Cynet Security Foundations

EDR vs MDR: How They Compare and the XDR Connection

Security teams are overwhelmed with tools, and CFOs are confused by the alphabet soup of security categories. This makes it important for security teams to know exactly which tool they need and why. In this guide, we explore EDR vs. MDR vs. XDR, breaking down the key differences, and recommend when to choose each one (or more) for your security stack.

What is EDR?

EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response) is a cybersecurity solution designed to detect, investigate, and respond to threats on endpoint devices like laptops, desktops, servers, and mobile devices. EDR tools continuously monitor endpoint activity and collect data such as process behavior, file changes, network connections, and user actions. When suspicious activity is detected, EDR systems can alert teams, investigate incidents, isolate endpoints, and terminate malicious processes.

On top of known threats, EDRs are built to detect unknown threats (zero-days). This is done by analyzing behaviors and patterns to identify suspiciously malicious anomalies.

Key features include:

Continuous Endpoint Monitoring – Tracking and analyzing activity across endpoints and their workloads in real time.
Threat Detection – Identifying known and advanced threats like zero-day exploits, fileless attacks, and lateral movement.
Automated Response – Responding to threats by taking pre-determined action like isolating endpoints, terminating malicious processes, deleting files, etc.
Threat Hunting Support – Providing historical and real-time data to security teams to help with human-led threat hunting.
Incident Investigation Support – Providing rich forensic data that helps incident response teams understand how attacks unfolded.

What is MDR?

Managed detection and response (MDR) is a service that provides advanced threat detection and mitigation. It combines tools like EDR with human monitoring, analysis, and response. MDR enables organizations of all sizes to outsource endpoint protection cybersecurity efforts to third-party experts.

Key features include:

24/7 Monitoring – A dedicated SOC that watches over the organizational environment around the clock.
Threat Detection & Investigation – Analysis of suspicious activity by both tools and humans.
Threat Hunting – Proactively searching for hidden threats that evaded automated tools.
Incident Response – Containment and remediation, sometimes including broader efforts like supporting PR, compliance communication, and legal requirements.
Reports & Guidance – Reporting, compliance assistance, and strategic advice for improving the organizational security posture.

Learn more in our detailed guide to mdr services.

EDR vs. MDR: Which One Is Right for Your Organization?

Both EDR and MDR offer valuable security capabilities, but they serve different purposes. Choosing between EDR and MDR depends on your organization’s network, budget, team capabilities, risk tolerance, and other requirements. In addition, they’re not mutually exclusive, so you might actually benefit from both. Here’s a breakdown to help you decide whether to choose one (and which one) or both.

When to Choose EDR

EDR tools are powerful platforms that detect, investigate, and respond to threats on endpoints like laptops, servers, and mobile devices. But they require a team to operate.

When EDR is the right fit:

You have a dedicated security team or MSSP who can triage alerts, conduct threat hunting, and manage responses.
You’re working within a tight budget and can’t afford an outsourced threat hunting service on top of your own. (Alternatively, if you already have an internal SOC team and need the security tools to support it).
You need deep visibility into endpoint activity and want to customize detection rules and response workflows.
Your compliance requirements demand granular control and audit trails at the endpoint level.

Verdict: Choose EDR if you have endpoint activity and a team or MSSP that can manage the solution.

When MDR is the right fit:

You lack an internal SOC or can’t staff one around the clock.
You want faster response times without having to wake up your team at 2 am for an alert.
You want to offload alert fatigue and focus your internal team on strategic initiatives instead of constant triage.
You need turnkey coverage for compliance audits (HIPAA, PCI, etc.), including incident reports and regulatory support.

Verdict: Choose MDR when you need enterprise-grade protection but don’t have enterprise-grade security headcount, and/or when you’re under stringent compliance requirements.

Can MDR and EDR Be Complementary?

MDR and EDR provide different services, which are more complementary than competitive. EDR solutions support the efforts of an internal security team. They:

– Provide alerts and information needed to protect endpoints on the network.

– Make it possible to actively hunt for threats and respond as needed.

– Provide information about the point of origin of the attack, how it spread through the network, and how far the attack reached within the network.

– Provide tools for instant response.

– Support post-incident analysis, allowing organizations to understand the tactics and techniques used before and during the attack so they can design measures that fix these issues.

MDR is a third party service that lets you outsource all security efforts. Based on teams of highly-experienced security professionals, MDRs:

– Provide analysis, maintenance, and response to security events.

– Provide support to internal teams during major events that require more hands on deck.

– Actively look for threats and respond quickly, providing faster interventions.

– Aggressively hunt for threats using forensic tools and design effective solutions.

– MDR and EDR can work together to provide more coverage. The question is, perhaps, which responsibilities the organization needs or wants to outsource to an external team.

Learn more in our detailed guides:

EDR Cybersecurity: Unlocking the Black Box of Endpoint Protection

What is XDR?

