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What Problems Does MDR Solve?
The Main Benefits of MDR Services
What are the 4 Types of MDR Services?
Evaluating MDR Services
MDR Pricing Models Explained
MDR vs. EDR vs. MSSPs
Cynet MDR Services

MDR Services: Choosing the Best Option for You

Last Updated: June 18, 2025

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As more organizations realize the risk of cyber threats, demand for MDR services is growing as well. MDR combines cutting-edge security tools with around-the-clock monitoring and expert incident response, delivered as a service. This allows SMBs to enjoy the benefits of advanced cybersecurity without the overhaul of an in-house security team. In this guide, we’ll break down how MDR works, what benefits to expect, pricing models, and how to choose the best fit for your organization.

What Are Managed Detection and Response (MDR) Services?

Managed Detection and Response (MDR) refers to a collection of security technologies installed on an organization’s host, network, and endpoints, which are managed by a third-party provider. The provider offers technology that clients can install on their on-prem infrastructure, as well as software offering additional automated services.

MDR services enhance security by seeking out threats and reacting to them once they are detected. Customers can also take advantage of the provider’s security experts, who can provide additional security expertise and support, and train in-house IT and security staff. This makes MDR suitable for organizations that do not have a dedicated in-house threat detection team.

Looking for a powerful,
cost effective MDR service?

Cynet is the leading All-In-One Security Platform

24/7 Managed Detection and Response
Security Automation, Orchestration and Response (SOAR)
Full-Featured EDR and NGAV

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Achieved 100% protection in 2024

Rated 4.8/5

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What Problems Does MDR Solve?

MDR services are a key part of strengthening an organization’s information security strategy. They deal with threat detection, ongoing analysis and monitoring of IT assets, and incident response.

MDR services handle these tasks to mitigate the issues typically faced by IT departments, including:

High volume of alerts—MDRs can deal with large volumes of cybersecurity alerts that must be assessed individually. These alerts can overwhelm small security teams, causing them to abandon other tasks
Threat analysis—alerts often don’t reveal themselves as threats from the onset and must be thoroughly analyzed to establish their status. MDR services offer access to security experts and advanced analytics tools to assist with this, deciphering events and offering recommendations for betterment
Shortage of skills—according to a Frost and Sullivan report, by 2022, the security workforce gap will reach 1.8 million. In-house security teams are stretched thin and facing fatigue and burnout. MDR services can assist by offering access to a team with expertise, which typically works 24/7, monitoring a network and remaining available for consultation.
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)—an organization might lack the time, skills, or funds to train employees for EDR tools. MDR services have EDR tools to detect, analyze, and respond to threats, eliminating the need for an in-house endpoint security team. Learn more in our guide to EDR vs MDR.

Like many other technology services that outsource processes, MDR requires that organizations give up some control for greater flexibility and convenience. MDR services do have some drawbacks in comparison to conventional managed security products, depending on the client’s needs. However, they are tailored to current and emerging issues experienced by today’s IT companies, making them useful for many organizations.

The Main Benefits of MDR Services

Organizations that incorporate MDR services can enjoy multiple benefits that will strengthen their cybersecurity posture. Here are the main advantages:

24/7 Threat Monitoring and Incident Response – Continuous, round-the-clock surveillance of the corporate environment. This ensures threats are detected and responded to in real time, even outside regular business hours, reducing the attack window and the likelihood of business operation disruption.

Expertise Without the Overhead – Access to highly skilled security analysts, threat hunters, and incident responders without the cost and effort of hiring, training, and retaining an in-house team. This is especially cost-effective given the global cybersecurity talent shortage and small organizations’ need to focus on their core business.
Access to Advanced Technologies – Detection of CVEs and zero-days, by using behavioral analytics, threat intelligence, AI/ML, and the newest security tools. This ensures a hardened security posture for organizations based on the most recent tech and practices, which small businesses can’t afford to procure on their own.
Scalability and Flexibility – Scalability based on business and technical needs. This includes business expansion, changes in the threat landscape, and digital transformation. This reduces overhead and ensures consistent security. As your organization grows or your threat landscape evolves, MDR services can scale with you. They can adapt to hybrid environments, integrate with cloud and on-prem infrastructure, and work across diverse endpoints and workloads.
Compliance and Reporting Support – Helping organizations meet compliance requirements (like GDPR, HIPAA, or PCI-DSS) by offering detailed audit logs, incident reports, and documentation for regulators. This reduces the burden on internal departments, which small businesses can’t afford to de-focus from the core business.

What are the 4 Types of MDR Services?

When choosing an MDR service, organizations need to decide whether they want to use their own MDR stack or use the product stack offered by the provider. There are four main approaches to MDR services:

Bring-your-own-stack (BYOS)—This model is suitable for organizations that understand their requirements (and regulatory obligations), and have their own stack. The MDR vendor must be able to work solely on the proprietary stack. This approach is common for organizations that want to keep the products they’ve already deployed, or that have to use specific tools for oversight or regulatory purposes.
Vendor-built—this is a widely used model whereby a vendor layers in its MDR provisions over its own tools. This methodology generally achieves the greatest rewards for integration between products employed, as they are all from one vendor. However, this might also cause tight lock-in if your organization wishes to change service providers or products.
Vendor-supplied—the MDR supplier makes use of software from trusted and known vendors that it then manages and implements on your behalf. This is suitable for organizations that are looking to change out their stack, or don’t have an established set of tools
Hybrid—this combines both in-house and external software. Organizations often choose a vendor that supports an appropriate balance of proprietary and supplied/built MDR software. For example, they might use the vendor’s best-of-breed tools with their own customized software or tools they’ve already purchased licenses for.

