Security Research Brief: MDR Market Growth Forecast -

The market for managed detection and response (MDR) security services will reach $2.2 billion by 2027, which represents a 16.7% CAGR (compound annual growth rate) from 2021, according to Infinity Business Insights.

Infinity points to ESentire, BAE Systems, FireEye, IBM, Kudelski Security, Paladion, Arctic Wolf Networks, Watchguard, and Rapid7 as example MDR service providers. But in some ways that list feels a little dated. For instance, Atos acquired Paladion in June 2020; a private equity group acquired BAE's MDR business in December 2020; and Arctic Wolf dropped the word "Networks" from its name a year ago or so.

Top 40 MDR Security Companies (And More)

Meanwhile, MSSP Alert believes the market will grow even faster than Infinity Business Insights' forecast. The reason? Gartner is tracking at least 40 MDR companies that have gained critical mass.

And that Gartner list largely fails to address MDR companies that support MSPs and MSSPs in the SMB sector (names like Blackpoint Cyber, Huntress, Netsurion and Stellar Cyber come to mind). Also of note: More than 90% of MSSPs now offer some form of MDR services, according to the annual Top 250 MSSP survey results for 2021.

What Are MDR Security Services?

According to Gartner's definition, MDR services provide customers with:

Remotely delivered modern security operations center (MSOC) functions.

The functions allow organizations to "rapidly detect, analyze, investigate and actively respond through threat mitigation and containment."

A turnkey experience, using a predefined technology stack (covering areas such as endpoint, network and cloud services) to collect relevant logs, data and more.