XDR (extended detection and response) provides detection and protection across all environment components, including networks, cloud infrastructure, software as a service (SaaS) applications, and other network components. They are often considered the evolution of EDR.

Here are key features of XDR:

Visibility—into all network layers, including the entire application stack.
Advanced detection—including automated correlation and machine learning (ML) processes capable of detecting events often missed by security information and event management (SIEM) solutions.
Intelligent alert suppression—which filters out the noise that typically reduces productivity.

Here are the key benefits of XDR:

Improved analysis—XDR helps you collect the right data and transform it with contextual information.
Identify hidden threats—with the help of advanced behavior models powered by machine learning algorithms.
Identify and correlate threats—across various layers of the application stack and network.
Minimize fatigue—XDR provides prioritized and precise alerts for investigation.
Forensic capabilities—XDR provides the forensic capabilities needed to integrate multiple signals. This helps teams to construct the big picture of an attack, and promptly complete investigations with high confidence in their findings.

Learn more in our detailed guide: Understanding XDR Security: Concepts, Features, and Use Cases

EDR vs MDR vs XDR: Key Differences

EDR, MDR, and XDR provide different services. Here is a comparison table that can help you distinguish between the three offerings:

Solution	Features	Capabilities
EDR	Typically comes with behavior analysis engines, used for detecting unknown threats. Offered as a cloud solution and can also be deployed locally. Provides centralized reporting for all endpoints.	Sends alerts when threats are detected. Focuses primarily on endpoints and endpoint connections. Can help teams perform quarantine threats and kill chain analyses, implement traffic filtering, and automate response to events.
MDR	Lets you outsource security externally and reduce internal manual work. Provides 24/7 coverage. Offers contractual services you can leverage to avoid technical debt.	Provides either system-wide or targeted coverage, according to the chosen service. Provides manual threat hunting that helps detect advanced threats and vulnerabilities. More capabilities are offered, but vary depending on the solutions and support offered by each vendor.
XDR	Typically comes with endpoint and network rules and behavior-based detection engines. Provides ML-based analyses of internal and external traffic. Centralizes the correlation of results.	Offers all EDR capabilities, as well as features that go beyond basic EDR. Provides end-to-end tracing. Lets you orchestrate security across multiple environments and scale solutions as needed.

	Main Focus	Threat Intelligence and Response	Complexity	Price Range
EDR	Endpoint-level threat detection, investigation, and response	Yes, based on algorithms, AI, and automation	High. Requires skilled analysts to interpret alerts and manage response workflows	Typically $30–$100 per endpoint/year, depending on features and vendor
MDR	Outsourced threat monitoring, detection, and incident response	24/7 threat hunting, alert triage, and response handled by the vendor’s SOC team.	Low to moderate. Vendor handles most operations, with minimal internal security	Usually $50–$200 per endpoint/year or flat monthly rates, depending on service level and vendor
XDR	Unified detection and response across endpoints, network, cloud, identity, and more	Correlates data across multiple layers for faster, automated threat detection and contextual response	Moderate. More streamlined than EDR, but may need configuration and integration expertise	Ranges from $100–$250+ per user/year, depending on coverage breadth and features

Learn more in our detailed guide to mdr solutions.

Tips From Expert

In my experience, here are tips that can help you better adapt to the distinctions and integrations between EDR, MDR, and XDR:

Align your choice of EDR, MDR, or XDR with business objectives
Consider the organization’s growth plans and security requirements before choosing EDR, MDR, or XDR. While EDR might be enough for smaller setups, growing companies may benefit from MDR’s 24/7 external oversight or XDR’s broader, multi-layer coverage.
Use EDR’s forensics capabilities for post-incident hardening
Leverage EDR’s detailed forensics to continuously enhance your security posture. Analyzing attack vectors, timelines, and breach points provides valuable data for tuning defenses and identifying persistent vulnerabilities.
Set custom alert thresholds
To minimize alert fatigue in EDR or XDR solutions, configure custom thresholds for alerts. Tailoring alerts to your environment’s risk profile helps prioritize genuine threats and reduces noise from low-priority issues.
Integrate threat intelligence feeds into your XDR
While XDR consolidates security data, enhancing it with real-time threat intelligence from third-party sources adds an extra layer of context, helping to identify advanced persistent threats (APTs) and emerging attack patterns.
Automate triage for faster incident response
Use automation within EDR and XDR to handle repetitive tasks like triaging alerts and isolating compromised endpoints. Automating these processes accelerates response times and reduces human error.

Aviad Hasnis is the Chief Technology Officer at Cynet.
He brings a strong background in developing cutting edge technologies that have had a major impact on the security of the State of Israel. At Cynet, Aviad continues to lead extensive cybersecurity research projects and drive innovation forward.

