What is extended detection and response (XDR)?

Extended detection and response (XDR) is a cybersecurity approach that unifies detection, investigation, and response across multiple security layers including endpoint, identity, email, cloud, network, and third‑party tools in a single system. Sophos XDR includes built-in protection with Sophos Endpoint, Endpoint Detection and Response, and Email Monitoring System, correlates signals across your environment, applies AI‑driven analysis, and prioritizes real threats so security teams can detect and respond faster without switching tools or manually connecting the dots.

What is Next‑Gen Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)?

Next‑Gen SIEM is a modern approach to security information and event management that focuses on usable security outcomes, not just log storage. Sophos Next‑Gen SIEM extends Sophos XDR with long‑term retention and compliance‑focused data ingestion up to 10 years with predictable pricing based on users and servers. The same telemetry used for security investigations supports audits, reporting, and regulatory requirements without deploying a separate SIEM.

What is the difference between XDR and SIEM?

XDR is designed for real‑time security operations — detecting, investigating, and responding to threats across the environment. Traditional SIEMs are primarily focused on log aggregation and retention for investigations and compliance. Sophos XDR with Next‑Gen SIEM unifies them in one AI‑native system, so protection, detection, response, historical context, and compliance data work together instead of in parallel tools.

What is managed detection and response?

Managed detection and response (MDR) is an outsourced cybersecurity service that combines AI‑driven threat detection technology with a team of human security experts who monitor, investigate, and respond to threats on an organization’s behalf, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Unlike traditional security tools that generate alerts for an internal team to act on, MDR provides both the technology and the people — so threats are contained and eliminated without requiring organizations to hire, train, or retain their own security operations center (SOC) staff. Sophos MDR is the world’s largest agentic SOC, built on the same AI‑Native Cybersecurity Defense System that powers Sophos XDR with Next‑Gen SIEM. Protection, detection, investigation, response, and long‑term data retention all operate within one unified platform, with AI handling detection and prioritization at machine speed while Sophos Analysts supervise the AI, govern its decisions, and retain full accountability for every outcome.

How does Sophos XDR use AI?

Sophos XDR has AI as part of its core architecture — not as a bolt‑on feature. AI correlates signals across all control points, reduces alert noise, prioritizes threats, and assists analysts throughout detection, investigation, and response. Agentic AI handles speed and scale, while humans remain in control of critical decisions, ensuring accurate, explainable outcomes.

Can Sophos XDR work with my existing security tools?

Yes. Sophos XDR is vendor‑agnostic by design and includes over 500+ integrations across endpoint, identity, email, cloud, network, and business applications. Two‑way integrations allow analysts to take response actions directly in third‑party tools, while Sophos Next‑Gen SIEM enables seamless, AI-assisted ingestion of unique, compliance‑specific data from niche or legacy systems.

How does Sophos XDR reduce alert fatigue?

Sophos XDR reduces alert fatigue by stopping more threats upfront with built‑in prevention through Sophos Endpoint, EDR, and EMS all included, correlates related activity into high‑confidence cases, and uses AI to prioritize real risks. Instead of flooding analysts with isolated alerts, Sophos XDR surfaces contextualized cases with timelines, evidence, and recommended actions — so teams focus on what matters most.

Who is Sophos XDR with Next‑Gen SIEM designed for?

Sophos XDR with Next‑Gen SIEM is designed for organizations that want modern, AI‑driven security operations without unnecessary complexity. It supports in‑house security teams that want more control and visibility, organizations with compliance and retention requirements, and teams that want the option to upgrade to fully managed Sophos MDR when needed.

Extended Detection and Response (XDR) with Next-Gen SIEM

Superior detection. Unmatched response. Open by design.

As AI expands the attack surface and accelerates threats, fragmented security tools can’t keep up. Sophos’ AI-Native Cybersecurity Defense System unifies protection, detection, investigation, response, and long term data retention so your team can stop modern attacks faster.

500+

Vast, AI-assisted technology integrations give you complete visibility into human and AI-driven threats across attack surfaces using the tools you already have.

130+

Pre-built automation playbooks accelerate threat response, with flexibility to create more as needed.

10yrs

Data retention available for security and compliance-focused telemetry.

"The relative ease of use of XDR to discover and triage common threats reduces the need for internal skill sets and could reduce staffing levels needed to operate a more complex solution. "

Gartner Hype Cycle for Security Operations, 2025

YOUR CHALLENGES

AI-driven attacks are faster, broader, and harder to detect.

