1. Strategic Partnership & Alignment

Beyond a Vendor: Understand the process the provider will take to show it is a true partner who understands your business context and objectives, risk tolerance, and compliance landscape. Look for a provider willing to invest in a long-term relationship.

Questions to Ask:

• How do you measure the success of a long-term security partnership beyond simple metrics?
• Can you provide a reference for a client you've worked with for over three years who can speak to the partnership model

Co-Managed Services Approach: Learn how the provider's service design ensures the services provide a strong foundational element of your cybersecurity strategy, not a purely reactive service. Look for an approach that emphasizes continuous improvement toward strengthening cyber resilience.

Questions to Ask:

• How do you actively contribute to our security posture beyond just reactive threat detection?
• What is your process for integrating with our existing security investments? What does your onboarding process look like?
• How is 24/7/365 coverage provided? Are analysts working around the clock or on normal “day shifts” based on location?
• With Customization: Given our environment, what recommendations would you make for custom add-ons that elevate our security posture?

2. Risk Reduction & ROI

Alignment on Risk Tolerance: You want your MSSP to demonstrate their services match your organization's security risk appetite. Ask for metrics beyond simple alert counts, such as a decrease in MTTD and MTTR, and alignment with frameworks like NIST or MITRE ATT&CK.

Questions to Ask: 

• Can you provide an example of a report that maps your services to specific controls within frameworks like NIST or MITRE ATT&CK?
• Will your reporting show the alerts remediated and the alerts remaining with identification of risk levels? What level of guidance will you provide to improve our detection and response outcomes?
• What levels of control can we maintain in relation to MDR services?
• With Customization: What key metrics will you track to demonstrate a tangible reduction in our organization's risk?
• With Customization: What would it take to add custom apps and/or cloud apps and automations to our MDR services?

Cost-Effectiveness & Total Cost of Ownership (TCO): Evaluate the provider's pricing model. It should offer a predictable and scalable cost structure. Compare that to the significant expense and difficulty of building and retaining an in-house 24/7 security operations center (SOC).

Questions to Ask: 

• What does your base service include, and what do you consider an add-on or an additional cost?
• How does your pricing model scale with business growth, such as a merger or acquisition or the addition of new locations?

3. Scalability & Flexibility

Adaptable to Growth: Gain confidence the co-managed MDR service will scale seamlessly with your company's growth, whether through mergers and acquisitions, cloud adoption, or expansion into new markets.

Questions to Ask:

• How do you support security operations during a merger or acquisition?
• What is your average onboarding time for a new cloud environment or business unit?
• What is the process to modify a contract during its term?

Platform Agnostic: Verify that the provider has the expertise to integrate with your existing technology stack (e.g., EDR, SIEM, cloud infrastructure). A flexible, open ecosystem is crucial to maximizing your existing security tooling investments and avoiding vendor lock-in.

Questions to Ask:

• What is your approach to integrating with a multi-cloud or hybrid environment?
• Can you provide a list of your supported EDR and SIEM platforms, and what is the process for integrating with a tool that is not on that list?
  
  

1. Custom Log Sources and Operational Simplicity

Log Source Validation and Active Response: Not all log sources are equally valuable. A customer-first, custom MDR services provider will not only ingest logs but will collaborate with your team to validate and prioritize which sources are most critical for detection and response, including custom log sources. They will actively build correlation rules and threat hunting queries on these validated sources, ensuring your logs are a source of actionable intelligence, not just data storage.

Questions to Ask: 

• Which log sources do you actively investigate and build detection rules against?
• What is your process for validating the fidelity of our log sources and what percentage of our logs do you actively use for detection?

Seamless Integration: You need to learn how the co-managed MDR service will integrate with the tools your team uses daily. The goal is to enhance, not replace, your existing capabilities. 

Questions to Ask: 

• How do you ensure data integrity and transparency when ingesting our telemetry?
• Can we access the raw data that your analysts are using for their investigations?

Unified Visibility: You want a single, consolidated view of all alerts and incidents, regardless of the source. Look for a provider that can correlate data from endpoints, network, cloud, and identity platforms.

Questions to Ask: 

• What does your unified dashboard look like, and what kind of real-time visibility does it provide?
• How do you handle the triage and prioritization of alerts to avoid alert fatigue?
• With Customization: What would it take to include firewall logs, proxies, and integrating our ticketing system into the MDR service?

2. Human-Led Expertise and Collaboration

Access to Named Analysts: The relationship and familiarity with your environment are key. Make sure your team will have direct access to a dedicated security analyst who understands your environment. Avoid providers who route you to a generic, anonymous support pool.