Related content: learn more about vendor-built and vendor-supplied MDRs in our guide to MDR solutions

Evaluating MDR Services

An effective MDR service provider should offer these features as a packaged delivery model:

Threat Detection – High-fidelity threat detection aimed at attacks that may bypass preventative security measures. The provider is responsible for ascertaining what threats are identified and how. Organizations might not have many opportunities to customize threat detection use cases in relation to their environment. For instance, the MDR providers might look for a specific TTP that shows a threat is active in an organization’s environment. If the organization requires certain rules specific to their environment, this kind of customization might not be supported.
Incident Response – Remote incident response containment and investigation activities beyond notification and alerting. Threats travel too quickly for many organizations today. According to the environment targeted and type of threat, this might affect availability (as in a destructive ransomware attack), physical safety, or data confidentiality (as in a breach of customer information).
Access to Tools – Selective use of a turnkey model and technologies to help the MDR provider’s team deliver and implement services speedily. Specific technologies are often needed to support certain activities and outcomes.
Reporting and Management Platform – A shared delivery platform for every customer. The platform utilizes custom and IT analytics. In certain instances, the platform might use machine learning-based behavioral analytics.

The following are unique features offered by some MDR providers:

Vulnerability Management – This feature can proactively minimize exposure to cyber attacks, and provide response guidance and incident enrichment. It can also be utilized to deal with compliance mandates.
Security Orchestration and Automation (SOA) capabilities – Letting organizations determine their response activities and workflows, in addition to using SOA to improve operations internally.
Threat Mitigation – Enabling identification and mitigation of threats early in the cyber kill chain. For example using Domain Name System (DNS) monitoring and email monitoring.

MDR Pricing Models Explained

How much will MDR services cost you? This depends on the vendor’s reputation, the level of service, and the scope of the environment being monitored. Here are the most common pricing models:

1. Per Endpoint Pricing

Pricing is fixed per endpoint, on a monthly basis. This is one of the most popular models, since it is predictable, easy to understand, and scalable. However, for companies growing quickly and with remote work becoming standard, pricing can become expensive.

Best for: Small to mid-sized companies with a manageable number of devices and a need for predictable costs.

2. Per User Pricing

Similar to the device billing method, this model charges based on the number of users in your organization. Similarly, this allows for budgeting without costs spiking if users work with multiple devices. However, from the vendor’s point of view, it might not reflect the security services being provided.

Best for: Organizations with highly mobile teams or BYOD environments.

3. Volume-Based

Pricing depends on the volume of logs or telemetry data processed. This is usually measured in GB per day. This model directly aligns the cost of service with the scale of the environment and the amount of data the MDR provider needs to process, analyze, and store. However, for the client, it’s hard to predict the bill at the end of the month.

Best for: Mature security teams with granular control over their data output.

4. Tiered or Bundled Pricing

Fixed tiers (Basic, Standard, Premium) that include different levels of detection, response, and SLAs. These tiers are easy to understand and allow choosing which services you need based on budget and business, and security requirements.. However, flexibility might be limited, depending on the offered tiers.

Best for: Organizations wanting simplicity and packaged value.

5. Custom/Outcome-Based Pricing

Pricing is based on custom SLAs, outcomes (e.g., mean time to detect/respond), or specific business risk reduction metrics. This ensures pricing reflects the security services provided. However, measuring this is complex, and services are typically more expensive.

Best for: Large enterprises

Tips From the Expert

In my experience, here are tips that can help you better optimize MDR services for your organization’s security needs:

Customize MDR threat detection to match your industry’s risks
Ensure your MDR provider has expertise in your industry and tailors detection rules to industry-specific threats. For example, healthcare faces different risks (e.g., PHI theft) than finance (e.g., account takeover), so threat detection customization is critical.
Establish clear SLAs for incident response time
Set specific service-level agreements (SLAs) with your MDR provider for response times to incidents. Rapid containment is key, especially in the case of ransomware attacks, where minutes can make the difference in minimizing damage.
Define clear handoff points between MDR and internal teams
Clearly define responsibilities between your MDR provider and your internal security team. This is particularly important during incidents where both parties need to work together to quickly neutralize threats.
Request proactive threat hunting beyond automated detection
MDR services should include proactive human-driven threat hunting, not just reliance on automated alerts. Ask your provider how they actively search for emerging threats that may not yet trigger standard alerts or rules.
Integrate Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) with MDR
If you have existing SOAR platforms, integrate them with MDR to automate and streamline responses to certain types of incidents. This can significantly reduce the manual workload for both your internal team and the MDR provider.

