Managed EDR & Endpoint Security for Waco Businesses
Managed EDR means a named endpoint protection product, managed by someone whose job it is to actually watch what it flags. BMN manages Microsoft Defender for Business across your whole device fleet from one console, and backs it with BMN Aegis, our own security monitoring platform, so alerts get correlated and triaged instead of piling up in a report nobody reads.
- Microsoft Defender for Business, deployed and managed centrally by BMN, not just installed and left alone
- BMN Aegis: our own SIEM/XDR platform, correlating endpoint, network, and log signals in one place
- Automated detection running continuously, with business-hours triage and on-call escalation for anything critical
- Policy enforcement (application control, DNS filtering) that runs as standing policy, not a ticket queue
- Built and operated by BMN. Not a resold subscription to someone else’s security dashboard
What Managed EDR Actually Means
Antivirus checks files against a list of known bad signatures. Endpoint detection and response (EDR) watches behavior: what a process is doing, what it’s trying to connect to, whether a normal-looking file just tried to do something it has no business doing. That’s the real difference, and it’s why traditional AV alone keeps losing to ransomware and credential-theft tools built specifically to slide past signature checks.
The word “managed” is doing the actual work in “managed EDR.” An EDR product without anyone watching it is a log generator. Most small businesses that have EDR at all got it bundled into a license they already own and never touched the console again. The alerts sit there. Nobody’s looking. That’s not protection, that’s a false sense of one.
We run managed IT for around 40 small businesses in and around Waco. The pattern is consistent: the businesses that get hurt by ransomware or business email compromise almost never lacked antivirus. They lacked anyone paying attention to what it was telling them.
What’s Included in BMN’s Managed Endpoint Security
Microsoft Defender for Business, Centrally Managed
We deploy and manage Microsoft Defender for Business across your fleet through delegated admin access, one console for every device instead of forty separate local antivirus panels nobody checks. If you’re already on Microsoft 365 Business Premium, this is licensed and paid for whether you’re using it or not, we just turn on the management and policy layer that makes it worth something. If you’re not on Premium yet, we’ll tell you plainly what that costs before you commit to anything.
Defender for Business stays titled to your Microsoft tenant. That’s deliberate. It’s a named, insurance-recognized product, the kind cyber-insurance applications and vendor security questionnaires actually ask for by brand name. You keep the license. We manage the policy.
BMN Aegis: Our Own Detection and Correlation Layer
Antivirus on a single laptop is one data point. BMN Aegis is where those data points become a picture. It’s our own SIEM and XDR platform, built on Wazuh (an open-source security platform we run ourselves, not rent from a vendor), and it pulls in signals from endpoints, servers, and network gear, not just antivirus alerts. Sysmon telemetry runs alongside it for deeper endpoint visibility.
Here’s the honest version of what “24/7 monitoring” means with Aegis: detection runs continuously, day and night, automated and deterministic. Human triage runs business hours, with critical alerts escalating immediately to our on-call team after hours. We’re not going to tell you there’s a staffed room of analysts watching a wall of monitors at 3 a.m., because there isn’t, and any vendor who tells a small business that for the price they’re charging is usually not being straight with you either. What you get is a system that never sleeps, backed by people who do, and who get paged when it matters.
Enforcement That Runs Without a Phone Call
Detection is half the job. The other half is not letting bad things run in the first place. We push application allow/deny policy (WDAC/AppLocker) and DNS-level filtering as standing policy through BMN Sentinel, our remote monitoring and management platform, so a known-bad domain or an unapproved executable gets blocked automatically instead of waiting on someone to notice and act.
Real Humans Watching the Alerts That Matter
Aegis scores and correlates events automatically so a human isn’t reading every raw log line. What actually needs a person’s judgment gets surfaced, and a real person looks at it, during business hours as the default and on-call for anything time-sensitive. We’d rather tell you exactly how that works than let you assume something bigger and more expensive than it is.
