Security News
Kyle Alspach
These MDR (managed detection and response) providers have been expanding their security offerings into new areas and doubling down on working with channel partners.
Latest Moves On MDR
With cybersecurity talent hard to come by and threats continuing to intensify, demand for managed security has boomed. A growing number of organizations are choosing a managed detection and response (MDR) platform to meet some or all of their needs for outside assistance on security, leading to surging growth for MDR security companies. And many of these MDR service providers have been making big moves in 2023, including through expanding their security offerings into new areas — including managed XDR (extended detection and response) — and doubling down on working with channel partners.
While the MDR field has gotten crowded with dozens of players now in the market, analysts at research firm Forrester have pinpointed some of the MDR security companies they view as at the head of the pack, in their just-released Forrester Wave ranking for managed detection and response vendors (for Q2 2023). The three MDR “Leaders” identified by Forrester are CrowdStrike, Expel and Red Canary. Meanwhile, cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike disclosed this week that its MDR market share, according to Gartner figures, has remained the largest in the segment for the second year in a row.
[Related: 10 Hot XDR Security Companies You Should Watch In 2023]
Other major security companies that are heavily focused on MDR services — and that appeared in the Forrester ranking as “Strong Performers” — include SentinelOne, Arctic Wolf and Secureworks. There have also been new entrants into the MDR security company market that are making big moves. Since last summer, Palo Alto Networks has been counting itself among those, with its Unit 42 division offering an MDR service powered by the vendor’s Cortex XDR platform.
While MDR is sometimes conflated with full security operations center (SOC) coverage in the market, the two are not identical, noted Eron Howard, COO at Novacoast, a large Wichita, Kan.-based MSSP. MDR generally has a more-limited scope than what a comprehensive SOC service would provide, for instance. However, many resellers have “gravitated towards MDR services” since they scale well and are relatively easy to operate, Howard said. Core criteria for MDR, according to Gartner, is that it provides a human-led, remotely delivered service that includes around-the-clock detection, analysis, investigation and response to threats.
In terms of MDR’s growth, according to the latest figures available from Gartner, the MDR market ballooned by 48.9 percent in 2021. By 2025, the research firm has predicted that the portion of organizations using MDR services will rise to 60 percent, doubling the percentage from earlier this year.
What follows are the key details on 10 MDR security companies that have been making moves in 2023 so far.
