MDR
Managed Detection and Response — a security service where a third-party provider monitors an organisation's environment 24/7, investigates alerts, and performs containment actions on behalf of the client's security team.
What is MDR?
MDR (Managed Detection and Response) is an outsourced security operations service that provides 24/7 threat monitoring, alert triage, investigation, and containment actions in a customer's environment. Unlike traditional MSSP (Managed Security Service Provider) models that focus on log management and compliance reporting, MDR providers emphasise active threat hunting, rapid incident response, and measurable detection outcomes.
MDR fills the SOC capacity gap for organisations that cannot staff 24/7 security operations internally — mid-market enterprises, regulated businesses without a dedicated security team, and organisations in high-threat sectors where security is critical but not a core competency. The MDR provider brings detection engineers, threat hunters, and incident responders who operate using the client's security tooling or the provider's own stack.
Evaluating MDR providers requires scrutiny of their detection methodology (vendor-agnostic vs locked to a specific platform), response authority (do they contain threats directly or only notify the client?), SLAs for MTTD and MTTR, and evidence of detection outcomes rather than compliance metrics. AiRAT helps enterprises evaluate and transition to MDR providers, design internal SOC programmes, and implement the tooling that MDR teams operate against.
Examples in production
24/7 alert triage
MDR analysts monitor 500+ daily SIEM alerts overnight, triaging 490 as false positives and escalating 10 to client security leads with full investigation context by 07:00 local time.
Proactive threat hunting
MDR threat hunters run weekly hypothesis-driven hunts across client telemetry, looking for TTPs not yet codified in detection rules — surfacing a dormant lateral movement campaign missed by automated alerting.
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Questions about MDR
What is the difference between MDR and MSSP?
Traditional MSSPs focus on log management, alert forwarding, and compliance reporting — they monitor and notify. MDR providers investigate, make containment decisions, and take action. MDR is outcomes-focused (MTTD, MTTR, true-positive rate) where MSSP is often process-focused (uptime, log retention). MDR has largely superseded MSSP as the expectation for outsourced SOC capability.
Should we build an internal SOC or use MDR?
MDR makes economic sense when staffing a 24/7 internal SOC would cost more than the MDR contract and when the organisation lacks the detection engineering bench depth to run a high-fidelity programme. Internal SOC makes sense for organisations with complex, classified, or highly regulated environments where outsourced access is prohibited or risky. Many organisations run a hybrid: MDR for overnight coverage, internal team for daytime operations and threat hunting.
Running a system that uses MDR?
We build production-grade cybersecurity systems for regulated enterprises.