EDR enables security teams to discover threats lurking undetected on endpoints. This is accomplished through key capabilities: detection, containment, and investigation. EDR uses machine learning to understand normal behavior on an endpoint, detecting when activity deviates. It is then able to isolate the suspected threat and take action.
Detection
When a threat or suspicious activity is detected, EDR security automatically notifies teams and sends detailed information to help them assess the situation. It also triggers automated responses like isolating compromised endpoints, terminating malicious processes, and blocking network connections to prevent a breach from spreading across the organization.
It’s not whether an advanced cyberattack will strike but when. Unlike traditional antivirus (AV) and next-generation firewalls, which are reactive and focused on prevention at the perimeter, EDR security delivers deep detection of stealthy threats that evade front-line defenses. Unlike signature-based protections that rely on known malware behaviors, an EDR solution leverages behavioral detection and machine learning to identify targeted attacks. This helps ensure you can detect the most dangerous threats, even if they’re polymorphic and capable of rapidly changing states.
EDR solutions should also incorporate features that allow them to ingest and analyze data from multiple sources, so they can provide the context needed to differentiate between false positives and real threats. Security teams are often overwhelmed with alerts, some of which may be false positives, so it’s critical that they can quickly and accurately triage and prioritize incidents.
Containment
Modern EDR solutions can detect, fix, and isolate cyber threats on endpoint devices as part of an overall cybersecurity strategy. They also utilize an in-built behavioral analysis capability to study endpoints and keep a log of unusual activity. This allows them to automatically respond to threats and neutralize similar ones in the future.
EDR tools monitor various data sources, such as system configuration changes, file access, network communication, and user actions on the endpoints. They then use machine learning algorithms and AI capabilities to gather and analyze this data. This information is then fed into a database that can identify suspicious behavior patterns and flag them for further inspection.
EDR solutions can perform several functions using this real-time data, including incident triage, threat hunting, and forensics. They can detect if the threat is known malware, flag it for further investigation or quarantine the attack by isolating it from the rest of the endpoints.
This helps prevent the threat from spreading to other systems in your IT infrastructure. It can also allow you to focus on identifying and understanding the root cause of the breach so that it doesn’t happen again. This is where forensics tools become particularly useful in enabling security teams to examine past breaches and understand how the attacker got into the system.
Investigation
The most common way attackers enter a business’ network is by exploiting unprotected endpoints. EDR solutions protect these vulnerable points by detecting suspicious activity, flagging it for further investigation, and taking appropriate actions, such as remotely isolating the affected endpoint or terminating malicious processes.
As a result, the need for sophisticated EDR security tools is now essential to safeguard businesses from crippling cyberattacks. These next-generation solutions deliver comprehensive protection by combining advanced detection and response capabilities with powerful analytics, threat-hunting support, and forensics functions.
An EDR solution establishes a baseline behavior and detects deviations from this expected pattern to detect a security incident. It then sends this data to a central server, where machine learning algorithms and artificial intelligence capabilities collate it into context, allowing analysts to investigate the issue further. The solution also enables IT teams to respond to a detected threat based on pre-configured rules automatically. This speeds up the response times and helps eliminate false positives. Furthermore, it allows IT staff to conduct a deeper analysis of the threat and identifies any underlying vulnerabilities that may have allowed it to bypass traditional security measures. With the growing popularity of flexible work environments, it’s important to protect endpoints from potential threats, even when employees work from home or in another remote location.
Elimination
A security breach can dent any company’s reputation, that’s hard to erase. It can also cost a business millions in losses and make recovering from the financial blows difficult. This is why businesses should not hesitate to invest in EDR security. With the right EDR software, you can build a resilient front against hackers seeking entry through various endpoints. This solution goes beyond the typical signature-based antivirus tools and uses various analytical algorithms to combat advanced persistent threats.
Threat detection is a core EDR capability that identifies suspicious activity and anomalies across an organization’s endpoints. This feature is significant when dealing with advanced malware that can be stealthy and capable of morphing from benign to harmful after circumventing front-line defenses.
A robust EDR security solution should be able to quickly and accurately detect a threat in real-time. It should then provide a comprehensive backstory to help analysts better understand what happened so they can respond appropriately. For example, it should show how the detected file interacted with various apps and data to help pinpoint its location in the network.
