Some companies see cybersecurity as a cost center. We see things a little different. LEARN MORE >
Experiencing a Breach?
BLOG
Introducing Inversion6 MDR
JUMP TO: INTRO | KNOW THE PAST | MEET THE FUTURE | READY TO SIMPLIFY YOUR SECURITY
When we set out to refresh our Security Operations Center (SOC) we weren’t just adding square footage; we were rethinking what our cybersecurity operations should look like for future. This includes the SOC’s flagship service offering, now known as Inversion6 Managed Detection and Response (MDR).
Inversion6 MDR extends protection beyond endpoints to include cloud environments, network traffic, and critically—user identities, which have become a primary target for threat actor looking to capture and abuse legitimate credentials.
Out SOC also manages two flavors of traditional Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR): one for desktops, laptops or servers; and another for mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.
Together, these offerings combine all the key capabilities you might recognize from a bunch of other previous acronyms—including XDR, SIEM, SOAR and UEBA.
The idea is to keep you protected, without forcing you to memorize a glossary full of jargon and keep track of increasingly blurred lines between all of them.
“Most businesses know they need protection, but they don’t want to play buzzword bingo to get there,” said Inversion6 CTO Chris Prewitt. “They just want to know what’s covered, and whether they’re actually protected.”
Still, all those legacy acronyms came from somewhere, so here’s a quick flashback to see how we got here.
Know the Past
In the beginning, cybersecurity was simple—or at least simpler.
EDR tools were created in the 2000s to monitor desktops, laptops and servers for suspicious activity. Then smartphones hit the scene, so Mobile EDR popped up to protect them too.
These tools were a major leap forward from old school antivirus software. They also create massive volumes of alerts, which requires more time and significantly more skill to deal with. Enter MDR—a managed service that worked with existing EDR tools, adding 24/7 monitoring, threat hunting, incident triage and remediation guidance.
For a while these tools stayed endpoint centric. But as attackers began shifting to cloud infrastructure and targeting user identities, the protection expanded too. This came with more complexity, not to mention an exponential increase in data. So, providers integrated a new class of tools to deal with this new reality.
These tools included:
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) for aggregating logs, correlating rules and managing alerts across diverse sources.
Security Orchestration, Automation and Response (SOAR) for automating workflows and accelerating incident response times.
User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) for forming behavior baselines and detecting both insider threats and identity compromise, where attackers capture then abuse legitimate credentials.
Around the same time, another cybersecurity evolution began to gain traction: Extended Detection and Response (XDR).
XDR also combined the features of old school EDR with modern SIEM, SOAR and UEBA tools. But instead of bundling them as a “service,” XDR integrated them into a single “platform.”
In theory, the distinction was clear. MDR was a service you hired. XDR was a platform you bought.
In reality, the lines have always been blurry. Many MDR providers build their services on top of XDR-like platforms. And many XDR vendors offer “managed XDR” services that would be virtually indistinguishable from traditional MDR to a customer.
And of course, all the old acronyms are still floating around out there—and they’re all being used in different ways, by different firms at different times.
“It gets to the point where people are just throwing around all these industry terms without really explaining what any of it actually means for the end-user,” said Prewitt. “We felt like it was time to step back and really think about what matters here. Is it the semantics, or the security?”
Meet the Future
With our SOC refresh, Inversion6 worked hard to create core services that could bring together all the best tech from this historical journey, with no unnecessary baggage.
You’ll find that Inversion6 MDR includes all the same features and benefits of all the acronyms we just covered.
They’re just under the hood where they belong.
And for those who just need solid endpoint protection, we still offer Managed EDR, alongside other classic SOC offerings like Autonomous Penetration Testing and Third-Party Risk Management.
“At the end of the day, the names don’t matter nearly as much as the outcomes,” said Prewitt. “The companies we work with want to know someone’s always watching and they want a clear picture of how we’re responding. That’s what counts and that’s the part we’re focused on.”
Ready to Simplify Your Security?
You don’t need to understand every acronym to know when your business needs help.
