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Managed detection and response (MDR) providers faceskyrocketing demand and rising stakes. The MDR market is projected to grow to $11.8 billion by 2029 (up from $4.1 billion in 2024), a 23.5% compound annual growth rate driven by the intensifying landscape of advanced threats and sophisticated attacks, as well as ongoing cybersecurity talent shortages.
But as demand surges, security operations teams within MDRs are challenged to scale efficiently, deliver consistent SLA-backed services, and preserve razor-thin margins — all too often while relying on legacy security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) systems that crumble under cloud workloads and multi-tenant complexity.
To thrive in this new era, MDRs need a security automation platform that helps them scale efficiently, deliver measurable outcomes, and protect profitability. MDRs, meet Torq Hyperautomation™.
What is MDR and Why It Matters for Enterprises
Managed detection and response (MDR) is a security service model where organizations outsource their cyber threat monitoring, detection, and incident response to a dedicated provider.
Unlike traditional managed security service providers (MSSPs), which often focus on alerting, MDRs deliver hands-on investigation and active remediation — making them a critical lifeline for enterprises facing resource constraints, nonstop cyberattacks, and the need for stronger endpoint protection.
For enterprises, security operations through an MDR deliver three key benefits:
- 24/7 monitoring and response: Around-the-clock visibility and containment coverage when internal teams can’t keep pace with threat volume.
- Access to scarce talent: MDRs provide experienced security analysts in a market plagued by skills shortages.
- Faster detection and response: MDRs reduce dwell time by investigating, triaging, and remediating alerts before they escalate into costly breaches.
As enterprises embrace hybrid cloud, SaaS, and remote work at scale, the need for effective MDR solutions has never been greater. But delivering MDR services profitably requires providers to overcome the complexity of multi-tenant environments, tool sprawl, and the relentless flood of Tier-1 alerts.
Legacy SOAR promised to solve these challenges, but it wasn’t built for hybrid cloud or multi-tenant operations, leaving MDRs stuck with brittle playbooks, limited integrations, and endless tickets that drain security analysts instead of protecting customers. Then, security Hyperautomation entered the scene.
MDR Services and Solutions Enhanced by Hyperautomation
Torq Hyperautomation strengthens every cybersecurity service that MDRs deliver, helping providers meet rising demand without sacrificing margin by automating:
- Threat detection and triage: Torq automates Tier-1 investigations, eliminating false positives and noise across tenants.
- Incident response and auto-remediation: Hyperautomation streamlines workflows so low-level cases close autonomously while security analysts focus on complex cyber threats, ensuring providers can respond faster and consistently remediate incidents across all tenants.
- Reporting: Torq creates customer-ready reporting and dashboards to demonstrate SLA performance and ROI, along with cross-tenant workspace reporting capabilities to understand big picture operational performance.
Torq consolidates workflows and automates repetitive responses to eliminate ticket fatigue — preventing analyst burnout while ensuring every customer receives consistent, SLA-backed protection. It also unifies operations across tenants so MDR services scale seamlessly, reduce manual burden, and deliver higher-value outcomes that drive stickiness.
Increasing Efficiency and Margin with MDR Security Automation
By ditching legacy SOAR, security MDRs can finally escape the inefficiencies that drain margins and stall growth. With Torq Hyperautomation, MDRs can:
- Automate up to 90% of Tier-1 case analysis tasks with an autonomous AI SOC Analyst.
- Onboard and provision new customer environments 18x faster.
- Handle 5× more security events without increasing headcount.
- Deliver higher-value services that reduce churn and increase stickiness.
- Meet SLAs more consistently through automation-first response.
- Consolidate tooling and integrate disparate systems to lower costs and increase efficiency.
Torq automates large portions of investigation, analysis, and response while also augmenting security analysts with AI-driven case summaries, natural language investigation, and intelligent prioritization. This reduces human time per case, enabling MDRs to process more events with the same headcount while keeping analysts focused on high-value investigations — better protecting both margins and customer outcomes.
Industry leaders have taken notice. IDC and GigaOm both identify Hyperautomation as the future of security automation, while one of the largest MDRs in the U.S., Deepwatch, has standardized on Torq Hyperautomation to drive global efficiency.
“With Torq Hyperautomation, we are significantly increasing productivity and efficiency, ensuring that our customers gain better evidence, analysis, and control over their cybersecurity, while staying protected from external threats and operational risks.”
And because Torq supports no-code, low-code, and full-code approaches on a cloud-native, multi-tenant foundation, MDRs gain the flexibility to scale faster, improve case management with AI, and future-proof their operations.
MDR Cybersecurity: Faster Onboarding and Scalable Operations
Onboarding has historically been one of the biggest pain points for MDR providers, delaying ROI for both the provider and their customers. Torq automates onboarding so new tenants can be provisioned in minutes, not weeks, while repeatable workflows can be shared across environments for faster ramp-up.
- 10x faster onboarding: Standardize and automate customer onboarding and ramp-up, replicating proven workflows across tenants to onboard customers 18x faster.
- Limitless integrations: Connect instantly with every tool in the customer’s stack, expanding value and widening the addressable market.
“New customers are seeing faster onboardings than we’ve ever seen.”
– Micah Donald, Sr. Director of Solutions Engineering, Deepwatch
Torq’s event-driven architecture ensures MDRs scale operations elastically across cloud environments, handle more events per analyst, and maintain SLA-backed performance as customer demand grows.
Choosing the Right Security MDR Provider for Your Organization
When evaluating MDR or managed security service providers, enterprises should look for:
- Comprehensive service coverage that spans detection, investigation, and remediation.
- Proven automation capabilities that enable faster response, SLA adherence, and cost savings.
- Integration flexibility to work seamlessly with diverse and evolving enterprise stacks without lock-in.
By enabling security MDR service providers to automate Tier-1 case work, integrate with any customer stack, and standardize workflows across tenants, Torq not only helps MDRs scale profitably but also strengthens customer loyalty. The result is a service model that delivers consistent SLA-backed protection, measurable ROI, and the kind of resilience that enterprises demand from a long-term, strategic security partner.
The Future of MDR is Hyperautomation
The MDR market is exploding, but growth alone won’t guarantee success. Providers that cling to legacy SOAR will find themselves drowning in alerts, missing SLAs, and watching margins erode.
With Hyperautomation, security outcomes are delivered at machine speed, customers are onboarded in minutes, and undeniable ROI is proven with every engagement. Torq gives managed providers the scale, efficiency, and intelligence they need to thrive in a high-demand, margin-tight market, turning the challenges of multi-tenancy, tool sprawl, and endless Tier-1 noise into opportunities for growth and customer loyalty.
SOAR is dead (like, dead dead) — but it’s still killing managed services. Get the Managed Services Manifesto to see why Torq Hyperautomation is the future of scalable, SLA-ready MDR.
FAQs
Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs) typically focus on monitoring and alerting, notifying customers when threats are detected. Managed Detection and Response (MDR) providers) go further by actively investigating, triaging, and remediating threats on behalf of customers, providing hands-on expertise and faster outcomes.
Managed detection and response (MDR) enhances cybersecurity by delivering a comprehensive, proactive approach to threat detection and incident response. MDR strengthens defenses by combining continuous 24/7 monitoring, expert threat hunting, integrated endpoint protection, advanced detection, and rapid automated response capabilities.
Security MDR services can benefit a wide array of industries, but are especially valuable for industries with strict compliance needs or sensitive data — such as financial services, healthcare, government, and critical infrastructure — where faster detection and response are critical.