Managed EDR vs. Plain Antivirus
| Plain antivirus | BMN Managed EDR | |
|---|---|---|
| Detection method | Signature matching against known threats | Behavior-based detection plus correlation across endpoints, network, and logs (Aegis) |
| Who’s watching | Nobody, unless someone happens to open the console | Automated detection continuously, human triage business hours + on-call for critical alerts |
| Response | Manual, usually after damage is already visible | Standing enforcement policy (WDAC/AppLocker, DNS filtering) plus human follow-up on real alerts |
| Product ownership | Customer’s license, customer’s problem to monitor | Customer keeps title to a named product (Defender for Business); BMN owns and runs the monitoring layer on top (Aegis) |
| Reporting | None, or a console nobody logs into | Correlated alerts, tied to what’s actually happening across your environment |
Is This Managed XDR?
Extended detection and response (XDR) means the detection layer looks past a single endpoint, tying together signals from endpoints, network devices, and logs instead of treating each one as its own island. That’s exactly what Aegis is built to do: it doesn’t just watch Defender alerts, it correlates them against network and log activity from the same environment. For a business your size, that’s the same category of visibility larger enterprises pay a lot more for, sized to fit a Central Texas small business instead of stripped down to a checkbox feature.
We’re not going to claim feature parity with a Fortune 500 SOC. We’re going to tell you what Aegis actually watches and let that speak for itself.
Who This Is For
We build and manage endpoint security for restaurants, dealerships, manufacturing shops, healthcare admin offices, and professional services firms around Waco, Hewitt, Woodway, and out to Temple and Killeen when the work makes sense. If you’re running Windows devices, have employees who use email, and would rather not find out the hard way what happens when one of them clicks the wrong link, this is built for you.
This isn’t enterprise SOC pricing or enterprise SOC complexity. It’s the right amount of protection for a business that can’t afford a full-time security hire but also can’t afford to gamble on “we have antivirus” being enough.
How Onboarding Works
- We look at what you have. Current AV/EDR, your Microsoft 365 licensing tier, and whether Defender for Business is already paid for and sitting unused.
- We scope the gap, honestly. If you’re already on Business Premium, turning on managed Defender adds no new software cost. If you’re not, we tell you the real number before you decide anything.
- We enroll your fleet under BMN’s delegated admin policy, one console, consistent settings across every device.
- We connect Aegis and tune the baseline to your environment instead of shipping a generic ruleset.
- We keep watching. Ongoing monitoring, tuning, and the same team on the other end of the phone if something goes wrong.
Active incident right now? Suspected breach, ransomware, or a compromised account? Call (254) 845-6012 immediately. Don’t power down. Don’t pay. Reach us here, and read what to do when a business email account gets compromised while you wait for a callback.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is managed EDR, in plain English?
It’s endpoint protection software (in our case, Microsoft Defender for Business) plus someone whose actual job is to manage the policy, watch what it flags, and act on it. The software alone isn’t the product. The management is.
What’s the difference between EDR and XDR?
EDR watches individual endpoints for suspicious behavior. XDR extends that same idea across endpoints, network devices, and logs, so a pattern that looks harmless on one device gets caught when it’s correlated against what’s happening on your network. BMN Aegis is what makes our managed EDR also function as XDR.
Do I need this if I already have Microsoft Defender?
If you’re on Microsoft 365 Business Premium, you likely already have Defender for Business sitting on your tenant, unmanaged. That’s the most common gap we find. You’re already paying for the license. What’s usually missing is the management, the policy, and someone watching what it reports. That’s what we add.
Is someone actually watching this at 3 a.m.?
The detection side runs continuously, day and night, automated. The human side runs business hours by default, with critical alerts escalating to our on-call team after hours. We’d rather tell you that plainly than let you assume a staffed overnight SOC that doesn’t exist. Automated detection plus a real on-call human beats an unmonitored console either way.
Does BMN replace my antivirus with something proprietary?
No. Your endpoint protection stays a named, insurance-recognized product (Microsoft Defender for Business), titled to your own Microsoft tenant. BMN Aegis is the layer we built and operate on top of it, for correlation and monitoring. If you ever needed to walk away, the antivirus keeps working, because it was always yours.
What does managed EDR cost?
It depends on what you’re already licensed for. If you’re on Microsoft 365 Business Premium, Defender for Business is already paid for and the added cost is mainly the management. If you’re not on Premium, there’s a small per-seat cost for the endpoint license itself. Tell us your current setup and we’ll give you a real number, not a “starting at” figure that doesn’t apply to you.
Ready to see where your endpoint security actually stands? Tell us what you’re running today and we’ll assess the gaps, no pressure, no sales pitch. Get in touch.