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Why the current model is under strain
The clearest evidence comes from practitioner surveys. The SANS Institute’s 2025 Detection and Response Survey reports the following pressures. These figures are survey responses from SANS respondents in 2025, not universal rates for all organizations, but they match the operational problems that usually trigger an MDR review:
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- Alert noise: 73% cite false positives as their top detection challenge.
- Reliance on automation: 90% rely on automated detection tools.
- Skills shortages: 59% cite a lack of skilled personnel as a top detection challenge, and 56% cite skill gaps as a leading barrier to response.
- Budget: 28% describe their detection-and-response budget as insufficient.
- Automation investment: 76% plan to expand AI and machine-learning use in detection and response.
Taken together, these answers describe a common gap. Organizations have tools that generate signals, but turning those signals into validated, prioritized, and acted-upon decisions requires people with time and skills that many teams lack. That gap is the reason to examine the operating model, not only the product list. The full findings are published at SANS Institute, 2025 Detection and Response Report: Key Findings.
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What MDR is, and how it differs from EDR
MDR is a managed service. Cisco describes it as continuous security monitoring combined with expert investigation, threat intelligence, threat hunting, and response, delivered by people rather than by software alone (Cisco, What Is Managed Detection and Response?).
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What is the difference between MDR and EDR?
Endpoint detection and response (EDR) is a capability: software that monitors endpoints and provides response functions on them. MDR uses that kind of telemetry, but adds an expert team that investigates what the tool surfaces, hunts for activity the tool missed, and supports response. An organization can own EDR and still lack MDR, and an MDR service can be built on EDR-class data. The practical question is who does the analysis and who takes action when something is confirmed.
Why is MDR needed?
MDR addresses the gap between detection and decision. When triage backlogs grow or when analysts lack experience with a specific threat, alerts can sit unexamined or be closed without adequate investigation. An MDR arrangement puts trained analysts on that queue around the clock and gives the internal team a validated picture to work from. It does not remove the need for internal ownership of business decisions.
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Why incident response belongs inside risk management
NIST SP 800-61 Rev. 3, Incident Response Recommendations and Considerations for Cybersecurity Risk Management: A CSF 2.0 Community Profile, was published April 3, 2025, and supersedes Rev. 2 from 2012. NIST says it helps organizations incorporate incident-response recommendations throughout the NIST Cybersecurity Framework 2.0, and aims to improve preparation, reduce the number and impact of incidents, and improve the effectiveness of detection, response, and recovery (NIST SP 800-61 Rev. 3 publication record).
That framing matters for MDR buying. A monitoring service is one input into the detection and response function, not the whole function. Preparation, governance, communication, and recovery sit elsewhere, and a new MDR approach should be designed to plug into them rather than assume they are covered.
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Where MDR ends and incident response begins
MDR and incident response (IR) are often sold together, but they can be separate contracts. Microsoft describes its Defender Experts MDR as augmenting a customer’s SOC with triage, investigation, remediation, and threat hunting for specified product signals (Microsoft, Defender Experts service overview, dated April 24, 2024). The same vendor states that its MDR service does not provide recovery or crisis management after a major incident, and directs customers to a separate incident-response provider for urgent IR needs (Microsoft, Defender Experts MDR limitations).
This is one vendor’s definition, not an industry standard. It is still a useful model for a buyer: before signing, confirm which side of the line each function falls on, and who is called first when a confirmed intrusion needs forensics, executive coordination, or restoration.
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A buyer’s framework for evaluating MDR
The following axes are a practical evaluation framework drawn from the capabilities described above and from Microsoft’s boundary statement. They are not a formal standard, and each provider will word them differently.
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|---|---|---|
| Coverage | Which telemetry is monitored (endpoint, identity, email, cloud, network, other), and what is explicitly out of scope | Blind spots become attacker paths; a service that covers only some signals should say so in writing |
| Analysis | Whether analysts validate and investigate alerts, how evidence is documented, how incidents are prioritized, and whether proactive threat hunting is included | Addresses the false-positive and skills problems that prompt the review |
| Response | Which containment actions the provider may take, what approvals are required and from whom, the response times stated in the contract, and who owns remediation | Determines whether detection turns into action within the timeframe your business can tolerate |
| Integration | Escalation paths, handoffs to internal SOC and IT teams, reporting cadence, and how context is transferred | A service that works in isolation can slow the internal team down rather than relieve it |
| Boundaries | Whether incident response, crisis management, and recovery are included or separately contracted, and the first contact for each | Prevents discovering during an incident that no one is contracted to do the work |
Reading vendor claims carefully
Provider marketing often describes alert quality in general terms. A Center for Internet Security (CIS) webinar page states that some MDR providers deliver “vague alerts without context.” That is promotional material for a webinar hosted by CIS and framed around a provider’s perspective, so treat it as a claim worth testing in a proof-of-concept or reference check, not as an independent measurement of the market.
How to decide whether a new approach is needed
- Map your current detection sources against the coverage axis, and mark any signal that nobody reviews.
- Measure how long confirmed alerts take to move from triage to containment, and where the delay sits.
- Check whether your incident-response retainer, escalation contacts, and recovery plan name the same parties your MDR provider would hand off to.
- Ask each candidate provider to put its answers on the five axes in writing, including what it will not do.
If the answers show a gap in analysis or response, a new MDR arrangement can address it. If they show a gap in governance, communication, or recovery, a new MDR contract alone will not close it.
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