Defining Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
Extended Detection and Response (XDR) is a comprehensive security solution which integrates various security products and data into a simplified, unified system. XDR security combines prevention, detection, investigation, and response to provide a holistic cloud-based security approach.
Gartner defines XDR as a “unified security incident detection and response platform that automatically collects and correlates data from multiple proprietary security components.”
How XDR Works?
XDR can combine data that is siloed into different security solutions so that they can work together to boost the visibility of threats and cut down the time required to find and act on an attack. The XDR solution makes possible advanced forensic investigation and threat hunting functions in several domains from a single console.
Here is the straightforward step-by-step process of how XDR works:
5 Core XDR Capabilities
XDR platforms are game changers when it comes to orchestrating cyber threat detection and response across an organization’s entire digital landscape. They help stop cyberattacks in their tracks by bringing together all those different security tools into a single open XDR platform. This approach breaks down those traditional security isolations and offers maximum protection against cyber threats. Let’s dive into the five primary capabilities of XDR:
Incident-based Investigation
One of the unique features of XDR is its ability to collect low-level alerts and stitch them together into incidents. This gives security analysts a complete picture of potential cyberattacks much faster than before. Instead of sifting through random bits of information, they can quickly uncover and understand cyber threat activity, boosting productivity and enabling quicker responses.
Automatic Disruption of Advanced Cyberattacks
XDR leverages high-quality security signals and built-in automation to detect ongoing cyberattacks. It can automatically take action, like isolating compromised devices and user accounts to thwart attackers. This means organizations can lower risks, minimize the impact of incidents, and make the cleanup process a lot easier for their security professionals.
Cyberattack Chain Visibility
With XDR’s ability to pull alerts from a wider range of sources—including EDR solutions and traditional security information and event management (SIEM) systems—analysts can see the entire cyberattack chain. This visibility reduces investigation time and increases the chances of successfully remediating full-blown cyberattacks, which is critical in today’s fast-paced threat landscape.
Auto-healing of Affected Assets
Another fantastic capability of XDR is that it can automatically restore assets affected by ransomware, phishing, and business email attacks back to a safe state. It performs tasks like killing off malicious processes, deleting harmful forwarding rules, and isolating compromised devices and user accounts by using XDR sensors. This automation frees up security teams to focus on tackling more complex, high-risk cyber threats, all while having the support of a security operations center (SOC) for continuous monitoring.
The “Response” in Extended Detection and Response
The “response” aspect of Extended Detection and Response (XDR) is what truly sets it apart. It enables various responses, including:
- Automatic Configuration Changes: XDR can update settings automatically to enhance preventive measures and improve the overall security posture.
- Faster Investigations and Resolutions: With the ability to collect data from various sources, XDR helps security teams investigate and resolve issues more quickly.
- Automated Responses: Many responses can be automated, increasing efficiency and speed in managing detection processes.
- Automatic Deception Paths: XDR can create deceptive pathways to confuse and mislead potential attackers, effectively using security information and event management strategies.
By automating responses, security teams can more effectively detect threats, investigate unusual activities, and respond promptly when a cyber incident occurs. This feature allows for continuous adjustments to the security posture, implementing policy controls to reduce the attack surface and mitigate the impact of attacks. Ultimately, this results in a continuous reduction of risk for the entire enterprise.
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- Network, Cloud, and Endpoint Security
- 9x Faster Detection and Response
- Full Control of Your Attack Surface
Benefits of an XDR cybersecurity solution
- Comprehensive Threat Detection: An XDR security platform integrates multiple security components for a holistic view, enhancing the detection of advanced threats.
- Reduced Alert Fatigue: Correlates and prioritizes alerts, minimizing volume and allowing focus on critical threats.
- Faster Incident Response: Extended Detection and Response provides centralized visibility and automated incident response capabilities enable swift detection and containment of threats.
- Improved Security Posture: Real-time insights and proactive risk mitigation strengthen overall security defenses.
- Enhanced Visibility and Context: Detailed visibility and contextual information empower informed decision-making and effective response.
- Scalability and Flexibility: Adaptable to varying organizational needs and scalable for growth.
- Regulatory Compliance: Helps meet compliance requirements with comprehensive threat detection and reporting capabilities.
- Cost Efficiency: XDR solution consolidates security tools, reduces manual effort, and mitigates financial impacts of breaches.
