Huntress Exec Addresses Four Myths MSPs Have About The Company

‘I can honestly say that Huntress’ managed SIEM has come further in about 14 months than many others in this space have come in four to five years,’ says Jeremy Young, Huntress’ community growth strategist.

Huntress wants a word with MSPs who hold certain misconceptions about the Columbia, Md.-based company.

Jeremy Young, Huntress’ community growth strategist, told an audience of MSPs at this week’s 2025 XChange NexGen conference in Houston that there are several myths MSPs and their clients have about Huntress he hoped to dispel.

XChange NexGen is hosted by CRN parent The Channel Company.

The first myth is that a customer that already has antivirus capability doesn’t need anything else. Young said that Huntress understands the sentiment and has added its technology on top of the Microsoft Defender security suite.

“We have added support for both Microsoft Defender Antivirus and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint,” he said. “And we added our own EDR [endpoint detection and response] functionality with the Huntress SOC [Security Operations Center] to contain threats, remediate on your behalf and provide guidance for cleanup, all included. For the price and the built-in MSP functionality, there is not another better EDR security value out there, period.”

While some in the industry wonder why Huntress works with Microsoft Defender, Young said that his company does its best work with the offering.

“If you still think of Defender as anything other than a global leader in AV and EDR, think again,” he said. “Microsoft Defender has been at the top of the Gartner Magic Quadrant for over six years running. It’s no joke.”

Huntress’ value is not on preventative measures, but post-prevention detection and response, Young said.

“Looking at EDR reports from 2024, less than 7 percent came from Defender,” he said. “The other 93 percent came from Huntress. No matter which preventative tools are in place, we detect and respond to the attacks that get through. That’s the value of Huntress.”

The second myth is that Huntress’ security awareness training isn’t that impressive, Young said.

“OK, starting in 2022 we had to tear that one down to the studs and rebuild it,” he said. “We assigned the best product manager in the business to the project, and now it’s one of the freshest tools out there. It’s an entirely renewed product. It’s fully managed by our security experts, and it truly helps build a security-first culture.”

The third myth is that Huntress’ managed detection and response (MDR) has a lot of false positives, Young said.

“We agreed we had a false start on that one,” he said. “We have rebuilt it, and it’s now honestly the best MDR offering out there. We detect things like session hijacking, shadow workflows, rogue apps and credential theft, and added things like automated identity isolation.”

The fourth myth is that SIEM, or security information and event management, is not yet ready for prime time, Young said.

“It is the newest part of the platform,” he said. “But now it’s about a year old, and I have quite a bit of this experience in this space, and I can honestly say that Huntress’ managed SIEM has come further in about 14 months than many others in this space have come in four to five years. Huntress has the affordable compliance-ready SIEM that you’re going to need for about 95 percent of your clients. Combined with Huntress’ MDR, ITDR [identity threat detection and response] and SAT [security awareness training], the solution addresses the compliance questions while adding security value without breaking things.”

Young also said that Huntress is now 10 years old and has no plans to be acquired.

“We raised over $300 million minority venture capital, with zero strategic investors,” he said. “Our founders are still in control of the board. Along the way, we’ve always had frequent acquisition offers. We’ve taken zero to the board for consideration in 10 years. We’re in this for long run.”

Young had the right message about SIEM, said Suat Atalay, CTO at STN Solutions, a San Diego-based MSP.

Atalay told CRN that he looked at Huntress’ SIEM technology, but it was new at the time.

“SIEM solutions are quite costly, but Huntress seems to now have a pretty good offering,” he said. “SIEM in general requires training. When you log into it if you are not trained, well, you are just looking at it. But Huntress is focusing on what their technology does for us. That’s why I like the way they operate. And I think our customer base is ready for it.”