Questions to Ask: 

• Will we have partially dedicated squads to ensure familiarity with our environment and business context? What does that look like?
• What are the escalation procedures for a critical incident, and what are the guaranteed response times?
• How do you handle human-in-the-loop (HITL) with automation and AI?

Collaborative Investigation and Containment: Find out what it might look like for the provider's team to work with yours during a live security event. A customer-first partner provides clear communication channels, detailed playbooks, and works alongside your team for containment and remediation.

Questions to Ask: 

• Can you walk us through a recent incident response scenario where you worked with a client's internal team?
• How do you provide support and documentation for remediation and recovery actions?

3. Transparency & Actionable Intelligence

Transparent Reporting: Look for more than just a monthly PDF. Learn about your ability to access real-time dashboards and detailed reports that provide actionable insights into your threat landscape.

Questions to Ask:

• What is the frequency of your reporting, and is it customizable to our needs?
• Do you provide root-cause analysis after an incident is resolved?
• Do you provide compliance support and reporting to help us pass audits and meet cyber insurance requirements? Or is that a custom add-on?

Hypothesis-Driven Threat Hunting: Threat hunting shouldn’t be a “black box” service. Learn about whether the MSSP offers a collaborative model where their threat hunters work with your team to proactively define the premise and hypothesis for threat hunts. A boutique provider shares knowledge and methodologies to help your team grow.

Questions to Ask:

• How do you share your “event of interest”guidance and recommendations with our team?
• How can our internal team participate in or provide input for your threat hunting activities?

For the CISO: A Strategic Self-Assessment

Your priority is to align security with the business. Before you engage with an MSSP, answer these questions with your leadership team:

What are our top business-critical assets? 

• Will they be actively monitored?
• Do we have custom log sources we must include in the MDR service? 
• What are the threat vectors targeting our industry? 

Answering this helps you filter vendors based on their ability to address your most significant risks, rather than just offering a generic service.

What are our key compliance and regulatory obligations? 

• Which regulatory frameworks (e.g., HIPAA, PCI DSS, GDPR) are we required to adhere to? 
• What is our current maturity level for each? 

Your MDR services provider must be able to support and provide reporting for these specific requirements to avoid future compliance headaches.

What value does our security operation contribute to the business?

• What business objectives do we enable now?
• What business objectives will we need to enable in the next 3 years?
• How do you prove this value to your executive leadership team and board?

An MSSP with a customer assurance program works with you to understand your expectations and show you how the MDR service delivers that value, along with a report written for business stakeholders.

What is our true Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)? 

• Beyond salaries, what are we spending on technology licenses, training, recruitment, and the operational burden of managing a 24/7 security function?

This evaluation helps you build a strong business case for managed MDR services, demonstrating its value in freeing up capital and resources for other strategic initiatives.

For the Director of the In-House Security Team: A Tactical Self-Assessment

Your focus is on day-to-day operations. A candid assessment of your team's capabilities and workload is essential to finding a provider who will be a true force multiplier, not just another tool.

What are our team's skills and gaps? 

• Do we have expertise in incident forensics, cloud security, or threat hunting? 
• Who provides after-hours coverage? 

This identifies the specific services you need to augment your team and helps you avoid paying for capabilities you already have in-house.

What does our daily operational workload look like?

• What log sources must we actively monitor to protect our critical assets and business continuity? 
• How many alerts do we receive on an average day? 
• What is our average time to triage an alert and investigate a confirmed incident? 

By identifying log sources, you can specifically validate what the MDR service will actively work and what data goes to cold storage. Quantifying alerts and timing provide a baseline for clear goals for the MDR service and a way to measure its success.

Is our current security technology stack fully utilized? 

• Are we getting the most out of our EDR or SIEM? 
• Is our data retention sufficient for long-term threat hunting? 

This evaluation helps you find a partner who will maximize your existing investments and fill in the gaps without forcing a costly "rip-and-replace" project.

Below are three basic services and deliverables you should expect from a co-managed MDR provider that aligns with this philosophy. Additionally, you’ll find two custom add-ons to consider based on your priorities.

Collaborative & Actionable Incident Response

• What to Expect: In the event of an incident, the provider's response should be a collaborative effort aimed at ensuring business continuity. They should not only help your team contain the threat but also work with you to quickly restore normal operations.
  
  • Deliverables: A clear incident response plan (or "playbook") that details responsibilities, communication channels, and containment actions. A post-incident report that includes a detailed root-cause analysis and actionable recommendations for preventing future occurrences.
• Why it Matters: The focus is on resilience. A great provider understands that a security incident is also a business disruption. They act to minimize downtime and get your business back up and running as quickly as possible.

