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What Is MDR (Managed Detection and Response)?

A 24/7 service where analysts watch your systems for attacks and shut them down.

MDR, or managed detection and response, is a service in which a security team monitors your endpoints, identities and cloud accounts around the clock, investigates suspicious activity, and actively contains threats on your behalf. It is the human and operational layer on top of security tools that would otherwise just generate alerts.

What MDR includes

  • Continuous monitoring of endpoint detection data, login activity and cloud audit logs, 24 hours a day.
  • Investigation. Analysts triage alerts, separate real threats from noise, and trace what an attacker touched.
  • Response. Isolating a compromised machine, disabling an account, blocking an IP, killing a process, often within minutes.
  • Threat hunting. Proactively searching for signs of compromise that automated tools missed.
  • Reporting on what was found and what was done.

Cloud MDR

A variant focused on Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace: watching for suspicious sign-ins, mailbox forwarding rules, impossible-travel logins and privilege changes, which is where business email compromise begins. Mentis Group offers Cloud MDR for both platforms.

MDR vs the tools it sits on

Antivirus blocks known malware. EDR detects suspicious behavior on a device. MDR is people watching EDR and cloud telemetry and acting on it. The comparison is in MDR vs EDR vs antivirus, and the operations center that typically delivers MDR is described in what is a SOC. Log correlation across systems is the job of SIEM.

Who needs it

Any business where an undetected intrusion over a weekend would be a serious problem, which is most businesses with customer data, financial systems or downtime costs. Cyber insurers increasingly ask whether you have 24/7 monitoring and response.

MDR, Cloud MDR and a 24/7/365 security operations center are part of Mentis Group's Enhanced Cybersecurity program, available on top of our managed IT services.

Have a question about your own environment? Schedule a consultation with Mentis Group or call (866) 901-7808.