These tips will help you effectively collaborate with your MDR provider and maximize the benefits of managed security services, ensuring tailored protection, quick response times, and ongoing compliance.

Eyal Gruner is the Co-Founder and Board Director at Cynet. He served as the company’s CEO for nine years, guiding its growth from the very beginning. He is also Co-Founder and former CEO of BugSec, Israel’s leading cyber consultancy, and Versafe, acquired by F5 Networks. Gruner began his career at age 15 by hacking into his bank’s ATM to show the weakness of their security and has been recognized in Google’s security Hall of Fame.

Looking for a powerful,
cost effective MDR service?

Cynet is the leading All-In-One Security Platform

24/7 Managed Detection and Response
Security Automation, Orchestration and Response (SOAR)
Full-Featured EDR and NGAV

Achieved 100% protection in 2024

Rated 4.8/5

2025 Leader

MDR vs. EDR vs. MSSPs

MDR, EDR, and MSSP services often get confused, especially among SMBs. Here’s a clear breakdown of the main differences between them. So you can see how they stack up and when to use each:

EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response) – A security solution installed on endpoints (like laptops and servers) that monitors for suspicious activity, collects telemetry, and provides forensic data.
MDR (Managed Detection and Response) – A fully managed security service that includes EDR tooling, additional network, cloud, and identity tools, and 24/7 human threat monitoring, analysis, and guided or hands-on incident response.
MSSP (Managed Security Service Provider) – A broad outsourcing provider for many aspects of IT security. This includes firewalls, SIEMs, patching, endpoint security, threat detection, VPNs, compliance, etc.

	EDR	MDR	MSSP
Scope	Endpoint security	Endpoint security + network, cloud, and identity security + managed services	Comprehensive security services
Resources	Endpoint security platform	Endpoint security platform + SOC or other 24/7 services	Tool from the broader security stack
Real-Time	Monitoring	Monitoring and human response	Monitoring
Threat Detection	Yes	Yes	Yes
Threat Hunting and Incident Response	No	Yes	Possible
Automated/ Human Responses	Automated	Automated and Human	Mostly Automated
Coverage Scope	Endpoint-focused	Endpoint, network, cloud, identity, and incident response	Broad (network, email, firewall, etc.)
Ideal For	In-house teams and MSSPs	Mid-size orgs needing help	Mid-size orgs needing help

Cynet MDR Services

Effective breach protection must include a combination of prevention and detection technologies, along with deep cybersecurity oversight and expertise. The CyOps team ensures Cynet technology is optimized by continuously monitoring your environment and proactively contacting you when further attention is required. CyOps ensures that all appropriate and necessary detection, investigation, and response actions are conducted accurately and thoroughly.

Whether your organization already has deep cybersecurity expertise and just lacks the time or staff, or whether your organization just doesn’t have the expertise necessary to ensure you’re always protected – CyOps is there to help 24/7. You don’t have to do it alone. CyOps is ready to extend your resources and expertise in the ongoing fight against cybercrime.

And, you receive all of the benefits of CyOps Managed Detection and Response (MDR) services as part of the Cynet platform – at no additional cost.

Learn more about Cynet MDR services

FAQs

What kinds of threats can MDR solutions detect and respond to?

Ransomware, malware infections, credential theft, insider threats, lateral movement within a network, and many more. By continuously monitoring activity across endpoints, networks, and cloud environments, MDR providers can rapidly identify anomalies, investigate potential breaches, and execute real-time containment measures.

What does a typical MDR solution include?

24/7 threat monitoring, detection, investigation, and response, with expert human analysts backing automated detection tools for endpoint, cloud, network, and identity.

How much do MDR services cost?

MDR pricing varies widely depending on the provider, service depth, and size of the environment. Costs can range from a few hundred to several thousand dollars per month. For small businesses, pricing may start around $1,000/month, while larger enterprises could spend $10,000+/month. Some MDR providers offer per-endpoint pricing (e.g., $5–$15 per endpoint/month), while others offer tiered packages based on services included. Expect to pay more for advanced features like threat hunting or support for hybrid cloud environments.

What industries benefit most from MDR security services?

Industries and organizations with high-value data, strict compliance requirements, or limited internal security resources benefit greatly from MDR. MDR is especially impactful in sectors facing targeted attacks or insider risks, as well as those undergoing digital transformation but lacking mature cybersecurity infrastructure.

What are the benefits of using an MDR service over hiring a full SOC?

MDR provides access to a team of cybersecurity experts, advanced tools, and continuous monitoring, without the overhead of building and managing a 24/7 SOC. It eliminates the cost and effort of recruiting, training, and retaining specialized staff.

How do I choose the best MDR provider for my organization?

Consider threat detection capabilities, speed of response, and industry experience. Look for providers with strong EDR integration, rapid onboarding, clear SLAs, and a transparent escalation process. It’s also important to assess how well the provider integrates with your existing tools and infrastructure.

Is MDR suitable for small and mid-sized businesses?

MDR is particularly well-suited to SMBs that may lack a full-time security team but still face significant cybersecurity risks. MDR offers these organizations enterprise-grade protection, threat intelligence, and incident response at a fraction of the cost of building in-house capabilities.