Playbook: Eliminating Breach Risks — 2025 Edition for midmarket organizations.
Playbook: Eliminating Breach Risks — 2025 Edition for midmarket organizations. Download to learn more
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Playbook: Eliminating Breach Risks — 2025 Edition for midmarket organizations. Download to learn more
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1. Core Purpose
Primary Role
Strategic Position
2. Detection and Response Capabilities
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Primarily reactive, responding when alerts fire.
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Your existing security stack (firewalls, IDS/IPS, VPNs, SIEM, endpoint security).
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Can manage a wide range of vendor products; may not optimize for threat detection efficiency.
MSSP vs. MDR for Mid-Market Organizations
(Managed Security Service Provider vs. Managed Detection and Response)
MDR (Managed Detection & Response)
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Outsources security device management and monitoring (e.g., firewalls, intrusion prevention systems, SIEM).
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Keeps your security tools running, patched, and monitored according to SLAs.
Detection Approach
Response Actions
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Alerts you when something looks suspicious, often based on rule-based SIEM triggers.
Tools Managed
Internal Staff Requirement
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Minimal internal SOC need; MDR acts as your SOC and IR team.
Customization
Alert Fatigue
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Significantly reduced; MDR filters noise and engages only when action is needed.
Speed of Containment
Proactivity
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Proactive; it includes threat hunting and rapid incident response to reduce dwell time.
4. Operational Impact for Mid-Market Organizations
Regulatory Alignment
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Usually minutes; MDR handles containment directly.
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Still need staff to validate alerts, triage, and handle incident response.
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Strong fit for breach notification and HIPAA/PCI/SOX readiness— includes documented detection and response processes.
5. Cost Considerations
Pricing Model
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Typically per-endpoint or per-user subscription (plus add-ons for IR retainers).
Value for Mid-Market
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Can be high, with many false positives unless you have staff to tune and respond.
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Dependent on your team’s ability to respond.
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Supports compliance logging and reporting, but you must show you can respond to incidents.
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Higher monthly spend, but more predictable breach response and reduced need for in-house SOC hires.
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Often device- or log-volume-based subscription fees.
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Lower cost than MDR, but higher hidden cost in staff time and breach exposure.
3. Technology Stack
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Usually bundles its own detection/response platform (often EDR/XDR) or integrates tightly with your EDR (e.g., CrowdStrike, SentinelOne).
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Often technology-opinionated—chooses proven tools to ensure speed, integration, and consistent outcomes.
MSSP (Managed Security Service Provider)
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Delivers threat detection, incident response, and proactive hunting with a focus on stopping active threats.
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Actively hunts for, investigates, and contains threats—operating as an extension of your incident response team.
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Uses behavioral analytics, threat intelligence, and continuous monitoring to spot stealthy or emerging attacks.
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Takes immediate containment actions (e.g., isolating endpoints, disabling accounts) and guides full remediation.
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Typically stops at notification; you (or your IT team) handle investigation and remediation.
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Bottom Line for Mid-Market Organizations at High Breach Risk
An MSSP may make sense if:
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You already have internal incident response capability,
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You need multi-vendor tool management,
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And you’re primarily looking to offload device maintenance and log management—not active response.
If you:
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Have minimal internal security staff
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Need rapid containment and hands-on response
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Face high regulatory and breach-cost exposure
…an MDR provider is generally the more effective strategic choice, because it closes the detection-to-response gap and delivers a SOC-as-a-Service function without requiring you to hire 24/7 in-house analysts.
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How do we get 24/7 coverage from your managed detection and response services?Pondurance’s security analysts are U.S. citizens based in the U.S. We work in shifts to operate 24/7. Our security operations centers are powered by highly skilled analysts, threat hunters, and incident responders that are always available to respond. We know it’s difficult to find and retain the right security talent, but we are able to compete for the best talent in the industry. We make our experts available to you with our services.
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Why should I choose Pondurance MDR over other services?There are many providers on the market and many options when shopping for a cybersecurity solution. With Pondurance MDR: Your data is your data, you have full access to it at all times. This means you get access to the same SIEM tools as our analysts. We provide guided personalized recommendations tailored to your specific cybersecurity needs, we’re not one size fits all! All of our analysts are US citizens and our SOCs are based in the US. Your data will never leave the US border. Our strong cybersecurity consulting practice enhances your MDR because we know the difference between compliance and security. We integrate with your existing security control investments so you don’t need to rip and replace! We will also provide end-to-end management of leading endpoint detection and response platforms, like Crowdstrike and SentinelOne. If you want more information on how we can fit with your current set up, reach out to us to talk to an expert, no hard sells. We promise!
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How long does MDR take to implement?We know that you want to get up and running with managed detection and response quickly! Once you sign up with us, you will be assigned to one of our implementation teams with both project management and technical professionals. They will quickly and efficiently get you up and running in about 4-6 weeks. During this time, we provide all tools, analytics, cloud setup and account access as well as walk you through internal deployments of hardware and virtual components including log forwarders and agents. You’ll be up and running quickly and will enjoy the added security of Pondurance MDR!
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Can we use our own endpoint detection and response vendor with your services?When you sign up for our managed detection and response services, you have a couple of options for managed endpoint detection and response vendors. You are welcome to keep your existing solution as we can ingest data from leading EDR platforms and create alerts. OR you may want to use one of our endpoint detection and response solutions that provides real time analysis conducted by trained individuals who can find things that tools tend to miss. Either way, your endpoint data is covered with our MDR services.
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Can you log data from on-premises and cloud?Yes! We can ingest data across endpoint, network, log and cloud environments. This includes: Remote laptops, tablets, mobile devices and desktops Data centers Machines in your office Data from cloud environments like AWS, Azure and Google Cloud Platform Software-as-a-Service data And Office 365 data We call this 360° visibility as we can ingest any data you would like us to monitor for a potential threat! With this added security, you will truly have a modern security program.