XDR vs. Other Security Solutions
Cyber threats have evolved in a manner that has become complex and sophisticated, while organizations look for multiple solutions to enhance their security posture. The XDR in cybersecurity differs from other answers because it offers a more comprehensive and integrated approach toward threats detection, response, and mitigation.
XDR Vs. EDR
XDR solutions carry at least one built-in sensor, which is most often an Endpoint agent or a threat prevention, detection, and response agent. The latter is also known as Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR). EDR for endpoints extends to multiple vectors wherein several connect to integrate data from the network, cloud, identity and access management, and applications.
This generates an overall view that becomes much broader, thereby enabling better threat hunting, faster incident response times, and improved overall security posture.
XDR compared to NDR
Network Detection and Response (NDR) zeroes in on network traffic analysis and monitoring through which actual or potential security threats are detected and responded. XDR, by contrast, encompasses network data analysis combined with endpoint, cloud, identity and access management, and application telemetry, thus making it a more holistic and interconnected security approach.
XDR compared to ITDR
ITDR counteracts the identity and credential compromise threats by detecting them. XDR encompasses identity data within the larger scope of data collected and analysed through its system, thus making it possible to detect and mitigate a broad range of security threats, including identity-related ones. ITDR increasingly builds as integrated functions of XDR solutions.
XDR Vs. SIEM
SIEM systems collect and correlate log data across the IT environment. It offers real-time analysis of security alerts and enables compliance reporting and incident response-all in one place.
However, SIEM is inherently reactive. Also, some SIEM solutions are dependent on predefined rules. In unifying control points, security infrastructure, and threat intelligence, XDR automatically correlates data from multiple security products, so proactive threat detection and better incident response can be made possible.
6 Industry XDR use cases
Cyber threats vary in relevance and type, making the need to detect, investigate, and remediate differ, while the enterprise approaches differ in how they address a variety of cybersecurity challenges across IT environments. Some of the most use cases of XDR include:
Cyber threat hunting
With XDR, organizations automate cyber threat hunting. Cyber threat hunting refers to the proactive search for unknown or undetected threats across an organization's security environment. A security team can use these tools to disrupt pending threats and in-progress attacks before significant harm is caused.
Security incident investigation
The attack surfaces will automatically have data collected from them, correlation of abnormal alerts, and root-cause analysis performed. Complex attacks will now have a central management console with visualizations that will enable the security teams to determine which of the incidents may be malicious and hence will need further investigation.
Threat intelligence and analytics
XDR exposes firms to large volumes of unfiltered data regarding new or ongoing emerging threats. Its powerful threat intelligence capabilities monitor and plot global signals daily, analyzing them to help firms detect and respond in a proactive manner to ever-changing internal and external threats.
Email phishing and malware
Quite often, employees and customers forward emails they believe to be part of a phishing attack to an assigned mailbox for security analysts' manual analysis. With XDR, that same malware from the email attachments is automatically analyzed and the emails identified with malicious attachments deleted entirely across an organization. It offers enhanced protection while eradicating most repetitive tasks. Also, with XDR's automation and ML capabilities, teams can detect and contain malware even more proactively than this.
Insider threats
Insider threats, whether malicious or by mistake, cause compromised accounts, data exfiltration, and reputational harm for the company. XDR in cyber security makes use of behavior, amongst other analytics, to detect suspicious online activities such as credential abuse and large data uploads that may imply insider threats.
Endpoint device monitoring
With XDR, security teams can automatically run endpoint health checks, powered by indicators of compromise and attack to identify in-progress and pending threats. Visibility across endpoints is what XDR offers, hence enlisting the support from security teams to understand where the threats originated and how they have spread to isolate and stop them.
Future of XDR Security Solutions
Here is what the future of extended detection and response solutions could look like:
- Integration of ML: Expect increased integration of machine learning (ML) for more advanced threat detection and response capabilities.
- Expansion to SMEs: Anticipate wider adoption of XDR solutions by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) seeking comprehensive cybersecurity without the complexity of managing multiple tools.
- Regulatory Implications: Watch for regulatory frameworks evolving to accommodate XDR adoption and ensure compliance with data protection and cybersecurity standards.
- Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Environments: With the rise of hybrid and multi-cloud environments, XDR solutions will need to adapt to provide seamless security coverage across distributed infrastructures.
