From ransomware to phishing, the risks are real—especially for SMBs who often lack the resources to fight back.
That’s why cybersecurity solutions like Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR), Managed Detection and Response (MDR), and Extended Detection and Response (XDR) are critical.
These tools can protect your business, but choosing the right one can feel overwhelming.
In this article, I’ll break down what EDR, MDR, and XDR are, their key features, and how to decide which solution fits your SMB’s needs.
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What Is XDR, MDR, And EDR?
XDR, MDR, and EDR are acronyms applied to technical security controls with different focuses for securing your business.
- Endpoint Detection And Response: EDR is focused on monitoring and responding on endpoints to detect and react to threats on endpoints, like laptops and desktops. It also enables third-party monitoring of those endpoints, ensuring you can track and investigate threats on user devices. EDR solutions are designed to enhance your existing antivirus by adding advanced detection capabilities.
- Managed Detection And Response: MDR is a managed security service or a Security Operations Center as a service focused on infrastructure monitoring. MDR uses cloud agents and integrations to gather security events across your infrastructure, offering managed detection and response to threats.
- Extended Detection And Response: XDR is a unification of the two—MDR and EDR—with advanced features built into it. XDR provides security as a service with endpoint monitoring and the ability to detect and respond to threats across the entire IT infrastructure as well as the endpoints. It’s a comprehensive solution that varies by vendor but focuses on complete coverage of your data.
Key Features Of XDR
XDR stands out for its ability to provide complete visibility and control.
With XDR, you can decide what action to take based on the different context of where it’s happening, what kind of system it’s happening on, and what the criticality of that is.
Key features of XDR include:
- Complete coverage of your organization’s IT infrastructure, including endpoints, cloud, and on-premises systems, ensuring all your data is protected.
- Continuous monitoring to detect threats 24/7 on both endpoints and infrastructure, logging all activities for investigation.
- Threat intelligence and contextual risk analysis across systems, allowing you to correlate data and understand where threats originate.
- Multiple layers of defense in a single platform, simplifying your security operations.
- Automated and advanced response capabilities, so you can act quickly based on the context of the threat, including remediation steps to resolve issues.
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Key Features Of MDR
MDR focuses on monitoring the infrastructure and offers a managed service approach.
MDR is primarily focused on responding in an incident response situation, so less so about automating a technical control like shutting down a server, which might disrupt production.
Key features of MDR include:
- Security as a service for non-endpoint infrastructure, like servers and cloud environments, ensuring robust detection of threats.
Continuous monitoring to detect threats 24/7, with detailed logs for further investigation. - Threat intelligence integration to stay ahead of emerging risks, enhancing MDR’s detection capabilities.
- Threat hunting enablement, helping identify hidden threats before they cause damage.
- Security reporting to keep you informed and compliant, providing insights into detected threats.
Key Features Of EDR
EDR is all about endpoint protection, offering capabilities to detect and investigate threats.
EDR can also do some other things like interacting with the endpoint to block hosts or to block out ports, making EDR solutions highly effective for endpoint-focused businesses.
Key features of EDR include:
- Endpoint security monitoring, focusing on devices like laptops and mobile devices, with detailed logging of activities.
- Process and file-level detection, tracking “who’s accessing what, what files are accessing what,” to ensure accurate detections.
- Ability to interact with the endpoint for automated responses, such as blocking files, closing ports, or isolating the endpoint for remediation.
- File integrity monitoring to ensure files aren’t tampered with, a step beyond traditional antivirus.
- Endpoint security event alerting to notify you of potential threats, enabling quick investigations.
The Main Differences Between XDR, MDR, And EDR
Understanding the differences between these solutions is key to choosing the right one.
Here’s how XDR, MDR, and EDR compare against each other:
Feature | XDR | MDR | EDR | SIEM |
Unified Data Integration | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ | ✔️ |
Automated Threat Detection and Response | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ |
Advanced Analytics and Correlation | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
Behavioral Analysis | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ |
Cross-Layer Visibility | ✔️ | ❌ | ❌ | ✔️ |
Proactive Threat Hunting | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
Integrated Response Capabilities | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ❌ |
Scalability and Flexibility | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ | ✔️ |
- Coverage And Scope: EDR focuses on endpoints, MDR on infrastructure (including cloud in some cases), and XDR covers everything—“cloud, infrastructure, on-prem, whatever it is,” I explained. XDR aims to “get it all under one scope,” correlating data across all systems.
- Implementation Requirements: EDR requires endpoint agents, MDR involves cloud agents and integrations, and XDR needs a unified platform that spans all environments to ensure comprehensive detections.
- Management Approach: EDR can be self-managed or third-party monitored, MDR is a managed service, and XDR combines both, offering flexibility in how you handle detections and responses.
- Cost Considerations: EDR is typically the least expensive, MDR adds cost for the managed service, and XDR, while more comprehensive, can be cost-effective for SMBs with solutions like ours at PurpleSec.
- Integration Capabilities: EDR solutions integrate with endpoint tools, MDR with infrastructure systems, and XDR unifies both with advanced threat intelligence, enhancing its capabilities.
- Threat Detection Capabilities: EDR detects endpoint threats, MDR focuses on infrastructure threats, and XDR provides cross-platform visibility with contextual risk analysis for more accurate detections.
- Response Mechanisms: EDR offers automated responses like isolating endpoints, MDR focuses on incident response, and XDR provides “the best of both worlds,” allowing tailored actions based on context, including advanced remediation.
XDR, MDR, And EDR Use Cases
Each solution fits different scenarios.
Here’s how each one applies:
XDR Use Cases
- Detecting and responding to advanced persistent threats (APTs) across multiple environments, ensuring comprehensive protection of your data.