Most environments are built on disconnected tools, each with separate data, alerts, and workflows. At the same time, AI is embedded across email, identity, cloud, and SaaS applications, expanding the attack surface and accelerating adversary behavior. This creates blind spots between systems — exactly where modern attackers thrive.

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The adversary got an AI upgrade

Attackers now operate with speed, scale, and automation that manual workflows can’t match. They don’t break in — they log in, move laterally, and blend into trusted systems.

Fragmentation creates security blind spots

Today’s threats are multi‑stage and cross-domain, moving from identity to email to endpoint to cloud and beyond. Fragmented tools can’t see or connect this activity fast enough to detect and respond effectively.

More alerts, faster attacks — same team headcount

As attacks accelerate, analysts are overwhelmed by more alerts and duplicated effort across security and compliance tools. This creates increasing pressure on already stretched teams, forcing them to work harder to keep up.

WHAT SOPHOS DELIVERS

Sophos XDR Powered by Secureworks

As part of the Sophos AI-Native Cybersecurity Defense System, “Sophos XDR Powered by Secureworks” brings together Secureworks’ Taegis detection and response capabilities, Counter Threat Unit (CTU) intelligence, and deep security operations expertise within Sophos XDR. Following Sophos’ acquisition of Secureworks in 2025, this combination unites Sophos’ AI-driven security and industry-leading threat intelligence with advanced XDR to deliver an open, unified architecture with broad integrations and adaptive protection, detection, and response.

OVERVIEW

AI architecture. Smarter, accelerated response.

One AI‑native system unifies protection, detection, investigation, response, and long-term retention, so your team can move faster with confidence.

Managed Detection and Response - What Sophos MDR delivers - Icon 1

Designed for the agentic era

AI is native to our architecture, not bolted-on, empowering every analyst to operate at SOC scale.

Intelligence that compounds

Real-world intelligence from 625,000+ protected customers and 380,000+ annual MDR investigations compounds automatically, strengthening security across all customers in real time.

Protect, detect, investigate, respond, retain

One unified system serves both security operations and compliance, extending Sophos XDR with long‑term retention and audit‑ready data.

Vendor-agnostic, open by design

Use the tools you already have. With vast, AI-assisted integrations, ingest telemetry across endpoint, identity, email, cloud, network, and business applications.

Respond at machine speed

Automate actions such as threat response, ticket creation, and notifications, with extensive out-of-the-box SOAR connectors and playbooks.

Adversary intelligence, built in

Access top-tier intelligence from Sophos X-Ops, including threat actor insights, malware intelligence, and real-world attack context, directly within your case workflows.

AI-augmented Security Analyst workflow

AI bends the learning curve so every analyst operates with confidence, faster.

Detect and correlate: AI connects signals across your environment, turning raw events into prioritized, understandable threats.
Triage and prioritize: AI eliminates manual triage, grouping related activity into clear cases so analysts can focus on what matters.
Investigate: AI assistants designed by Sophos MDR frontline experts turn complex security data into clear insights, all easily searchable in natural language — no SQL required.
Respond and resolve: AI accelerates response with guided actions, context-aware automation, and integrated SOAR to deliver faster resolution without sacrificing control.

BRING YOUR OWN STACK

Vendor-agnostic by design

Defend against attacks that move across networks without replacing your existing tools. Our unified system connects protection, detection, investigation, response, and data retention in your environment, enabling security teams to operate as one regardless of the technologies in place — including the most comprehensive Microsoft security integration on the market.

With vast, AI-assisted integrations, you can bring together telemetry from endpoint, identity, email, cloud, network, and business applications into a single view. Sophos Next-Gen SIEM extends this to integrate your unique, compliance-focused data.

Two‑way integrations and built‑in automation allow your team to take action directly within your existing tools, reducing friction and accelerating response.

The same system supports real-time operations and long-term data needs. Ingest data from any source and retain it over time, ensuring full context for investigations and reporting.

SOPHOS XDR + NEXT-GEN SIEM

One system for security operations and compliance

Sophos XDR with Next-Gen SIEM unifies protection, detection, investigation, response, and historical context, bringing together real-time security operations and long-term data in one place.

The same system eliminates duplicated effort and disconnected workflows while allowing you to seamlessly ingest unique data and retain it for up to 10 years with simple, predictable pricing.

