What Is Managed Detection and Response (MDR) in Cybersecurity?

Endpoint cybersecurity tools alone are not enough to protect against today’s threats. Sophisticated attack techniques and growing attack surfaces go beyond what traditional cybersecurity tools can address. These increasingly complex cyber threats include AI-powered attacks, ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS), and supply chain vulnerabilities, all made harder to address as the cybersecurity workforce shortage grows.

Businesses have two options: Internal teams need to upskill to deploy more effective cybersecurity tools for countering these emerging threats—a time-consuming and resource-intensive endeavor—or the organization must outsource some of these issues to external experts. Managed Detection and Response (MDR) can play an important role here. Learn how businesses can benefit from the continued vigilance, swift responses, and expert analysis that MDR can provide in the face of emerging cyber threats.

What Is MDR?

Managed Detection and Response (MDR) is a cybersecurity offering that combines technology and human expertise to improve an organization’s cyber threat detection and response, thereby boosting its security posture. With MDR services, businesses have 24/7 coverage from threats, including ransomware. MDR can identify unusual behavior, quickly containing and remediating potential cyber threats. 

How Does MDR Work?

MDR offerings balance the speed and pattern recognition of artificial intelligence (AI) with the nuanced thought processes of human security experts to mount a multilayered response to cybersecurity incidents. There are a few key components of MDR: threat detection, threat hunting, threat intelligence, incident response and remediation, and advanced analytics.

Threat Detection

Threats can come at any time, and identifying them early is essential in preventing significant damage from a security incident. MDR uses AI- and machine learning-powered tools for 24/7 monitoring of an organization’s IT environment. This can include cloud environments, networks, applications, and endpoints. AI security tools can work faster than humans at processing data and identifying anomalies. As a result, they can quickly flag threats and offer guided responses, helping IT experts prioritize what they need to act on and improve response times.

Threat Hunting

MDR also incorporates a proactive approach to threat detection, led by humans, also known as threat hunting. Cybersecurity experts regularly review the environment to investigate suspicious activities and anticipate emerging threats. In this process, MDR providers often leverage data collected by their technology systems, but they also uncover hidden threats that aren’t detected by automated systems that follow predefined rules.

In Episode 15 of TierPoint’s Cloud Currents podcast, Josh Davies, Principal Market Analyst at Fortra, describes the critical need for comprehensive solutions like MDR as threats like ransomware attacks grow more sophisticated:

“Good threat actors, nation states especially… go for low and slow techniques. They evade detection, they turn off security controls, and they even destroy data that they leave behind so that you can’t find their tracks.

When the attacker is trying to not be too noisy in any one single location, you need something that can look at everything holistically and then start to connect the dots.”

– Josh Davies, Principal Market Analyst at Fortra

Threat Intelligence

MDR providers also use threat intelligence feeds or platforms to predict the likelihood of various security threats, often using contextual information about the cyber threat landscape in their evaluations. Security professionals will take information about new attack techniques and vulnerabilities and apply expert-led analysis and interpretation to the behavior they see in the IT environment. MDR services often incorporate threat intelligence to improve and refine responses to suspicious activity.

An effective MDR provider not only consumes threat intelligence, but also enriches it with proprietary insights and tailor detections to the client’s unique risk profile.

Incident Response and Remediation

Once a threat has been detected, MDR experts engage in an incident response process. This involves containing the threat, removing it from the system, and working to restore operations quickly. Additionally, MDR services often provide root cause analysis, cleanup validation, and guidance on restoring affected systems to prevent similar incidents from happening in the future.

Advanced Analytics

Advanced analytics offer real-time insights into the vast amounts of security data being collected, identifying potentially subtle clues that indicate larger problems. Advanced analytics can answer more in-depth questions in context, helping organizations understand what happened and why, the people and systems affected, and how far the threat has proliferated. 

Key Benefits of MDR

The capabilities of MDR enable businesses to receive continuous monitoring of their IT environments, allowing for faster threat detection and response times. These benefits reduce cyber threat risks, decreasing the long-term cost of cybersecurity in a way that scales with your systems.

Continuous Monitoring

MDR goes beyond collecting logs, implementing 24/7/365 surveillance of an IT environment. This sophisticated automation, which provides real-time alerts and initial flagging, allows experts to focus on proactively hunting for threats.

AI-enabled MDR can learn normal behavior and quickly identify deviations. It can also provide a comprehensive view of your IT environment, ingesting and aggregating data from your entire attack surface to one spot.

In addition to automation, MDR services rely on 24/7 security analysts who continually monitor, interpret, and act on threat data. These MDR analysts contextualize findings, prioritize based on risk, and initiate remediation when needed. Their role as proactive defenders helps close the gap between detection and action, identifying subtle signs of attack that automated tools might miss.