- Correlating data from endpoints, networks, and cloud services to identify sophisticated attacks.
- Enhancing threat visibility and response in complex IT infrastructures.
- Creating a single command center for threat detection and response, simplifying investigations.
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MDR Use Cases
- Rapid detection and response to ransomware attacks, with immediate remediation to minimize damage.
- Continuous monitoring and threat hunting for small businesses, ensuring threats are detected early.
- Incident response and remediation for phishing and malware attacks, protecting your infrastructure data.
EDR Use Cases
- Detecting and isolating ransomware on endpoint devices, a critical capability for EDR solutions.
- Monitoring and responding to suspicious activities on laptops and mobile devices, with detailed logs for investigation.
- Providing forensic analysis and threat-hunting capabilities to investigate endpoint threats thoroughly.
Industry-Specific Use Cases
Some industries come with compliance baked in—healthcare’s got HIPAA, finance has PCI, retail will have PCI, manufacturing firms that keep blueprints up on servers need to protect as well.
- Healthcare: Needs compliance with HIPAA and protection of patient data, often requiring MDR or XDR for comprehensive coverage.
- Finance: Must meet PCI-DSS requirements and safeguard transactions, making XDR ideal for unified protection of financial data.
- Retail: Needs protection against POS malware and to secure customer data (PCI compliance), where EDR is critical for point-of-sale systems.
- Manufacturing: Focuses on protecting intellectual property and industrial control systems, often needing MDR for infrastructure security.
- Government and Schools: Must safeguard personal information and critical IT systems, where MDR or XDR can provide the necessary expertise to protect sensitive data.
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Choosing the right solution depends on your business’s needs.
It’s really going to come down to a handful of things:
- Threat detection
- Response
- Integration
- Scalability
- User experience
- Management
Evaluating XDR
XDR is best for organizations that need cross-platform visibility for mixed environments.
- Enterprises with complex IT infrastructures involving multiple security layers.
- Businesses using a mix of on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments.
- Organizations seeking to unify their security operations and improve threat detection across all vectors.
- Businesses with critical data handling on endpoints.
Evaluation Criteria
- Threat detection and response capabilities to ensure accurate detections.
- Integration and scalability across environments to protect all your data.
- User experience and management simplicity for ease of use.
- Cross-platform visibility for complete oversight of threats.
- Unified threat intelligence for contextual analysis, enhancing investigation capabilities.
Evaluating MDR
MDR is ideal if you’re on the larger side of small-medium businesses, but you don’t have the staff and skills to manage all of the work.
- Small to medium-sized businesses with limited cybersecurity staff.
- Organizations requiring around-the-clock threat monitoring and rapid incident response.
- Companies needing to comply with regulatory requirements without building an in-house SOC.
Evaluation Criteria
- Threat detection and response effectiveness to catch threats early.
- Integration and scalability for infrastructure to ensure robust protection.
- User experience and management ease for your team.
- Human expertise to enhance your team’s capabilities.
- Proactive threat hunting to stay ahead of risks and improve detections.
Evaluating EDR
EDR works well for organizations that have a lot of endpoints where they’re doing a lot of business or accessing systems that have critical information.
- Organizations with a high number of remote or mobile endpoints.
- Businesses needing detailed visibility into endpoint activities to investigate threats.
- Companies looking to enhance their existing antivirus and firewall solutions with advanced threat detection.
- Organizations without infrastructure IT devices (e.g., using infrastructure as a service or serverless architecture).
Evaluation Criteria
- Threat detection and response on endpoints for accurate detections.
- Integration and scalability for endpoint management to grow with your needs.
- User experience and management simplicity to reduce complexity.
- Endpoint isolation to stop threats quickly and enable remediation.
- Detailed forensics for deeper investigations into endpoint incidents.
How Defiance XDR™ Secures Small Businesses
At PurpleSec, our mission is to “democratize security,” bringing enterprise-grade protection to SMBs.
That’s why we built Defiance XDR™—a solution designed for small businesses and startups that need complete security coverage without the enterprise price tag.
Defiance XDR™ makes it easy for SMBs to get comprehensive protection with a single platform. It’s built for efficiency and compatibility, and is expert-tuned to meet your specific needs and risk appetite.
You’ll gain complete visibility into your network, further enhanced by our virtual CISO services.
Plus, it scales, ensuring your security evolves as your needs do, with robust detection and remediation capabilities.
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Bottom Line: XDR Vs. MDR Vs. EDR—Which Solution Should You Choose?
So, which solution is right for your small business?
- EDR is limited, focused on user-facing systems, and not always provided with a service, making it ideal for endpoint detections.
- MDR is service-centric, focusing on enterprise systems where critical data is held, but lacks visibility on endpoints, though it excels in infrastructure detections.
- XDR is a centralized system to manage both endpoints and infrastructure, with advanced response capabilities backed by a service to provide protection to all systems, ensuring thorough investigations and remediation.
Decision-Making Guidance
- Identify where your critical data is being handled—endpoints, infrastructure, or both.
- Understand your business’s current and future infrastructure needs to choose the right scope.
- Choose a solution that balances features and cost for your budget, ensuring it meets your detection needs.
- Decide if you have the staff to self-manage or need a managed service like MDR or XDR to handle investigations.
At PurpleSec, we believe security should enable your business, not hold it back. Whether you choose EDR, MDR, or XDR, we’re here to help you find the right fit.
Explore Defiance XDR™ today and see how we can secure your business.
Article by
Joshua is a diversely-skilled cybersecurity professional with over a decade of cybersecurity experience previously working for the Department of Defense.