COMPOUNDING INTELLIGENCE

Built to learn and improve security over time

Sophos XDR with Next‑Gen SIEM is part of an AI-native system that continuously learns from real-world activity across 625,000+ customer environments. Insights from 380,000+ MDR investigations each year refine detections, AI models, and response logic, automatically applied in real time to strengthen protection across all customers.

UPGRADE TO SOPHOS MDR

24/7 fully managed threat response

Sophos MDR is the world's largest Agentic SOC, delivering fully managed, 24/7 detection and response across your entire environment. 52% of cases are resolved end-to-end by AI in just 89 seconds on average, while Sophos analysts supervise the AI, own every outcome, and focus on the threats that demand human expertise.

CONNECT YOUR CLOUD. UNIFY YOUR DEFENSE.

AI-native cloud security, from runtime to response

Unify cloud telemetry from hosts, containers, and cloud services into the same XDR detection and investigation workflow as your endpoint, network, and identity signals. One console. One investigation workflow. No blind spots. Full protection across AWS, Azure, GCP and OCI.

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Frequently asked questions

Extended detection and response (XDR) is a cybersecurity approach that unifies detection, investigation, and response across multiple security layers including endpoint, identity, email, cloud, network, and third‑party tools in a single system. Sophos XDR includes built-in protection with Sophos Endpoint, Endpoint Detection and Response, and Email Monitoring System, correlates signals across your environment, applies AI‑driven analysis, and prioritizes real threats so security teams can detect and respond faster without switching tools or manually connecting the dots.
Next‑Gen SIEM is a modern approach to security information and event management that focuses on usable security outcomes, not just log storage. Sophos Next‑Gen SIEM extends Sophos XDR with long‑term retention and compliance‑focused data ingestion up to 10 years with predictable pricing based on users and servers. The same telemetry used for security investigations supports audits, reporting, and regulatory requirements without deploying a separate SIEM.
XDR is designed for real‑time security operations — detecting, investigating, and responding to threats across the environment. Traditional SIEMs are primarily focused on log aggregation and retention for investigations and compliance. Sophos XDR with Next‑Gen SIEM unifies them in one AI‑native system, so protection, detection, response, historical context, and compliance data work together instead of in parallel tools.
Managed detection and response (MDR) is an outsourced cybersecurity service that combines AI‑driven threat detection technology with a team of human security experts who monitor, investigate, and respond to threats on an organization’s behalf, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Unlike traditional security tools that generate alerts for an internal team to act on, MDR provides both the technology and the people — so threats are contained and eliminated without requiring organizations to hire, train, or retain their own security operations center (SOC) staff.
Sophos MDR is the world’s largest agentic SOC, built on the same AI‑Native Cybersecurity Defense System that powers Sophos XDR with Next‑Gen SIEM. Protection, detection, investigation, response, and long‑term data retention all operate within one unified platform, with AI handling detection and prioritization at machine speed while Sophos Analysts supervise the AI, govern its decisions, and retain full accountability for every outcome.
Sophos XDR has AI as part of its core architecture — not as a bolt‑on feature. AI correlates signals across all control points, reduces alert noise, prioritizes threats, and assists analysts throughout detection, investigation, and response. Agentic AI handles speed and scale, while humans remain in control of critical decisions, ensuring accurate, explainable outcomes.
Yes. Sophos XDR is vendor‑agnostic by design and includes over 500+ integrations across endpoint, identity, email, cloud, network, and business applications. Two‑way integrations allow analysts to take response actions directly in third‑party tools, while Sophos Next‑Gen SIEM enables seamless, AI-assisted ingestion of unique, compliance‑specific data from niche or legacy systems.
Sophos XDR reduces alert fatigue by stopping more threats upfront with built‑in prevention through Sophos Endpoint, EDR, and EMS all included, correlates related activity into high‑confidence cases, and uses AI to prioritize real risks. Instead of flooding analysts with isolated alerts, Sophos XDR surfaces contextualized cases with timelines, evidence, and recommended actions — so teams focus on what matters most.
Sophos XDR with Next‑Gen SIEM is designed for organizations that want modern, AI‑driven security operations without unnecessary complexity.
It supports in‑house security teams that want more control and visibility, organizations with compliance and retention requirements, and teams that want the option to upgrade to fully managed Sophos MDR when needed.