What is Best for my Business? Managed Detection & Response or eXtended Detection & Response?

What is Managed Detection & Response

Managed detection, and response (MDR), is a cyber security service which combines multiple technologies with human expertise to monitor and remediate potential cyber threats.

MDR is designed to provide advanced threat detection, response, and remediation for organisations which may not have the resources to combat new and emerging threats. The primary goal of MDR is to help organisations quickly identify, respond to, and mitigate cybersecurity threats, minimising their impact.

You should choose MDR if your organisation:

1. Does not yet have comprehensive detection and response tools or resources to rapidly remediate advanced threats
2. Wants access to expert skills and advice without hiring additional in-house staff
3. Is struggling to fill skills gaps within the current IT team or attract new talent
4. Wants to stay up-to date with the latest trends in cyber threats

What is eXtended Detection & Response

XDR or eXtended detection and response refers to an all-in-one security incident approach. This is designed to enable comprehensive visibility across an organisation’s IT estate by integrating data across multiple security layers including users, endpoints, and applications.

You should choose XDR if your organisation:

1. Wants to enhance threat detection
2. Is looking for a multi-domain threat analysis, investigation and hunting solution, through a unified platform
3. Is suffering from alert fatigue or a disconnected infrastructure due to current siloed solutions
4. Has the staffing levels required to run a 24/7/365 security operation

What about Managed XDR?

A new term has emerged recently combining the above. MXDR refers to the managed service version of XDR, taking away the daily management responsibilities of the platform. This goes further to provide continuous monitoring, analysis and response by an outsourced team of security experts. If you are a smaller business, or do not have the resources to manage XDR yourself, MXDR is the obvious alternative.

It is important to consider what is the optimal solution to creating an easy and simple response to your business’ security issues. Integration of MXDR into your infrastructure could pose unforeseen challenges with existing technologies. Implementation costs such as initial hardware and software may also be high. Therefore, it is important to conduct a cost-benefit analysis with any potential solution. MXDR and MDR both provide endpoint security to monitor and alert SOC teams when threats appear in an organisation’s infrastructure.

Overall, it is important to analyse your current business needs and infrastructure to weigh up which solution is most relevant to your business.