Rapid Threat Detection and Response

By automating foundational cybersecurity processes and focusing on high-value tasks, MDR experts can find and respond to threats faster and more effectively than traditional service providers. According to the OX 2025 Application Security Benchmark, organizations field over 500,000 alerts on average within 90 days, with only 2-5% of them being critical. Reducing alert fatigue and containing threats are key to keeping your business operations moving forward uninterrupted.

Reduced Risk

Dwell time, which is the length of time a threat remains undetected, can make a significant difference in the impact the attack has on your business. According to IBM’s 2024 Cost of a Data Breach Report, the longer the lifecycle of an incident, the more costly it is for a business. 

While dwell time has decreased dramatically over the years, it still averages around 11 days globally and 10 days in the Americas as of 2024. Reducing cyber risks, and doing so quickly while targeting root causes with MDR, will strengthen your bottom line. 

Beyond reducing cyber risks, MDR services can help satisfy the requirements of many regulatory frameworks and industry standards, ensuring you stay compliant, avoid fines, and protect your business reputation. For example, they may provide detailed logging, alerting, and incident handling documentation that supports audits and compliance with frameworks like HIPAA, PCI DSS, and NIST.

Cost-Effective Cybersecurity

The cost of dwell time is just the beginning of the cybersecurity-associated expenses. Building and managing an in-house cybersecurity team can be expensive due to the increased demand for and limited supply of talent, the high costs of security tools, and the price of 24/7 staffing. MDR is a managed service that provides access to a team of experts at a predictable fee, which allows organizations to budget for what they need and leverage experienced staff at a fraction of the cost.

Scalable Solutions

Security needs will change as your business evolves. If your security team or suite of tools can’t easily scale with your organization, you may find it hard to adapt to growing attack vectors and threat landscapes. In-house staffing issues, paired with the unpredictability of incidents, can make it even harder to keep up. MDR solutions keep their tools up-to-date and shift their methodologies in response to threat intelligence and emerging trends in cybercrime. These solutions can also grow as your business grows.

How Does MDR Differ from Traditional Cybersecurity Solutions?

Traditional cybersecurity approaches focus heavily on prevention and alerting with firewalls, antivirus, and Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) tools that generate reports. However, they often leave detection and response responsibilities to internal teams. These solutions can be effective, but they typically lack real-time analysis, proactive threat hunting, and guided remediation.

Managed Detection and Response (MDR) enhances this model by adding dedicated human expertise, continuous monitoring, and rapid response capabilities. Beyond threat detection, it helps isolate, contain, and remove them before they can cause damage. MDR closes the operational gap between alert and action.

Let’s explore how MDR is delivered:

MDR Delivery from MSPs vs. MSSPs

While both Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs) and Managed Service Providers (MSPs) may offer MDR solutions, their focus differs. MSSPs tend to be more passive, sending alerts and reports on security incidents and regulatory compliance issues, whereas MDR takes a more active role. 

MSSPs typically focus on monitoring and alerting using security tools but have limited visibility across the full IT environment. They may provide alerts without direct remediation. Many modern MSSPs now offer MDR as a premium, add-on service, but not all deliver the same level of advanced detection and response. When evaluating an MSSP, businesses should consider whether the service offers true MDR or basic monitoring services.

On the other hand, dedicated MDR service providers often bring broader IT context, combining infrastructure management with more hands-on interpretation, remediation support, and integrated intelligence. These specialized MSPs combine continuous detection with active human-led investigation and proactive threat hunting for greater visibility and faster response capabilities.

Understanding MDR, EDR, and XDR

While MDR can be differentiated from Extended Detection and Response (XDR) and Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR), the three are not mutually exclusive. In fact, XDR and EDR solutions are often core components of a comprehensive Managed Detection and Response service.

EDR tools focus specifically on detecting and responding to threats at the endpoint level, such as laptops, servers, and mobile devices. XDR tools build on that foundation by integrating telemetry and detection across multiple security layers. These include endpoints, networks, email, and cloud workloads.

A Managed Detection and Response service that combines these technologies with human expertise for holistic protection. These technologies often include platforms that enable:

• EDR
• XDR
• Network Detection and Response (NDR)
• Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
• Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR)

Ultimately, EDR and XDR are powerful engines, MDR is the expert driver that turns their data into action.

Improve Your Cybersecurity Posture with a Trusted MDR Provider

A trusted MDR partner goes beyond basic cybersecurity tools, delivering proactive threat detection, rapid response, and minimal reliance on your internal resources. TierPoint’s Adapt MDR service offers full-stack protection across endpoints, networks, and cloud environments, with 24/7 expert-led remediation and seamless integration into your existing security ecosystem.

Discover how Adapt combines AI-powered detection, human intelligence, and hands-on response to help your business stay secure, responsive, and resilient against modern threats.

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