Today's security operations need continuous monitoring, experienced analysts, threat hunting, investigation and the ability to act when genuine malicious activity is identified. Building all of those capabilities internally can require significant investment in people, technology and processes.

MDR provides an alternative by combining technology with human security expertise to provide continuous threat detection, investigation and response.

These 20 independent cybersecurity statistics show why organisations are increasingly turning to MDR and what security leaders should consider when assessing their own detection and response capabilities in 2026.

What is Managed Detection and Response?

Managed Detection and Response (MDR) is a cybersecurity service that provides continuous threat monitoring, detection, investigation and response, supported by specialist security analysts.

Unlike security technologies that simply generate alerts, MDR is designed to help organisations determine which activity actually represents a threat and what should be done about it.

Gartner describes MDR services as remotely delivered, human-led security operations capabilities focused on the detection, investigation, disruption and containment of cyberattacks.

For organisations without the resources to build and maintain a comprehensive Security Operations Centre (SOC), MDR can provide access to these capabilities as a managed service.

But what is driving demand?

MDR adoption continues to grow

1. Gartner forecast that 50% of organisations would use MDR by 2025

Gartner previously predicted that 50% of organisations would use Managed Detection and Response services for threat monitoring, detection and response by 2025.

The significance of that figure in 2026 is not the prediction itself, but what it says about the evolution of MDR. What was once viewed as a specialist service has become a mainstream component of security operations.

Source: Gartner Market Guide for Managed Detection and Response

2. Half of MDR findings could soon include threat exposure information

Gartner predicts that by 2028, 50% of MDR findings will focus on or include information about threat exposures, compared with approximately 20% previously.

This highlights a broader evolution in MDR.

The service is increasingly moving beyond identifying active attacks towards helping organisations understand weaknesses and exposures that could be exploited in the future.

Source: Gartner Market Guide for Managed Detection and Response

3. Independent research has estimated MDR growth at more than 35% annually

Frost & Sullivan estimated annual growth in the Managed Detection and Response market at 35.2%.

Rapid market expansion reflects the growing demand for security services that go beyond technology deployment and provide continuous operational detection and response.

Source: Frost & Sullivan, Frost Radar: Managed Detection and Response, 2024

4. Demand for MDR and managed XDR services is growing at double-digit rates

Forrester has identified double-digit growth in demand for MDR and managed XDR services, particularly among organisations that do not have sufficient resources to build and operate their own SOC.

That makes MDR particularly relevant to mid-sized organisations that still face sophisticated cyber threats but may struggle to recruit and retain a large internal security operations team.

Source: Forrester Security Services Research

5. Omdia/Enterprise Strategy Group surveyed 400 MDR decision-makers

Recent Omdia and Enterprise Strategy Group research into the changing role of MDR providers surveyed 400 IT and cybersecurity decision-makers responsible for evaluating or purchasing MDR services.

The research found that AI is changing what organisations expect from MDR rather than removing the need for managed security expertise.

As automation increases, providers are expected to combine technology with specialist capabilities capable of investigating more complex threats and supporting security teams.

Source: Omdia/Enterprise Strategy Group: The Changing Role of MDR Providers in the AI Era

Security operations teams are under pressure

MDR adoption is not happening in isolation.

Security teams are facing increasingly complex environments while simultaneously being expected to detect, investigate and respond to threats faster.

Enterprise Strategy Group research into XDR, SIEM and MDR highlights several of the operational challenges driving demand for managed detection and response.

6. 28% of security teams spend too much time dealing with emergencies

28% of organisations say cybersecurity teams spend too much time responding to high-priority or emergency issues and not enough time on strategic improvement.

This creates a cycle in which teams remain focused on today's alerts rather than improving the organisation's long-term security posture.

A mature MDR service can absorb much of the day-to-day investigation workload, allowing internal teams to concentrate on broader security priorities.

Source: Enterprise Strategy Group, The Triad of Security Operations Infrastructure: XDR, SIEM, and MDR

7. 26% struggle to monitor an expanding attack surface

26% of organisations identify monitoring security across a growing and changing attack surface as a major security operations challenge.

Modern organisations rarely operate inside a simple corporate network.

Their attack surface may include endpoints, cloud environments, identities, SaaS platforms, remote workers, third-party services and geographically distributed infrastructure.

Detection therefore needs to follow attackers across multiple environments.

Source: Enterprise Strategy Group, The Triad of Security Operations Infrastructure: XDR, SIEM, and MDR

8. 26% say disconnected security tools make security operations harder

Another 26% say having too many disconnected security operations tools makes it difficult to create a holistic security strategy.

Buying more tools does not automatically improve security.

If each platform produces its own alerts and data without sufficient correlation, analysts are left trying to assemble the wider attack story themselves.

One of the key roles of MDR is to provide context across multiple sources of telemetry so suspicious activity can be investigated as part of a wider incident.

