Microsoft gives you strong prevention and telemetry, and depending on your license, you may already own more protection than your team has time to operate. The gap isn't the controls. It's who's watching them at 2am on a Saturday.
Huntress works alongside the Microsoft stack you already have. We help operate key Defender and identity controls, add our own independent detection and response on top, and put a 24/7 SOC behind it all.
Huntress manages Defender AV config, exclusions, scans, and detections inside Managed EDR. The SOC watches it all 24/7 at no added cost.
Defender AV is top-tier in independent testing. Someone still has to configure it, tune exclusions, manage scans, and validate detections.
Huntress drops lightweight canaries across endpoints and opens SOC investigations the moment they move, catching active encryption before it spreads.
Microsoft includes ransomware protections. Canary-based detection of active encryption activity is not a managed outcome Microsoft delivers.
Huntress Managed EDR is built around persistent footholds and malicious process behavior, with its own agent and detection engineering running alongside Defender.
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (MDE) catches a wide range of threats. But tuning and noise around abused legitimate tools remain real operational challenges.
Managed ITDR connects to Microsoft 365 and Entra, detects credential theft, session hijacking, BEC, and rogue OAuth apps, and delivers human-validated incidents with SOC-backed response.
Microsoft hands you Entra and Microsoft 365 signal. Interpreting it, triaging it, and acting on it is on your team.
Huntress disables sign-in, revokes active sessions, and removes malicious inbox rules through identity isolation, as part of the incident response and not a separate task.
Microsoft has the controls to disable accounts and revoke sessions. Executing the response requires your team or custom automation.
Huntress correlates endpoint events like infostealer detections to the Microsoft 365 identities on that machine and surfaces identity remediation inside the same EDR incident. One flow, one SOC.
Endpoint and identity telemetry generally live in separate Microsoft products. Customers with Defender for Identity (ME5/Defender Suite) can see identity-based threats within the Defender portal but investigation and response is on your team.
Every Huntress product is backed by a 24/7 SOC. Analysts investigate, validate, and respond rather than just generate alerts.
Microsoft does not provide a managed SOC as part of any standard Business Premium, E3, or E5 license.
Huntress Managed ISPM continuously audits and enforces Microsoft 365 identity configurations, detects drift, and auto-remediates or escalates with the hardening framework maintained by Huntress, not your team.
Microsoft provides Entra ID configuration controls and security recommendations, but ongoing enforcement, drift detection, and remediation remain the customer's responsibility.
Huntress adds ransomware canaries, persistent foothold detection, and malicious process behavior monitoring alongside the Microsoft controls you already own. These are Huntress-native detection paths built around how attackers actually behave after they're in, not Microsoft features Huntress is surfacing.
Every Huntress product is backed by a 24/7 SOC staffed by analysts who investigate alerts, validate incidents, and execute response actions. Microsoft surfaces the signal. Huntress decides what it means and what to do about it, including at 2am on a weekend.
Huntress correlates endpoint and identity evidence in a single incident workflow and responds across both surfaces in one motion. No manual pivoting between Defender and Entra. No deciding which team owns it. Huntress handles it.
Business Premium includes Defender for Business. E3 includes Defender for Endpoint P1. E5 includes Defender for Endpoint P2. Microsoft's Gartner-leading endpoint protection is in each of these licenses, but we often find that while customers have these licenses, Defender's endpoint protection is underutilized. That's not a knock on Microsoft. It's a reflection of what the license actually delivers. Microsoft ships the controls. They don't ship the operator. Tuning Defender, validating alerts, managing exclusions, handling triage, running incident response, and staying current as threats evolve is a full-time function, and it doesn't come included. Huntress fills that gap for the controls it supports. Managed EDR manages Defender AV config and detections, uses Defender for Business/Endpoint as additional SOC telemetry, and runs Huntress's own agent and detection layer alongside it. The Microsoft engine stays. The operational burden doesn't land on your team.
"Aren't you just managing Microsoft for me?" is the question Huntress hears most in Microsoft shops. The honest answer is: partly yes, and also no. Huntress does operate Defender AV within Managed EDR, and will utilize Defender for Business/Endpoint signals for customers with higher level Microsoft licenses. But Managed EDR also runs Huntress's own agent with detection engineering that isn't built on Microsoft telemetry at all. Ransomware canaries detect active encryption activity the moment a file is touched and open SOC investigations immediately. Persistent foothold detection and malicious process behavior monitoring target the adversary behavior that tends to get missed or de-prioritized when alert queues get long. Those are Huntress-native detections running alongside Microsoft, not Microsoft capabilities Huntress is surfacing. The same principle applies on the identity side. Huntress ingests Microsoft 365 and Entra identity signals for Managed ITDR. Microsoft provides Entra and Microsoft 365 signal. Managed ITDR converts that signal into SOC-reviewed incidents, with response actions (account disablement, session revocation, inbox rule removal) handled by Huntress analysts. That's a managed outcome Microsoft doesn't offer.
