Organizations drowning in security tasks with too few analysts and resources to handle them are moving in droves away from legacy services from managed security service providers (MSSPs) to more automated managed detection and response options. 

According to a LogicHub survey of IT professionals out this week, 79% of respondents using MSSPs to aggregate alerts are planning an upgrade to MDR services. Nearly a third (30%) already use MDR, with another 42% actively planning an upgrade in the next 12 months, LogicHub said. 

The promise of MDR's ability to stretch strapped security teams and resources with automated response, better threat detection, cloud support, and around-the-clock operations is supercharging the surge, according to the survey's respondents. In fact, 60% of respondents told LogicHub they had false-positive rates above 25%, creating mountains of unnecessary work for analysts. 

"This study has found a significant change in how organizations plan to address today's security challenges," Michael Sampson, senior analyst at Osterman Research, said in a statement about the new MDR service research. "The perfect storm of too many security tools creating too many alerts for overstretched security teams has created an urgent need for many organizations to move to more advanced managed security services."