Source: Enterprise Strategy Group, The Triad of Security Operations Infrastructure: XDR, SIEM, and MDR

9. 24% struggle to operationalise threat intelligence

24% of organisations cite operationalising cyber threat intelligence as a major challenge.

Collecting threat intelligence is relatively easy.

Turning that intelligence into actionable detection rules, threat hunts and security improvements is considerably harder.

Effective MDR services should therefore do more than simply provide threat feeds. Intelligence needs to influence how the environment is monitored and which behaviours analysts actively look for.

Source: Enterprise Strategy Group, The Triad of Security Operations Infrastructure: XDR, SIEM, and MDR

10. 24% say manual processes are preventing security teams from keeping up

24% of organisations report that manual security operations processes make it difficult for their teams to keep pace.

This is where automation can provide significant value.

Repetitive enrichment, correlation and investigation activities can increasingly be automated, allowing analysts to focus their attention on incidents requiring human judgement.

However, automation is not a replacement for expertise.

The strongest MDR model combines automation with experienced analysts capable of interpreting unusual behaviour and understanding the wider context of an attack.

Source: Enterprise Strategy Group, The Triad of Security Operations Infrastructure: XDR, SIEM, and MDR

11. 24% struggle to detect and respond quickly enough

24% of organisations identify detecting and responding to incidents quickly enough as a primary security operations challenge.

Detection is only useful if it leads to action.

A security team that identifies malicious activity but cannot investigate and contain it quickly still gives the attacker time to progress.

That makes response capability just as important as detection capability when evaluating an MDR provider.

Source: Enterprise Strategy Group, The Triad of Security Operations Infrastructure: XDR, SIEM, and MDR

Detection alone is not enough

Modern security tools produce enormous quantities of information.

The difficulty lies in separating genuine malicious behaviour from harmless activity quickly enough to take action.

12. 64% of security teams identify false positives as a major detection challenge

According to SANS research, 64% of security teams identify false positives as a major detection challenge.

More alerts do not necessarily create better security.

If analysts spend large amounts of time investigating harmless activity, important threats can become buried in the noise.

MDR should therefore focus on the quality of detections rather than simply the quantity of alerts generated.

Source: SANS Detection and Response Survey

13. Only 41% can respond to confirmed threats within minutes

SANS found that only 41% of organisations can respond to a confirmed security threat within minutes.

That distinction matters.

The threat has already been detected and confirmed at this point. The remaining question is how quickly the organisation can actually act.

Effective MDR should shorten the distance between detection, investigation and containment.

Source: SANS Detection and Response Survey

14. Just 8% can respond within seconds

Only 8% of organisations report being able to respond to confirmed threats within seconds.

This demonstrates why automation is becoming increasingly important within security operations.

Certain containment actions can happen much faster when predefined automated processes support human analysts rather than requiring every response step to be completed manually.

Source: SANS Detection and Response Survey

15. 12% take a day or longer to respond after a threat has been confirmed

At the other end of the scale, 12% of organisations take a day or longer to respond even after a security threat has been confirmed.

That creates a potentially significant window for an attacker.

A mature detection and response capability should therefore be measured not only by whether threats are identified but also by how quickly meaningful action follows.

Source: SANS Detection and Response Survey

16. 47% say budget constraints hold back detection and response

47% of organisations identify budget constraints as the biggest obstacle to improving detection and response capabilities.

Operating a comprehensive internal SOC can be expensive.

Organisations need analysts, engineers, threat hunters, incident response expertise, technology, processes and sufficient staffing to maintain continuous coverage.

MDR provides an alternative operating model that can give organisations access to specialist capabilities without requiring every role and function to be built internally.

Source: SANS Detection and Response Survey

Threat hunting and human expertise still matter

Automation and AI will continue to change security operations, but sophisticated threat detection cannot rely entirely on machines.

Attackers deliberately attempt to blend into normal activity, use legitimate credentials and take advantage of trusted tools.

That means experienced human analysts and proactive threat hunting remain important elements of MDR.

17. 64% now formally measure threat-hunting effectiveness

SANS found that 64% of organisations formally measure the effectiveness of their threat-hunting programmes, compared with just 34% previously.

This suggests threat hunting is becoming a more mature and measurable security discipline.

Rather than simply searching for hypothetical threats, organisations increasingly expect threat hunting to produce demonstrable security improvements.

Source: SANS Threat Hunting Survey

18. 62% report measurable improvements from threat hunting

Among organisations measuring their threat-hunting programmes, 62% report measurable improvements to their security posture.

This is important when considering MDR services.

Threat hunting should not simply be an optional feature mentioned in a service description. It should help uncover suspicious behaviour that automated detections may not identify and feed lessons back into future detection capability.

Source: SANS Threat Hunting Survey

19. 30% of organisations fully outsource threat hunting

The SANS 2025 Threat Hunting Survey found that 30% of organisations fully outsource their threat-hunting activities.

That reinforces the wider trend towards using external specialist expertise for advanced security operations.

Threat hunting requires time, specialist skills and detailed knowledge of attacker behaviours, all of which can be difficult to maintain internally.

