EDR vs. MDR

Endpoints are an issue. That doesn’t always mean they need a dedicated solution. And if they do, does that include management and security across layers? We’ve explored CDR as a standalone strategy and tool (today, it’s typically part of cloud-native application protection platforms, or CNAPP, solutions), and hacked out the differences between EDR and CDR. But what about managed detection and response (MDR)? Does it offer better tech outcomes? Let’s map the differences.

What is EDR vs MDR?

First, let’s dial in each term:

EDR is a security solution that monitors and responds to threats on individual endpoints like physical laptops, desktops, and servers, but also cloud-based virtual machines (VMs). EDR provides real-time threat detection, behavioral analysis, and incident response capabilities.

MDR is a managed service, not a software solution. It combines threat detection, monitoring, and response to mitigate security incidents across an organization’s infrastructure, including endpoints, networks, and cloud environments.

In short, there are 2 fundamental differences between the two: 

1. EDR can be self-managed, while MDR is a service handled by a 3rd-party.
2. EDR handles endpoints, while MDR often provides broader coverage.

Teams may combine both. They get complementary strengths in EDR’s monitoring with MDR’s broad visibility, and integrating the two means fewer threats go unnoticed. EDR’s endpoint data and MDR’s advanced analytics can improve teams’ ability to detect complicated and multi-stage attacks. 

Adding the 24/7 monitoring and human analysis of MDR can add to EDR’s automated responses for more effective response time and expertise. For instance, an organization with remote and in-office teams might use EDR for endpoint protection but add MDR for threat hunting and expert-driven incident response.

Benefits and Challenges of EDR and MDR

Protecting endpoints remains a crucial portal to organization resources. Maybe that’s why they continue to be key points of entry (and attack).

Three billion phishing emails are sent every day — totaling more than 1 trillion per year.

Protecting endpoints remains central to cybersecurity. But how to stay safe, without adding complexity and overlap, isn’t so straightforward. Let’s go deeper into the benefits and limitations of each of these tools, including the secondary challenges teams will face post-implementation.

EDR benefits

Ideally, EDR comes with proactive detection and response to threats, ensuring that security teams can act swiftly to protect endpoints and minimize the impact of attacks. Its benefits include:

• Real-Time Threat Detection: EDR provides continuous monitoring of endpoints, detecting malicious behavior or anomalies such as unauthorized access, malware, and fileless attacks in real time.
• Incident Response and Mitigation: EDR lets security teams isolate compromised devices, terminate malicious processes, and even roll back harmful changes so risks don’t spread.
• Forensic Analysis: EDR provides deep visibility into endpoint activities. That allows teams to analyze the root cause of incidents and improve overall security posture.
• Prevention of Lateral Movement: By detecting threats early at the endpoint, EDR helps prevent attackers from moving laterally across the network.

EDR Limitations

Despite the benefits, EDR is a specific tool for a specific purpose; it comes with limitations in hybrid and cloud environments. Limitations include its:

• Endpoint-Centric Focus: EDR detects and responds to threats at the endpoint level only. It doesn’t offer full coverage for broader cloud infrastructure, networks, or application layers.
• Limited Visibility in Cloud-Native Environments: While cloud-based endpoints (e.g., VMs) can be monitored by EDR, dynamic cloud-native applications (containers, microservices, serverless functions) need tools like CNAPP or cloud workload protection platforms (CWPP). EDR may struggle to monitor ephemeral cloud workloads or containerized environments effectively on its own.
• Dependence on Configuration: EDR relies heavily on accurate configuration and tuning to avoid false positives and make sure that the system doesn’t overlook any potential threats. 

Secondary Challenges of EDR

Of course, implementing and using any particular solution isn’t always smooth sailing. When using EDR, these secondary challenges also require attention:

• Alert Fatigue: The sheer number of notifications, including false positives, leads to slower detection and response times. Overburdened analysts may miss critical threats amid an influx of less relevant alerts.
• Integration Complexity: EDR must be integrated with other security tools, from Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems to firewalls and XDR (Extended Detection and Response) solutions. Without a seamless integration, organizations face challenges in correlating data across various platforms, which can lead to gaps in visibility.
• Endpoint Diversity: The increase in remote work and personal device use means endpoints are more diverse and include smartphones and personal computers. EDR may struggle to cover all types of endpoints consistently, especially in the case of personal devices.
• Scalability Issues in Complex Environments: As organizations scale, EDR solutions can find they’ve hit a limit for the sheer volume of endpoints and dynamic workloads they must cover. Managing endpoint security in large-scale environments with thousands of devices and changing workloads can lead to bottlenecks.
• Real-Time Activity in the Cloud: EDR excels are detecting threats on traditional endpoints, but it wasn’t built for hybrid and cloud ephemerality. Its ability to respond to incidents in real time is limited, especially regarding containers and serverless functions. These environments can benefit from an additional solution built for rapid containment in the cloud.

