Glossary / MDR (Managed Detection and Response)
MDR (Managed Detection and Response)
A service where a third-party security team monitors an organization's environment around the clock, using EDR and other telemetry, and can act to contain a threat directly rather than just alerting someone internally to do so.
EDR is the sensor and toolset — it collects endpoint telemetry and can flag or block suspicious behavior. MDR is the human and process layer wrapped around it: an actual team watching those signals continuously, distinguishing a real threat from noise, and taking response action with the authority the client has granted them, rather than just forwarding an alert.
MDR is narrower than MSSP (Managed Security Service Provider), which typically covers a broader scope like firewall management alongside monitoring, and MDR is often delivered as, functionally, a SOC-as-a-service — the outsourced version of a function most organizations can't justify staffing internally.
The core value proposition is coverage most organizations genuinely can't build themselves: staffing a real 24/7 security team is expensive and hard to justify below a certain scale, so MDR outsources exactly that gap — at the cost of a recurring fee and trusting a third party with response authority over the environment.
How Nexus handles this
Nexus's security suite doesn't include its own 24/7 MDR analyst team — the vulnerability and breach-monitoring findings it surfaces land as an owned, SLA-tracked ticket in the PSA, which is exactly the kind of ticket a resold third-party MDR provider's alerts should land in too, rather than a disconnected email nobody's watching.
More terms
MSP (Managed Service Provider)
A company that remotely manages a client's IT infrastructure and end-user systems on an ongoing, proactive basis — usually a flat-fee contract, not break-fix billing.
RMM (Remote Monitoring and Management)
Software that lets an MSP monitor device health and perform remote management tasks — patching, scripting, remote control — across every client site from one console.
PSA (Professional Services Automation)
Software that runs the business side of MSP operations — ticketing, SLAs, billing, contracts, and client records — the system of record most MSP work flows through.
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