Source: SANS 2025 Threat Hunting Survey

20. Human resources influence threat hunting for 47% of organisations

SANS found that 47% of organisations say the availability of human resources influences the threat-hunting methodology they can use, up from 21% previously.

Technology may continue to automate more elements of detection, but people remain a major constraint.

This is one of the fundamental arguments for MDR.

Organisations are not simply purchasing technology. They are gaining access to security analysts, threat hunters, detection engineers and response expertise that may otherwise be difficult to recruit and retain internally.

Source: SANS Threat Hunting Survey

What do these MDR statistics tell us?

Taken together, these figures highlight a clear change in how organisations approach security operations.

MDR adoption has grown because businesses are struggling with several problems at once.

Attack surfaces are expanding. Security tools are increasingly fragmented. Analysts are dealing with false positives and emergency issues. Threat intelligence is difficult to operationalise. Experienced cybersecurity personnel remain difficult and expensive to maintain, while organisations still need to detect and respond to attacks around the clock.

MDR is intended to address that operational gap.

The value does not come from adding another security product.

It comes from combining technology, telemetry, automation and human expertise into an operational capability that continuously looks for malicious behaviour, investigates suspicious activity and responds when a genuine threat is identified.

What should an MDR service provide?

Not all MDR services are the same.

Organisations evaluating providers should understand exactly what they are buying and what happens when malicious activity is detected.

At a minimum, an MDR service should provide continuous monitoring, investigation and response capabilities.

However, organisations should also consider whether the provider offers:

• 24/7 monitoring and analyst coverage
• Threat hunting
• Detection engineering
• Threat intelligence
• Identity visibility
• Endpoint visibility
• Cloud monitoring
• Network visibility
• Alert enrichment and triage
• Incident investigation
• Containment capabilities
• Clear escalation procedures
• Continuous service improvement
• Reporting and security recommendations

Integration is equally important.

Modern attacks can move between endpoints, identities, cloud environments and services. An MDR capability needs sufficient visibility across the environment to identify that activity as part of the same attack rather than treating every alert in isolation.

MDR vs EDR: What is the difference?

Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) is a security technology designed to detect and investigate suspicious activity on endpoints.

Managed Detection and Response (MDR) is a security service.

An MDR provider may use EDR technology as part of the service, but it also provides analysts, investigation, threat hunting and response capability.

EDR can tell you something suspicious is happening.

MDR helps determine what that activity means and what should happen next.

MDR vs SIEM: What is the difference?

A Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) platform collects, correlates and analyses security information from multiple sources.

It can provide valuable visibility across an organisation, but it still needs people and processes to operate effectively.

MDR provides the managed security operations capability around detection and response.

The two can therefore complement each other rather than being direct alternatives.

Is MDR suitable for organisations with an internal security team?

Yes.

MDR does not necessarily replace an internal security function.

For many organisations, it operates as an extension of the existing team.

Internal security personnel can retain responsibility for security strategy, architecture, risk and governance while MDR analysts provide continuous monitoring, threat investigation, hunting and response support.

This can also help reduce the amount of time internal teams spend processing alerts and allow them to focus on higher-value security activities.

Is MDR only for large organisations?

No.

MDR can be particularly valuable for small and mid-sized organisations that face sophisticated cyber threats but do not have the budget or recruitment capacity required to operate a comprehensive 24/7 SOC internally.

Larger organisations can also use MDR to supplement existing capabilities, provide additional specialist expertise or extend security operations across technologies, regions and environments.

How do you choose an MDR provider?

The starting point should be the outcome you need rather than the technology being offered.

Ask how the provider detects threats, what telemetry it can monitor, how alerts are investigated and what happens when a genuine attack is identified.

You should also understand who has responsibility for containment.

Some services primarily notify customers when malicious activity is detected. Others can take predefined containment actions on the customer's behalf.

Response times, escalation procedures, service coverage and access to analysts should all be clearly understood before signing a contract.

Most importantly, MDR should reduce your security operations burden rather than creating another stream of alerts for your team to investigate.

Strengthen your detection and response capabilities with Integrity360

Security teams cannot investigate everything manually, and attackers do not restrict their activity to business hours.

Integrity360 provides Managed Detection and Response services designed to give organisations continuous visibility, specialist security expertise and rapid investigation and response.

CyberFire MDR provides a turnkey managed detection and response capability designed around Integrity360's own security operations platform, combining 24/7 monitoring, detection, investigation, threat hunting and response.

Aegis MDR provides a flexible approach that works with an organisation's existing cybersecurity technologies, helping consolidate detection and response across different tools and environments.

Both approaches are backed by Integrity360's Security Operations Centre capabilities and cybersecurity specialists.

Whether you are building detection and response capability for the first time, supplementing an existing security team or looking to get more value from security technologies already in place, MDR can help close the gap between detecting suspicious activity and taking action against genuine threats.

Talk to an Integrity360 MDR specialist to discover which approach is right for your organisation.

Updated 18.8.26