MDR Benefits

MDR is a broader alternative to EDR that often works for smaller teams without in-house expertise. Benefits include:

• 24/7 Monitoring and Threat Detection: MDR provides around-the-clock monitoring of endpoints, network traffic, and cloud resources.
• Expert Incident Response: MDR includes human incident response by security experts who can quickly isolate threats and provide deep analysis of attacks.
• Comprehensive Threat Coverage: MDR integrates data from various sources for a more holistic view of security posture, improving multi-stage threat detection.
• Proactive Threat Hunting: MDR experts hunt for hidden threats across an organization’s ecosystem so they’re better at detecting advanced persistent threats before they can cause harm.
• Faster Recovery and Remediation Times: Human expertise can help with quicker identification and containment, improving response times and minimizing downtime from breaches.

MDR Limitations

Like EDR, MDR also comes with limitations. While it offers protection across the broader ecosystem, it doesn’t secure an entire organization. Limits of MDR include:

• Reliance on Predefined Rules and Signature-Based Detection: MDR may struggle to identify new, unknown threats, like zero-day attacks and fileless malware, if those threats do not match known patterns. 
• Lack of Control: Organizations surrender control over incident response procedures to their service provider.
• Dependence on Service Providers: Effectiveness depends on the expertise of the 3rd-party team tasked with managing detection and response. 
• Potential Gaps in Customization: Addressing business workflows and unique security requirements may not be possible with outside processes and services.
• Limited Coverage for On-Premise Infrastructure: For hybrid businesses, outside services may not offer the same kind of detailed control over on-premise systems as they can with cloud-based services.

Secondary Challenges of MDR

Even while using MDR, issues remain. Teams may find themselves contending with:

• Alert Fatigue and Overload: Even with experts monitoring, MDR can generate a high volume of alters.
• Interaction Complexity: MDR services need to integrate with existing security tools, including EDR, which can lead to challenges, added customizations, overlaps, or gaps.
• Scalability Issues: MDR solutions can’t always manage increasing data volumes and expanding infrastructure, especially in multi-cloud and hybrid environments.
• Over-Reliance on 3rd-Party Teams: Outsourced expertise can create disconnects between internal and external teams, with delays and misunderstandings.
• Visibility Gaps: Highly sophisticated attacks can fall through cracks when they don’t trigger predefined detection rules, or when buried in complicated datasets.

EDR vs MDR, XDR, and CNAPP in the Real World

There’s no silver bullet for all environments. But it is possible to find solutions that fit organizational needs. Let’s compare some key differences between EDR, MDR, and similar solutions.

Feature	EDR	MDR	XDR	CNAPP
Focus	Endpoint threat detection and response	Managed, expert-driven detection and response	Integrated detection across endpoints, network, and cloud	Cloud-native workload and infrastructure security
Real-Time Monitoring	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Incident Response	Endpoint-focused response (e.g., isolation, remediation)	Managed response, remediation, and forensics	Automated response and correlation across layers	Focuses on cloud-native environments, but can include on-prem and hybrid, automated remediation
Expert-Driven	No (typically self-managed)	Yes	Yes (though often with automation)	No (cloud-native tools focus on speed and automation)
Cloud Coverage	Limited to cloud endpoints (e.g., VMs)	Can cover endpoints and cloud environments	Broad coverage, including cloud and network	Extensive cloud workload and service coverage
Suitable for Traditional Infrastucture	Yes	Yes	Yes	No (focus on cloud-native), but can include on-prem and hybrid
Proactive Threat Hunting	No	Yes (human-driven)	Yes (automated and human-driven)	No (focused on preventing misconfigurations, vulnerabilities)
Comprehensive Threat Correlation	Limited (focused on endpoint activity)	Moderate (uses external monitoring tools)	High (cross-layer threat correlation across endpoint, network, cloud)	Moderate to High (focused on cloud infrastructure but not necessarily endpoints or networks)
Forensic Analysis	Yes (endpoint-specific)	Yes (full forensic investigation)	Yes (across the entire environment)	Limited (focused on cloud-specific issues)

While each of these tools has a unique role to play, each tool in the ecosystem brings its own unique features and strengths, complicating the choice. 