Agent Agnostic Approach & Seamless Integration

• What to Expect: A modern co-managed MDR service should not force you to deploy a new agent. Instead, it should be able to integrate with your existing endpoint security agent (EDR) to collect the necessary data. This "agent-agnostic" model allows you to leverage your current investments and avoids the operational disruption and cost associated with deploying a new tool across your entire environment. It ensures that the MDR service is a force multiplier on your existing tools, not a replacement.
  • Deliverables: A clearly defined integration plan that outlines how the MSSP will ingest data from your existing agent, along with a list of supported platforms.
• Why it Matters: This approach is crucial for cost-effectiveness and operational continuity. You avoid the significant cost of new agent licenses and the time-consuming process of a new deployment. Furthermore, your internal teams can continue to use the tools and workflows they are already familiar with, which reduces friction and enables a smoother, more effective partnership.

Continuous Improvement & Strategic Guidance

• What to Expect: A true partner doesn't just provide a service; they help you mature your security program. The provider should offer regular meetings and strategic guidance based on the intelligence they gather from your environment and the wider threat landscape.
  
  • Deliverables: Periodic business reviews that summarize key findings, provide a roadmap for security improvements, and help you demonstrate ROI to your executive leadership.
• Why it Matters: This ensures that your security program is a living, evolving entity. It turns the MDR service from a simple utility into a strategic asset that helps you make informed decisions and build a robust, future-proof security posture.

Custom Add-Ons to Consider

Every company is unique in its security needs. Depending on the skillsets of your internal team and where you need them focused, the following two custom add-on services may be worth considering as a cost-effective approach. Review your cybersecurity roadmap, threat environment, and attack surface to determine the potential value-add for your security program. 

Context-Aware Threat Intelligence & Hunting 

• What to Expect: Instead of relying on generic feeds, the provider will customize threat intelligence to your specific industry, business context, and critical assets. Their threat hunters will use this intelligence to proactively search for threats that are most likely to target your organization.
  
  • Deliverables: A threat intelligence briefing that outlines the specific threats targeting your industry, and periodic threat hunting reports that detail the methodologies and findings from proactive hunts.
• Why it Matters: This targeted approach ensures that the MSSP focuses on the threats that matter to your business, reducing noise and prioritizing the protection of your most valuable assets.

Vulnerability Management 

• What to Expect: The provider can offer services that actively improve your security posture over time. This goes beyond just detection and includes identifying and helping you remediate weaknesses before attackers exploit them.
  
  • Deliverables: Regular vulnerability and configuration reports that highlight misconfigurations or gaps, along with prioritized remediation recommendations.
• Why it Matters: Vulnerability management is a "security-by-design" service approach. It helps you proactively reduce your attack surface and build a stronger foundation, making your organization more resilient to future attacks.

For the CISO: The Strategic Business Case for Platform Integration

Your existing EDR and SIEM are significant capital investments. A co-managed MDR services provider that integrates with these platforms makes those investments work harder and smarter.

What to Expect: The MSSP should use its specialized expertise to filter the thousands of low-priority or false-positive alerts generated by your platforms. It should elevate only the most critical, high-fidelity threats to your team. This transforms your tools from an overwhelming source of noise into a highly efficient detection engine.

Why it Matters: This approach justifies the long-term ROI of your EDR and SIEM licenses. By offloading the constant triage and initial investigation, you can prove to the board that you’re using your existing security tools at their highest potential. It allows you to redirect your internal resources to higher-level, strategic projects, such as vulnerability management, architecture reviews, and supporting digital transformation initiatives, ensuring security spending aligns directly with business objectives.

For the Director of the In-House Security Team: Boosting Capability and Knowledge

Your team's most valuable asset is its time. A collaborative MDR partnership frees up that time and provides a direct path to upskilling your team.

What to Expect: The MDR provider's analysts should not operate in a "black box." Instead, they should function as an extension of your team, providing direct knowledge transfer. They should share their methodologies, explain their logic during investigations, and provide context as they contain and remediate threats. 

Why it Matters: This collaborative model helps close the cybersecurity skills gap within your organization. Your team gains on-the-job experience with advanced threat hunting techniques and incident response playbooks, making them more capable of handling future threats independently. It transforms the MDR service from a crutch into a training program, building long-term cyber resilience from within and empowering your team to focus on mission-critical projects.

Additionally, should you choose 24/7/365 coverage, you’ll find relief from what it takes to staff an around-the-clock operation, lessening the potential for burnout for your security team. Retaining cybersecurity talent is critical for increasing security maturity and resilience. The flexibility to assign security professionals to meaningful work aids in retention, productivity, and job satisfaction.