EDR, MDR, and XDR with Cynet

Cynet All-in-One is a holistic security solution that protects against threats to endpoint security and across your network. Cynet provides tools you can use to centrally manage endpoint security across the enterprise.

Cynet’s intelligent technologies can help you detect attacks by correlating information from endpoints, network analytics and behavioral analytics with almost no false positives.

With Cynet, you can proactively monitor entire internal environments, including endpoints, network, files, and hosts. This can help you reduce attack surfaces and the likelihood of multiple attacks.

Cynet All-in-One provides cutting-edge EDR, MDR, and XDR capabilities:

Advanced endpoint threat detection—full visibility and predicts how an attacker might operate, based on continuous monitoring of endpoints and behavioral analysis.
Investigation and validation—search and review historic or current incident data on endpoints, investigate threats, and validate alerts. This allows you to confirm the threat before responding to it, reducing dwell-time and performing faster remediation.
Rapid deployment and response—deploy across thousands of endpoints within two hours. You can then use it to perform automatic or manual remediation of threats on the endpoints, disrupt malicious activity and minimize damage caused by attacks.

In addition, Cynet provides MDR services, as detailed below.

Cynet CyOps 24/7 MDR Service

Cynet understands that building and managing an incident response team is not a viable option for all organizations. This is why, in addition to providing incident response automation, Cynet offers on-demand incident response services.

CyOps, Cynet’s Cyber SWAT team, is on call 24/7/365, allowing enterprises of all sizes to get access to the same expert security staff that protects the largest enterprises. Here’s what you can expect from the CyOps incident response team:

Alert monitoring—continuous management of incoming alerts: classify, prioritize and contact the customer upon validation of active threat.

24/7 availability—ongoing operations at all times, both proactively and on-demand per the customer’s specific needs.

On-demand file analysis—customers can send suspicious files to analysis directly from the Cynet 360 console and get an immediate verdict.

One click away—CISOs can engage CyOps with a single click on the Cynet Dashboard App upon suspicion of an active breach.

Remediation instructions—conclusion of investigated attacks entails concrete guidance to the customers on which endpoints, files, users, and network traffic should be remediated.

Exclusions, whitelisting, and tuning—adjusting Cynet 360 alerting mechanisms to the customers’ IT environment to reduce false positives and increase accuracy.

Threat hunting—proactive search for hidden threats leveraging Cynet 360 investigation tools and over 30 threat intelligence feeds.
Attack investigation—deep dive into validated attack bits and bytes to gain a full understanding of scope and impact, providing the customer with updated IoCs.

Learn about the Cynet Breach Protection platform and the CyOps incident response team

FAQs

When should I use MDR instead of EDR?

MDR is EDR with outsourced 24/7 threat detection and response and active threat hunting, provided by a team of security analysts. Use MDR when you don’t have the internal resources, expertise, or time to manage, monitor, and respond to alerts generated by an EDR solution or when you need an extra layer of security expertise and guidance to ensure incidents are properly triaged and remediated.

Can I run EDR and MDR together?

Yes, this is the most common deployment model. MDR services are typically built on top of an EDR platform. The EDR provides the tooling and telemetry; the MDR provides the human expertise and active response.

What extra value does XDR add beyond MDR?

XDR extends the visibility and correlation beyond endpoints to include data from other layers like email, network, identity, and cloud workloads. XDR’s strength is in its ability to correlate alerts from multiple domains, reduce noise, and detect more complex attack patterns that span different vectors. But, it often requires you to separately deploy threat detection solutions for any domain you want the XDR solution to include.

How does EDR vs XDR differ in threat coverage?

EDR focuses solely on endpoint-based threats. It monitors behavior on laptops, servers, and other devices for suspicious activity like privilege escalation or fileless attacks. XDR expands this scope to include threats from cloud workloads, emails, identity systems, and network traffic. This broader coverage allows XDR to detect multi-stage attacks that might start outside the endpoint environment, giving it an advantage in detecting lateral movement or blended threats.

Which solution is best for small businesses: EDR or MDR?

For small businesses with limited or no internal security team or supporting MSSP, MDR is usually the better choice. EDR alone can generate valuable insights, but without someone to analyze and act on those alerts, its value is diminished. MDR gives you the tooling and the people to handle threats proactively.

What costs should I expect for EDR vs MDR vs XDR?

Depends on the vendor. Some vendors, like Cynet, offer EDR and MDR in the same pricing tier. Others see MDR as an added service layer and charge more. XDR costs tend can be significantly higher than EDR, depending on the solution selected.

How do I measure success in an EDR vs MDR deployment?

For EDR, success is measured by reduced mean time to detect (MTTD) and mean time to respond (MTTR), low false positives, and your team’s ability to investigate and remediate incidents. For MDR, look at response speed, detection accuracy, number of incidents resolved without escalation, and the quality of reporting and guidance provided.