In general, EDR is right for companies with a strong focus on endpoint security, especially those with high endpoint exposure (e.g., remote workforces, BYOD policies), while MDR is the best choice for organizations looking for expert-led, proactive threat hunting and incident response. It’s also a good choice for companies that lack internal security resources or need a managed service to provide 24/7 monitoring and real-time response.

Here’s when to expand the tool search or combine tools.

XDR and CNAPP are frequently considered alongside these security solutions, but they bring their own focus to an organization’s infrastructure: 

XDR is great for integrated threat detection across multiple layers and works well for teams with diverse security needs, like cross-layer threat correlation. It collects and correlates data from various security tools like firewalls, SIEM and cloud security tools on endpoint, network traffic, and cloud resource layers. It may have some coverage at the network and app layers, but for those who want deeper coverage, a CNAPP is a better choice.

Some CNAPPs can also secure network traffic, transport, and application layers, providing real-time monitoring and incident response for cloud-native applications, API security, and network traffic. They can correlate data across security levels, too.

So why combine both? There’s still a place for CNAPP to enhance XDR with advanced security for network traffic and cloud-native workloads for a comprehensive, layered defense, including both network and endpoint levels.

Combine MDR and CNAPP for 24/7 monitoring, expert response, and detection across cloud-native workloads and endpoints. Organizations with cloud-native workloads can use MDR for managed detection across all assets, while CNAPP protects the cloud environment from misconfigurations, vulnerabilities, and runtime threats. They’ll ensure both cloud workloads and endpoints have protection, and they’ll get expert-driven management of both.

Upwind Supports Endpoint Security

Securing API interactions, network traffic, and cloud workloads all play a key role in protecting endpoints and preventing attacks from exploiting vulnerabilities in cloud infrastructure and applications. With advanced machine learning-based behavioral analysis, malicious API requests get flagged early, and with threat detection at layers 3, 4, and 7, Upwind prevents attacks that may originate from compromised endpoints trying to access critical systems and applications. 

By securing runtime environments on premise and in the cloud, Upwind can help detect and automatically remediate threats in real time. Want to see it in action? Schedule a demo.

FAQ

What’s the difference between EDR, XDR, and MDR? 

EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response) focuses on detecting and responding to threats on individual endpoints. XDR (Extended Detection and Response) expands that protection with cross-layer data correlation and response. It includes endpoints, but also networks and cloud resources. MDR (Managed Detection and Response) is a managed service that includes XDR capabilities, but also human expertise from a 3rd-party team rather than XDR’s automated detection and response. 

Is EDR part of MDR?

Yes, EDR is typically a component of MDR. Clients get these EDR components as part of MDR services:

• Real-time endpoint monitoring
• Threat detection and alerts
• Behavioral analysis, monitoring for anomalous behavior on endpoints
• Automated response
• Forensic data collection
• Threat intelligence integration
• System rollback
• Endpoint visibility

Is EDR better than MDR? 

Since EDR features are typically part of MDR’s managed approach, it isn’t usually considered “better.” But the 2 aren’t directly comparable. EDR is a tool with capabilities that are specific, and which may be “better” for teams looking for a specific solution without the extras that managed security provides. On the other hand, MDR provides EDR’s features and more. MDR may be “better” for teams looking for added features and management.

MDR clients get the capabilities of EDR tools, plus:

• 24/7 monitoring by security experts
• Expert-driven response for incidents, including on issues like containment, forensics, and remediation
• Proactive, human-based threat hunting
• Cross-layer detection and response (including endpoints, but also networks and cloud environments)
• Proactive tuning and customization
• Integration with threat intelligence feeds for faster identification
• Security reporting and compliance help
• Assistance scaling security as infrastructure and workloads change

Does MDR include SIEM?

Yes, MDR often includes SIEM capabilities or integrates easily with existing SIEM solutions. Many MDR services use SIEM to help provide security monitoring, threat detection, and incident response, aggregating logs and event data from across various layers of infrastructure.