SentinelOne Vigilance MDR: How It’s Quietly Changing the Way SOCs Work
- 15 hours ago
- 5 min read
If you’ve been following my work for a while, you already know this —I’ve written an entire series on SentinelOne.
(If you haven’t read it yet, I’ll drop the link below — go check it out.)
Recently, I also wrote about Dropzone AI and how AI is changing SOC capabilities, and yes, potentially even affecting SOC jobs.
But today, I want to talk about something slightly different.
This is not a new shiny tool.
This is not something extra you need to buy and integrate.
This is something SentinelOne quietly did that changed how SOCs operate — at least in the EDR world.
I’m talking about SentinelOne Vigilance MDR.
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This Isn’t “Just Another MDR”
Before we go deeper, let me clarify one thing.
When people hear Vigilance, they often think only about MDR .But Vigilance actually includes:
Vigilance MDR
Vigilance DFIR
Today, I’m not focusing on Vigilance DFIR.That deserves its own deep dive.
This article is about 24×7 Vigilance MDR —and more importantly, how it changes day-to-day SOC life, not just how it looks on a slide deck.
I’ll also walk through real-world examples later — how investigations look, how alerts are handled, and how much work never even reaches your SOC.
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The Reality: Threats Are Growing Faster Than SOCs
Let’s be honest for a moment.
Threats today aren’t just increasing — they’re:
faster,
broader,
and more complex.
At the same time, there’s a global shortage of experienced cybersecurity professionals.
Most SOCs I’ve seen are struggling with:
alert fatigue,
limited night coverage,
junior analysts forced to make senior-level decisions,
and too much time spent on “Is this even real?”
This is exactly why security teams started leaning toward managed threat services, backed by strong automation.
And this is where SentinelOne made a smart move.
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What Vigilance MDR Actually Is
Vigilance MDR is a 24×7 Managed Detection and Response service designed to extend SentinelOne’s autonomous platform — not replace your SOC.
Here’s the key idea:
Let the platform detect and act fast, let expert humans validate, investigate, and respond —and let your SOC focus on what actually matters.
Vigilance Respond allows organizations to offload threat investigation and response to SentinelOne’s own global security experts.
Not outsourced.
Not third-party.
Actual SentinelOne analysts.
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Speed Matters — and This Is Where It Gets Interesting (As per Sentinel One offical documents) But Reality is little different
One stat that usually makes SOC teams pause:
On average, incidents are resolved in 20 minutes or less.
That’s not because someone is clicking faster.
It’s because:
Storyline™ technology already correlates activity,
threats are prioritized before humans even touch them,
and analysts work with full endpoint context, not raw alerts.
By the time something is escalated to you, it’s usually:
real,
validated,
and already partially or fully contained.
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Everything documents like — service descriptions, MTTR numbers, dashboards —that’s mostly what SentinelOne already documents very well.
And honestly? Their documentation is solid.
If you want to know:
how to configure Vigilance,
how to enable MDR,
how to set policies,
SentinelOne Community already covers this well, so I won’t repeat it here.
What I do want to talk about is:
how Vigilance MDR behaves in real life,
how it feels when you’re actually running a SOC,
and where it helps — and where it still needs humans.
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Vigilance Service Levels (Quick Context)
Just for context, SentinelOne offers Vigilance in multiple service levels:
Vigilance MDR 24×7×365 MDR for endpoints and cloud workloads with a low-friction experience.
Vigilance MDR + DFIR Adds forensic investigations, major incident response, and advisory services.
Singularity™ MDR Goes beyond endpoints, includes Wayfinder Threat Hunting and a named Threat Advisor.
Singularity™ MDR + DFIR Combines extended MDR coverage with full DFIR expertise.
Today, I’m focusing only on Vigilance MDR (24×7).No DFIR deep dive here — that’s a separate topic.
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One Important Thing People Miss About Vigilance MDR
Here’s something
Vigilance MDR does NOT work on custom rules you create (like STAR rules).
