EDR VS XDR: UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE

Introduction

Today, we use different devices to connect to networks, including smartphones, tablets, laptops, etc. Cyberthreats can compromise any of these devices if endpoint security is not maintained. Endpoint security aims to secure endpoints connected to a network to protect them against unauthorized access or any other malicious activity at these points of entry.

However, this may be challenging for IT departments to navigate the vendor landscape, especially when the cybersecurity industry relies overly on acronyms. “Despite the increased IT spending on endpoint security solutions, 70% of all breaches still originate at endpoints”. EDR, XDR, and MDR are emerging endpoint security solutions that provide greater insights into threat detection and response across all endpoints.

Detection and Response can start in many places and be organized differently. That’s why it’s important to distinguish which approach to take, including XDR, EDR, MDR, etc. IT teams must increase their visibility and ability to provide solutions remotely. Often, one of the biggest hurdles is to understand what each solution actually provides.

Here in this article, we will discuss two evolving endpoint solutions, Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) and Extended Detection and Response, and the difference between these two solutions.

What is Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)?

Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) can be defined as the threat detection and response solution that uses several data analytic techniques to record endpoint behavior, detect suspicious system activity, provide information, block suspicious activity, and help remediate the affected systems. According to Gartner, an effective EDR solution must provide the following capabilities to organizations:

• Detect security incidents
• Contain the incident at the endpoint
• Investigate security incidents
• Provide remediation suggestions

Simply put, EDR provides advanced solutions by identifying persistent threats and malware that can evade custom security defenses. “Gartner predicts that more than 50% of enterprises will have replaced older antivirus products and legacy endpoint security solutions with EDR by the end of 2023”.

 Initially, The EDR solution provides deep insights into endpoint security through its automated detection and response capabilities. A typical EDR solution enables you to mitigate threats, prevent attacks, and hunt threat activities. The primary objective of EDR is to transform from traditional security to proactive threat management.

Benefits of EDR

Effective EDR solutions have a lot of potential to provide visibility into your endpoint behavior. As mentioned above, 70% of all breaches start at endpoints, taking the Endpoint Detection and Response approach can be valuable for security professionals. EDR can benefit your business in the following ways.

• Provide quick incident response

Analysts have to spend tiring hours investigating attacks that may reduce response efficiency. An EDR solution can accelerate the response process by automating the processes analysts may have to conduct manually. Its built-in security helps security teams respond to threats effectively, enhancing the incident response time.

• Enable flexible working

The pandemic has changed the way we used to work in the past. With the evolution of BYOD and hybrid working, employees look for companies that can offer a flexible working environment. However, this creates a challenge for security professionals to protect endpoint devices. Managed EDR solution reduces the pressure on security teams by automating monitoring and response, thus enabling flexible working for employees.

• Understand how an attack took place

Often analysts are unable to understand how the malware got into the system and how the attacker identified the attack surface. EDR solution provides “threat cases” to resolve this issue. It helps IT teams understand how an attack took place and how to prevent future attacks.

• Reduced false positives

EDR solutions reduce false positives by investigating suspicious activity before alerting the security team. It shuts the alert if the event is found to be non-suspicious, reducing the cumbersome false positives analysts may have to analyze.

What is Extended Detection and Response (XDR)?

The endpoint may be a major target for cybercriminals, but each of them is only an element of the organization’s entire IT infrastructure. Infrastructure is composed of several systems of varying types. Managing a diverse network infrastructure can be complex for security professionals.

Extended Detection and Response (XDR) not only simplifies enterprise security management for endpoints but also the organization’s entire infrastructure, including cloud infrastructure, mobile devices, servers, SIEM, and other networks. It helps security teams manage and enforce security policies across the enterprise and simplify security management. An effective XDR solution offers the following capabilities.

