What is xdr

Layered visibility provides important information, but can also lead to problems, including:. Endpoint detection and response, or EDR, refers to a category of tools used to detect and investigate threats on endpoint devices. EDR tools typically provide detection, analysis, investigation and response capabilities. Compared to EDR, XDR takes a wider view, integrating security across endpoints, cloud computing, email, and other solutions.

EDR tools monitor events generated by endpoint agents to look for suspicious activity, and alerts EDR tools create help security operations analysts identify, investigate and remediate issues. EDR tools also collect telemetry data on suspicious activity and may enrich that data with other contextual information from correlated events.

Through these functions, EDR is instrumental in shortening response times for incident response teams. Managed detection and response MDR services offer dedicated personnel and technology to improve the effectiveness of security operations in threat identification, investigations and response. These services complement traditional managed security services that focus on broad security alert management and triage.

It unifies prevention, detection, investigation, and response in one platform for unrivaled security and operational efficiency. Cortex XDR accurately detects threats with behavioral analytics and reveals the root cause to speed up investigations. Skip to content Skip to search Skip to footer.

Explore XDR. How does XDR work? How do I benefit from XDR? Types of detection and response Endpoint detection and response Endpoint detection and response EDR , a predecessor to XDR, improved on the capability of malware detection and remediation over antivirus' simplistic approach to detection.

Learn more about EDR. Learn more about XDR. Get started Network with your peers and learn more about security topics that interest you. Connect with us. For example, when a SIEM platform generates an alert, instead of having security analysts manually go into endpoint security systems or cloud systems to investigate further, XDR can do this automatically. It can combine data from the SIEM with forensic data from endpoints and cloud resources, and create a complete attack story.

Analysts can immediately understand the full scope of the threat and respond to it. XDR also enables more advanced analytics. SIEM was traditionally based on statistical correlation rules, while XDR introduces AI-driven analysis that establishes behavioral baselines, and identifies anomalies based on these baselines. It can add another layer of analysis to SIEM data, saving even more time for security analysts and improving the time to detection and response.

While XDR platforms are a significant improvement over traditional tools and many EDR systems, these solutions are not foolproof. To ensure that your implementation is effective and that you are getting the greatest protection for your investments, make sure to avoid the following mistakes. XDR solutions need to integrate smoothly with your existing solutions.

If integration requires excessive work or custom plugins, you lose out on productivity gains. While you may not get all of the features of your preferred platform, not having to maintain or build an integration from scratch can be worth the compromise.

Being able to take advantage of native integration enables you to implement a new platform quickly and provides immediate protection enhancements. Likewise, when looking to integrate additional tooling with your XDR, make sure to prioritize those that are already compatible.

Automation is a key driver of the efficiency of XDR. The ability to automate tracking, alerts, and responses is what reduces the workload of security teams and enables them to focus on higher-level tasks. However, automation needs to go beyond simply sandboxing processes or blocking all traffic to be effective. The XDR platform you choose should ideally include automation that adapts to current system conditions and responds based on multiple parameters.

For example, recognizing when a device has connected to your network and being able to either match it to a previous user profile or assigning it a temporary status. This can then enable you to more closely monitor unknown devices and more quickly restrict potentially malicious access.

XDR platforms are supposed to ease the efforts of security and response teams. This goes beyond interfaces and dashboards and extends to configuration and maintenance requirements. If a solution is difficult to update or does not enable settings to be easily set or changed, its value decreases. Additionally, if a platform is constructed of various technologies that are not natively-linked, your teams are effectively still using disparate tools.

These tools are unlikely to be as effective and are more likely to require extra operational efforts. End to end, fully automated breach protection is now within reach of any organization, regardless of security team size and skill level. Cynet can be deployed across thousands of endpoints in less than two hours. It can be immediately used to uncover advanced threats and then perform automatic or manual remediation, disrupt malicious activity and minimize damage caused by attacks.

The main promise of XDR is to reduce the likelihood of breaches that will have an impact on an organization and its customers. XDR gives analysts contextual information about real attacks that can help them understand, contain and eradicate the threat more quickly. It can do this by combining data sources from the entire cybersecurity ecosystem, including endpoints but extending to networks, cloud resources and other resources, and helping analysts visualize the entire kill chain.

In addition, XDR can achieve significant efficiencies in security organizations, which suffer from a talent shortage and scarce resources.

XDR is a unified platform, rather than a set of separate security tools, making it easy to deploy, upgrade, expand, and manage. This reduces the need for extensive training and certifications, and improves productivity, especially for Tier 1 security analysts. XDR collects activity data from multiple vectors including endpoints, servers, and networks, providing a level of detection that is difficult or impossible to achieve with SIEM or isolated security solutions. Tools like next generation antivirus NGAV , endpoint detection and response EDR or network detection and response NDR are only effective against attacks that are focused on one layer of the security environment, and find it difficult to detect and respond to threats that cross multiple layers, for example leveraging a compromised endpoint to attack the network.

However, EDR is ultimately limited because it can only see the endpoint in a complex attack story. This limits the scope of the threats that can be detected and mitigated. Click here By clicking next I consent to the use of my personal data by Cynet in accordance with Cynet's Privacy Policy and by its partners.

XDR is designed to help security teams: Identify threats that are highly sophisticated or hidden Track threats across multiple system components Improve detection and response speed Investigate threats more effectively and efficiently XDR was developed as an alternative to point security solutions which were limited to only one security layer, or could only perform event correlation without response.

Analytics and Detection XDR solutions rely on a range of analytics for threat detection. Below are some of the analytical features that are typically included: Analysis of both internal and external traffic —ensures that malicious insiders and compromised credentials are detected as well as identifying external attacks.