It only works on:
alerts generated by SentinelOne detections,
alerts that appear under Threats in the platform.
There are a few edge cases, but in general:
Threat tab → Vigilance analyzes
Alert tab → Vigilance Does not Analyze
If you’re confused about the difference between Threats and Alerts, check my previous articles — I’ve already broken that down in detail.
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What Changes When You Enable Vigilance MDR
Once Vigilance MDR is enabled, you’ll notice a few things immediately:
Threat Services Tab
You get a new Threat Services section where Vigilance is configured and managed.
Escalation Contacts
You define:
primary contact
secondary contact
If Vigilance needs clarification or follow-up, they actually reach out — via email or phone. This isn’t a silent MDR.
Response Policy (This Is Important)
This is one feature I genuinely like.
Not every alert gets:
killed,
quarantined,
or remediated blindly.
Sometimes:
an alert is suspicious,
SentinelOne marks it as true positive,
but Vigilance does not automatically remediate.
Instead, they add context and say:
“Review this and take necessary action.”
Why this matters:
Decisions are made based on context, not just automation.
And honestly — this is how security should work.
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MDR Dashboard: Where You Actually See the Value
Now let’s talk about the MDR Dashboard (available in the Singularity Operations Center).
This dashboard gives scope-level visibility into:
alerts handled by MDR,
alerts outside MDR scope (As i said early Custom rule not handled by Vigilance)
true positives vs false positives,
incidents created,
mitigation actions taken,
MTTR and SLO performance.
This is where you visually see:
“Okay… Vigilance really did close that many alerts for us.”
Severity
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Real-World Examples (This Is the Important Part)
Now let’s move away from theory.
Example 1: False Positive — File Unquarantined
In this case:
file was detected,
process was killed,
file was quarantined automatically.
Vigilance MDR investigated the activity, confirmed it was a false positive, and unquarantined the file.
If you look at the timeline:
behavior is clear,
no malicious intent,
clean execution chain.
Honestly — any experienced analyst would agree with this decision. This is Vigilance MDR working perfectly.
Example 2: False Positive — File NOT Unquarantined
Now this one is interesting.
Even though:
the alert could be considered a false positive,
I personally also see it as low risk,
I still would not want the file unquarantined.
And Vigilance MDR did exactly that:
they marked it as false positive,
but did not restore the file.
Why? Because restoring it could still introduce unnecessary risk.
This is where human judgment matters —and Vigilance MDR respects that.
Small But Important Detail: Auto-Exclusions
In my setup:
I intentionally did not enable auto-exclusions.
I wanted:
the power to stay in my hands.
Yes, Vigilance MDR can automate exclusions —but I prefer manual control, especially in sensitive environments.
True Positive Examples
Example 3: True Positive (Static Detection)
Clear malicious activity. Static detection. No ambiguity.
Vigilance MDR validated it and handled it properly.
Example 4: True Positive With Remediation + Email Follow-Up
This is where Vigilance MDR really shines.
After remediation:
they sent a detailed email,
including deep visibility analysis,
execution chain,
and recommended next steps.
Not just:
“We fixed it.”
But:
“Here’s what happened, why it matters, and what you should do next.”
That email alone can save analysts hours of investigation time.
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The Honest Part: Where Vigilance MDR Isn’t Perfect
Now let’s be honest — because no tool is perfect.
Delays Happen
I’ve noticed:
sometimes a delay of 2 hours,
occasionally even 3 hours,
between:
alert creation,
investigation,
remediation,
and reporting.
Why? Because dynamic alerts take time.
Static alerts are fast — automation kicks in quickly.
Dynamic behavior-based alerts? They need:
correlation,
timeline analysis,
human validation.
And that takes time.
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Final Thought (For Now)
My honest take?
Vigilance MDR is really good.
It dramatically reduces alert fatigue.
It keeps dashboards clean.
It improves SOC sanity.
But:
You still need an analyst behind the table.
Vigilance MDR doesn’t replace humans. It makes humans more effective.
--------------------------------------------------Dean----------------------------------------------------
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