One of the clearest "why both" stories in a Microsoft environment is what happens when an infostealer lands on an endpoint. Microsoft shops have the telemetry to see it. What they don't have is a single workflow that connects the endpoint detection to the Microsoft 365 identities at risk on that machine and executes the identity-side response in the same motion. Huntress does. When Managed EDR detects an infostealer, Huntress correlates that event to the cloud identities logged into that machine and surfaces identity remediation inside the same incident report. The SOC handles disabling sign-in, revoking active sessions, and removing malicious inbox rules without waiting for someone to manually pivot between tools, figure out which accounts are exposed, and decide who owns the response. In a Microsoft-only environment, that chain of decisions and actions is the responsibility of your team. With Huntress, our SOC takes the responsibility.
A lot of buyers in Microsoft shops are paying for a third-party endpoint product on top of a Defender license they already own. Bitdefender, Sophos, SentinelOne, CrowdStrike. The second engine often exists because, at some point, the team decided Defender AV couldn't be trusted. That trust gap is worth taking seriously. Defender AV earned a bad reputation, and reputations outlast products. But the current evidence doesn't support continued distrust at the prevention layer. AV-TEST business endpoint results consistently place Defender at top-tier on protection. Defender passed AV-Comparatives' 2025 Anti-Tampering Test against sustained attacks designed to disable or bypass. The more useful question isn't whether Defender is good enough. It's whether the team running two endpoint engines is getting twice the protection or just twice the bill. Huntress works either way: as the operator layer that adds Huntress-native detection and response above whatever engine the buyer trusts, or as the managed service that runs Defender AV and adds Huntress-only detection on top after consolidating the duplicate spend.
The clearest way to explain why Microsoft and Huntress belong together is this: Microsoft sells controls. Huntress delivers the operation of those controls, plus Huntress-native detection and response outcomes that don't come in any license tier. Conditional Access, MFA, Defender, Entra, Microsoft 365. Those are controls. Someone still has to tune them, monitor them, validate what they surface, respond when something breaks through, and stay on call when it happens at an inconvenient hour. That operator function is what Huntress provides, for the specific controls Huntress integrates with today. This is also why "we'll run it ourselves" is a real answer, but only if the team is actually willing to staff the SOC function that comes with it. Triage, investigation, identity response, off-hours coverage, and the ongoing work of staying current with attacker tradecraft don't happen because the license is active. They happen because someone is doing the work. Huntress is for buyers who want those outcomes without building that operator layer themselves.
See how Huntress Managed EDR and Managed ITDR work alongside the Microsoft tools you already own, and where each one fits. Download the Huntress + Microsoft: Better Together datasheet.
Microsoft Defender provides an important prevention and detection layer, but your team still needs to configure, monitor, investigate, and respond to what it finds.
Huntress adds its own endpoint telemetry and detection capabilities, like Persistent Footholds, Ransomware Canaries, and malicious process behavior monitoring. It also adds a 24/7 Security Operations Center (SOC) to investigate and respond to threats.
They run together. Huntress Managed EDR works alongside Microsoft Defender Antivirus, Defender for Business, and Defender for Endpoint.
Huntress can manage supported Defender Antivirus configurations, exclusions, scans, protections, and detections. It also adds its own telemetry, detections, investigation, and response capabilities.
You don't need a paid Microsoft Defender or Entra license to use Huntress Managed EDR with the built-in Microsoft Defender Antivirus on supported Windows endpoints.
Microsoft licensing is required only for Microsoft-specific integrations:
You don't need to upgrade your Microsoft license solely to use Huntress Managed EDR.
The integration gives Huntress Microsoft Defender endpoint security telemetry, including alerts and related process, file, network, and device information. Huntress combines this data with telemetry from the Huntress Agent to investigate activity and identify threats.
Here is how the Huntress SOC handles it:
The integration doesn't currently send every Microsoft security signal for SOC review. Defender for Office 365, Mobile Threat Defense, and custom detections are outside this endpoint integration's current scope.
Huntress's 24/7 AI-centric SOC investigates supported Microsoft Defender alerts. Analysts triage the available evidence, determine whether activity is benign or malicious, and create an incident report when they confirm a threat.
Depending on the product, permissions, configuration, and incident severity, Huntress can also perform supported response actions, such as containment and remediation.
