Extended Detection & Response (XDR)
What is XDR?
XDR is a Software as a Service (SaaS) based threat detection and incident response tool that essentially integrates multiple security products into unified security operations systems.
How is XDR different from MDR, EDR, NDR & SIEM?
Managed Detection & Response (MDR) — denotes outsourced cybersecurity services which is designed to protect data and assets of an organization.
It is considered as cloud managed security for organizations that cannot maintain their own security operations center.
This type of service combines advanced analytics, threat intelligence and human expertise in incident investigation and response at host and network levels.
Endpoint Detection & Response (EDR) — Also referred to as Endpoint Threat Detection & Response (EDTR), is an endpoint security solution that continuously monitors end-user devices to detect and respond to cyber threats.
It records and stores endpoint system level behaviors, uses various data analytics & techniques to detect suspicious system behavior, blocks malicious activity and also provides remediation suggestions to restore affected systems in real-time.
Network Detection & Response (NDR) — Primarily captures inbound and outbound network traffic/internet communications to detect threats that bypass traditional firewalls.
It also can be used to monitor/detect threats in lateral environment (LAN communications) but could be costly, so they are replaced by EDR in such cases.
Security Information & Event Management (SIEM) -
provides organizations with next-generation detection, analytics and response.
SIEM solutions use rules and statistical correlations to drive actional insight during forensic investigations.
It examines all data, sorting threat activity according to its risk level to help security teams identify malicious actors and mitigate cyber attacks quickly.
Why XDR is the Future?
Security Operations in organizations are dealing with ever-expanding complex threats in cyber space.
The attack patterns have changed, threat actors are utilizing modern techniques and as the COVID-19 pandemic hit, many are forced to work remotely. This could be a huge issue to sort with solutions like NDR.
As employees are connected through their home networks, that makes it more challenging to monitor/filter the traffic. There is a good possibility that remote staffs’ devices could be compromised.
Solutions like EDR, NDR, MDR & SIEM have their own advantages and disadvantages, as some are vendor specific and are only available in certain data formats.
They are also limited in threat Intelligence because of the limited data pool as they support different data formats.
With XDR integrated to the SIEM than is used by the organization, it creates a larger data pool which has data/threat Intel from numerous sources that can be ingested for detection and response.
Unlike the other solutions which use different vendor/platform specific data formats, XDR makes it easier by having a common data format which gives the SecOps team more data to correlate & also uses Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to automatically issue detection and response alerts based on signature and user/tool behavioral patterns.
