Managed detection and response did not emerge as a fully formed category. It grew out of a very specific problem. Organizations bought better tools, but too many still lacked the people, process, and operational maturity to run them well around the clock. What began in the mid-2010s as a service layer around endpoint detection and response (EDR) has since evolved into something much broader: a security operations model that spans endpoint, identity, cloud, email, SaaS, and now increasingly...

Every MDR market conversation starts with the obvious names. But dark horses are not simply smaller vendors or long shots - they are the companies that could meaningfully reshape shortlists because they are changing the rules, not just competing inside the old ones. That is the more interesting question for 2026.

Between 2025 and 2026, Zscaler embarked on a consequential shift start securing systems making decisions inside them, not just the access.