Gartner® Market Guide for Managed Detection and Response

MDR services provide customers with remotely delivered, human-led, turnkey, modern SOC functions, ultimately delivering threat disruption and containment. Security and risk management leaders should use this research to identify MDR services that meet their business-driven risk requirements.

Some key findings and recommendations of the Managed Detection and Response Gartner Market Guide include:

• “Misnamed technology-first offerings that fail to deliver human-driven managed detection and response (MDR) services are confusing buyers looking to identify and select an outcome-driven provider.”
• “Turnkey threat detection, investigation and response (TDIR) capabilities are a core requirement for buyers of MDR services, who demand remotely delivered services deployed quickly and predictably.”
• “Increasingly, MDR buyers are asking providers to extend their requirements beyond the detection of and response to threats, to include the proactive identification of threat exposures and preemptive security responses.”
• “An increasing number of MDR customers demand that providers can remotely initiate measures for active containment or disruption of a threat, yet vendor autonomy still varies. Factors including trust, geography and the security maturity of the organization affect adoption.”

As a security and risk management leader responsible for security operations, you should:

• “Use MDR services to obtain 24/7, remotely delivered, human-driven security operations capabilities when there are no existing internal capabilities. MDR services also should be used when the organization needs to accelerate or augment existing security operations capabilities.”
• “Assess how the MDR provider’s containment approach and incident reporting can integrate with your organization. Also decide whether actions can be performed on your behalf to align with business requirements as well as compliance/legal policy/government regulation.”
• “Attain the maximum benefit from MDR services by preparing response workflow processes and integrating existing ticket management systems. This will ensure an outcome-driven response for the business.”
• “Investigate whether the MDR provider’s service can align with your business-driven requirements by using RFPs and proofs of concept (POCs), and if necessary, by validating core, must-have requirements, such as data residency requirements. Determine whether it can provide actionable findings that internal teams can successfully react to, rather than settling for regurgitated technology outputs with no added analysis.”

Download the 2024 Gartner® Market Guide for Managed Detection and Response to learn about MDR services, the direction of the MDR market and get a list of current MDR vendors.

1. Gartner, Market Guide for Managed Detection and Response Services, 24 June 2024, By Pete Shoard, Andrew Davies, Mitchell Schneider, Angel Berrios, Craig Lawson
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