• Provides threat-focused analysis
• Threat detection and data fidelity
• Data investigation and threat handling
• Proactive response to mitigate risks and remediate threats

Extended Detection and Response (XDR) is basically a more evolved approach to endpoint security than Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR). XDR has broadened the scope of detection and response beyond endpoints. It provides a unified platform to view across multiple attack vectors. XDR integration provides enhanced threat detection, improves productivity and forensics.

Benefits of XDR

XDR acknowledges the fact that only endpoint detection is not enough for the security of modern IT infrastructure. Compromised components are not only present at the endpoints but also abnormal traffic across the network, unauthorized access, and malicious cloud activity can indicate trouble equally. Some benefits of XDR include:

• It provides integrated incident response options to resolve alerts quickly
• XDR provides automation capabilities for tiring repetitive tasks to enhance productivity
• It helps highlight alerts that need to be prioritized for manual investigation.
• It provides incident response for control points beyond infrastructure, including cloud workloads, servers, and networks.
• It provides automated analytics to security professionals to identify, triage, and prioritize threats while analyzing piles of data simultaneously.

Difference between EDR and XDR

While XDR and EDR provide endpoint detection, both are not the same. XDR is a more evolved approach towards detection and response. It takes endpoint security to the next level by providing more productive capabilities than EDR. While EDR provides security against endpoint attacks, protection is limited to only endpoints. On the other hand, XDR extends detection and response beyond the endpoint infrastructure using combined capabilities of SIEM, NDR, and EDR tools to secure the organization’s entire infrastructure. While both are designed to replace traditional approaches to cybersecurity, EDR and XDR solutions are different in several ways.

• Focus: EDR solution provides endpoint-focused security with in-depth visibility and threat detection for a particular device. Whereas XDR takes a wider approach by integrating security across all endpoints, cloud workload, and other solutions.
• Solution Integration: EDR protects endpoints, enabling the organization to manually integrate them with point solutions. On the other hand, XDR provides integrated visibility within a unified solution, enabling simplification of the organization’s security architecture.
• Network-based detection: XDR detection and response go beyond endpoint security targeting network detection, investigation and response. Whereas network-based detection is not present on EDR.
• Time consumption: An EDR solution may be time-consuming for complex and specialized investigations. XDR is less time-consuming than EDR.

source: Paloalto Networks

Relying only on the EDR tool for endpoint data may provide limited visibility and result in missed detections compared to the XDR tool. An XDR tool provides robust threat intelligence and forensics capabilities combined in a single solution.

Is XDR better than EDR?

While EDR is a great tool to protect against threats and respond to attacks targeting endpoints, XDR provides protection for the entire security infrastructure of an organization.  For example, an attacker used malware to target networks through a compromised endpoint. EDR can help to detect this malware and remove it from end-user devices.

However, what the EDR solution can’t visualize is that while it was removing the malware from endpoints, the attacker may have moved laterally across the network. If not detected, this attack can be a liability to the system, user credentials, and sensitive data. XDR solutions can quickly detect these attack techniques, providing a broader view of data, including endpoints, cloud, networks, and identity data.

So, we can say that XDR is better than EDR and it provides greater visibility into your security infrastructure.

How to choose an ideal solution for your organization?

While EDR and XDR are different in many ways, they also share several common capabilities when it comes to endpoint detection and response. Choosing the right solution depends upon organizations’ security needs and their approach toward security. Let’s have a look at which solution may be ideal for your organization.

EDR solution may be ideal for your business if your organization:

• Wants to enhance endpoint security posture and capabilities beyond Next-Generation Antivirus (NGAV)
• Wants to integrate security in its early stages of cybersecurity strategy.
• Already has an Information Security team that can act according to the alerts and recommendations executed by EDR solution.

XDR solution is ideal for you if your organization wants to:

• integrate advanced threat detection across its infrastructure
• accelerate investigation, threats analysis, and threat mitigation
• enhance ROI across all security protocols

Final words

Despite several variations between the XDR and EDR solution, both enable increased visibility into endpoint security, rapid threat response, and threat hunting. Selecting the right solution for your organization depends completely upon your desired outcome and approach that is well-tailored to your security needs.