You've invested in Managed Extended Detection and Response (MXDR), or you're weighing it up. While you may be certain that someone's watching your systems around the clock, there's probably a quieter question you haven't said out loud: is this worth what we're paying, or are we covering ground we already had covered somewhere else?
Over the years I’ve spent working as a cyber security specialist, this is the question that comes up almost every time I sit down with a UK SMB to review what they've got.
This article walks through what that audit consistently turns up: the wasted spend, the genuine gaps, and how to tell which one you're looking at.
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The pitch for Managed Extended Detection and Response (MXDR) is straightforward: continuous monitoring across your endpoints, identity, email, cloud and network, with a specialist team watching so you don't have to. Businesses aren’t particularly interested in the tech itself. They invest in the confidence that when everyone has gone home for the day, someone is still watching.
And that’s exactly what a lot of businesses get with this solution. But "we've got MXDR" and "we know what MXDR is doing for us" are two very different statements, and the difference between them is usually only visible once someone sits down and checks.
When a business maps what they're paying for against what they've already got, a handful of patterns consistently come up:
Before you start having a think about who’s to blame for this oversight, just know that in most cases, none of it is anyone's fault specifically. It's what happens when services get added over time, by different people, without a single point where the whole picture gets checked against itself.
This is the checklist worth running against your own setup: for every provider and every contract, can you name what's monitored, who investigates, who's authorised to act, and what still sits with you? If any of those has more than one answer, or no answer, that's usually where the duplication or the shortfall sits.
It's tempting to think the fix for uncertainty is simply adding another provider. Speaking from experience, this often makes the overlap issue worse. Bringing in a new specialist without first working out what your existing MSP or provider already covers just adds another cook to a kitchen where nobody's agreed who's making what.
Before talking to anyone new, it's worth knowing what you've already got: how many devices you're covering, what mobile and remote-access policies are in place, and which of your existing contracts already includes some form of monitoring or response. You can't protect (or accurately price) what you haven't taken stock of first.
None of this means MXDR isn't worth it. For a lot of the businesses I work with, it clearly is after the overlaps have been dealt with. Once you’ve got the full picture, you get:
The businesses that get the most out of MXDR are the ones who did the audit first, then they bought the solution to cover what was previously unprotected (rather than buying first and hoping it fits).
So, is MXDR worth it? For most UK SMBs carrying real risk and a mixed stack of tools and providers, yes, when it’s covering an identified gap and not doing work someone else is already handling.
To be clear, the risk was never MXDR itself. It's buying, renewing or layering it on without first checking what you already have (and only finding out about the overlap after something has gone wrong).
This is the review I walk UK SMBs through all the time before they commit to anything new, because getting that clarity starts with an honest health check of what you've already got. Join our webinar, "Managed Cyber Security: What to Buy, and How to Buy It", to understand whether your current cyber model includes active monitoring, investigation and response: register here.