organizations insights into potential security threats across business networks via centralized collection and analysis of normalized security data pulled from a variety of systems. Whereas SIEM aims to detect attacks, MDR goes further as the solution exposes vulnerabilities within a system, application logs, analyzing user behavior and activity which can lead to early indications of an attack.
One notable difference between MDR and SIEM is in the approach taken to cybersecurity. Unlike SIEM, MDR takes a proactive stance in safeguarding against threats. While SIEM typically just prioritizes threats detected, managed detection and response moves the needle forward by actively diving into the threat landscape through comprehensive exploration of attacker activities across a more extensive spectrum.
Continue learning: Head-to-Head: MDR vs. SIEM
MDR vs. EDR
What’s the difference between MDR and EDR?
EDR (endpoint detection and response) is a software focusing on the detection of and response to cybersecurity threats on an endpoint (the physical devices connected to a network such as servers, laptops, and mobile devices). EDR can provide threat detection, prevention, and the ability to quarantine compromised assets.
MDR is a service that continuously monitors, prioritizes, and responds to cybersecurity threats by using both technology and human expertise. MDR often is augmented with EDR solutions by empowering analysts to act on the endpoint. By leveraging the principles of network security monitoring coupled with detection and prevention solutions, managed detection and response solutions can lead to improved security posture and threat coverage from network to EDR.