There has never been a more crucial time for businesses to invest in cybersecurity than now. With the rise of digital transformation, cloud computing, the Internet of Things (IoT), and remote work, cybercriminals have more opportunities to exploit network, system, and application vulnerabilities. Therefore, businesses must invest in cybersecurity to protect against advanced threats, reduce the impact of security incidents, and secure sensitive data and information from unauthorized access, theft, and damage.
When discussing securing networks and protection from threats, the terms EDR, MDR and XDR are hot topics in the security sector and dominate many conversations.
EDR stands for Endpoint Detection and Response, a cybersecurity technology that provides real-time monitoring, detection, and response to advanced threats targeting endpoints such as desktops, laptops, servers, and mobile devices. EDR solutions use advanced analytics and machine learning algorithms to detect and respond to potential threats before they can cause damage.
On the other hand, XDR stands for Extended Detection and Response, which is an evolution of EDR. XDR solutions provide comprehensive threat detection and response capabilities across multiple security domains, including endpoints, networks, cloud environments, and applications. In addition, they can aggregate and correlate data from various sources to provide a complete picture of security threats and enable faster and more effective incident response.
Lastly, MDR refers to Managed Detection and Response, which is not a specific technology but a managed service that offers the benefits of EDR and XDR to a company to assist with the challenges of hiring cybersecurity professionals who have the experience needed to build an in-house security program.
In summary, EDR is focused on endpoint security, while XDR is a more comprehensive security approach that extends beyond endpoints to cover other areas of the organization’s infrastructure. MDR is an option that companies can take advantage of to gain all the benefits of an EDR or XDR solution without deploying and managing that solution in-house.
As of 2020, nearly 70% of breaches still occur at the endpoint, according to EY Global Information Security. By prioritizing endpoint security, organizations can protect their sensitive data, mitigate potential threats, comply with regulations, and ensure the overall resilience of their networks.
Endpoint detection and response focuses on securing the endpoint in your network. Traditionally, this would be desktop PCs, but today endpoints often include IoT devices, smartphones, tablets, and laptops. EDR is similar to EPP (Endpoint Protection) solutions that rely on known database threats to detect and resolve threats. However, EDR is better suited to detecting and identifying unknown threats because it focuses on active monitoring. EDR gives greater visibility and insight into events in a network so that security teams can quickly resolve threats when they arise. However, because EDR solutions focus on endpoints, there is a limit to the amount of data available for analysis. Without context from other areas of the network or in the cloud, for example, it can be challenging to determine what is a genuine threat between false positives in an EDR solution. Furthermore, EDR solutions can contribute to overwhelming alerts when used as part of a SIEM (security information and event management) platform. This can lead to alert fatigue for the IT team.
Compared to an EDR solution, extended detection and response (XDR) differ in scope and capabilities. XDR is considered the evolution of EDR and offers a more holistic and broader approach to threat detection and response. XDR broadens the scope of security by integrating protection across a broader range of products, including endpoints, servers, cloud applications, emails and more. This more general view allows for a more comprehensive understanding of the overall security posture and helps detect threats that may span across different platforms.
XDR is usually offered as software-as-a-service (SaaS), making it easier for businesses to access this technology. XDR combines prevention, detection, investigation, and response, providing greater visibility, analytics, correlated incident alerts, and automated responses to help organizations improve their data security and combat advanced threats. By analyzing data centrally, XDR can identify and correlate indicators of compromise (IoCs) and behavioural patterns across different environments. This contextualized threat detection enables the identification of complex and sophisticated attacks that may go unnoticed when solely relying on endpoint data.
While EDR solutions focus more heavily on endpoint incident response, XDR extends incident response across multiple environments to gain a holistic view of an attack, track its progression and respond across endpoints, networks, cloud applications and other components. This cross-environment incident response allows for a more coordinated and efficient approach to mitigating threats. In addition, XDR enhances an organization’s ability to identify and reduce sophisticated threats across a broader attack surface by extending visibility, correlating data across environments, and integrating advanced analytics.
Depending on the managed services provider, a managed detection and response (MDR) solution can offer similar benefits to an EDR and XDR solution. It is a cost-effective solution for companies that do not have the in-house capabilities to hire and train an entire security team capable of handling an XDR solution. MDR services are designed to scale with the needs of an organization and can accommodate growing networks, expanding security requirements and evolving threats. Managed detection and response allows businesses to focus on their core operations while relying on the MDR provider for the necessary expertise, technologies and tools to handle endpoint security.
EDR, XDR and MDR solutions have their differences, and they can be the right cybersecurity solution for businesses depending on needs. For example, while EDR remains valuable for endpoint-focused security, XDR offers a more comprehensive and proactive approach to threat detection and response. On the other hand, MDR can provide businesses with the benefits of EDR and XDR through a 3rd party managed services provider.