- Threat Intelligence Sharing: Collaboration and threat intelligence sharing among organizations and XDR vendors may increase to enhance collective defense against sophisticated cyber threats.
- Zero Trust Architecture Integration: Integration with zero trust XDR architecture principles to enforce strict access controls and reduce the attack surface, enhancing overall security posture.
- User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) Advancements: UEBA capabilities within XDR solutions may evolve to provide more granular insights into user behavior and insider threats.
- Interoperability and Standardization: Expect efforts toward interoperability and standardization among XDR solutions to facilitate seamless integration with existing security ecosystems.
What to look for in an XDR Security platform?
Extended Detection and Response is a leading cyber defense strategy. An XDR cybersecurity tool provides visibility, detection, and response capabilities across every phase of a cyber-attack in on-prem, hybrid- and multi-cloud environments.
Key components to look for in an XDR tool often include:
- Unified coverage across hybrid IT environments, to enable centralized management and control of detection and endpoint security, response for networks, and cloud that provides contextual information and advanced analytics, blocks malicious activity, and offers remediation suggestions to restore affected systems.
- Data Loss Prevention security solution, including line-speed decryption and re-encryption to mitigate the risks of accidental data loss and the exposure of sensitive data.
- Email/Web Gateway Protection to defend users from email and internet-borne threats, and to help enterprises enforce policy compliance.
- Open integration with third-party vendors to leverage existing investments and simplify operations, so organizations have a choice of technology while still benefiting from the inherent value offered from an extended detection and response platform.
- Deception technology, to automatically create fake digital artifacts that confuse attackers and alert defenders to a hacker’s presence so IT teams can study and stop attackers before they reach production assets.
- MSSP-Managed Security Solutions
- Cyber Terrain Mapping & Threat Intelligence
- Deception Technology Integration
- SOC Threat Prevention Strategies
What Influencers are Saying About Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
The definition of XDR is “a security incident detection and response platform that automatically collects and correlates data from multiple security products,” according to Gartner Research, 2021.
Analyst firm ESG considers XDR to be an emerging, commercial version of a security operations and analytics platform architecture (SOAPA) that integrates security control points, automates remediation and IR, and provides advanced analytics for detecting advanced and sophisticated threats. “As it matures, XDR has the potential to improve security efficacy, streamline security operations, and modernize SOCs”.
Fidelis Elevate XDR® - Stops Cyber Threats 9X Faster
Fidelis Elevate® is an integrated and automated Extended Detection and Response (XDR) platform, purpose-built for proactive cyber defense that helps in operationalizing the security team’s objectives and fulfilling the core requirements of adaptive security architecture.
Fidelis Elevate®, enables IT security teams to be more efficient and effective.
This active XDR security platform:
Uniquely integrates deception solution with traditional detection and response across network security, endpoint security and cloud security to quickly re-shape the attack surface so you can stop adversaries earlier in the attack lifecycle.
This enables security teams to find, study and stop attackers earlier, while making it more costly and expensive for cyber adversaries.
Fidelis XDR Solution helps security teams answer the questions:
- Where are adversaries lurking in our network?
- How would hackers attack our business?
- How do I stop cyber threats immediately?
- How do I prevent future cyber-attacks?
Frequently Ask Questions
Is XDR suitable for all types and size organizations, or is it more oriented toward specific industries or use cases?
XDR benefits can be applied to any organization, regardless of size or industry. Though implementation varies according to specific needs, it is a holistic cybersecurity solution adaptable to all.
What is the difference between native and hybrid XDR?
Native XDR systems integrate with an enterprise’s existing portfolio of security tools, while hybrid XDR also uses third-party integrations for telemetry data collection.
Do I need both EDR and XDR?
XDR extends EDR by integrating with other security tools, including but not limited to, EDR that provides holistic detection and response across endpoints, networks, and cloud environments. EDR focuses solely on endpoint security but offers holistic solutions through correlating data from disparate sources. If your organization demands holistic visibility and threat detection, XDR would be less critical as it would not need to install a separate EDR tool.
What is the difference between XDR and managed XDR?
Managed detection and response (MDR) is a human-managed security service provider. Often MDRs use XDR systems to meet an enterprise’s security needs.
Does XDR include NDR?
Yes, an XDR solution will certainly incorporate NDR into it, part of a larger range of detection capabilities. XDR includes NDR as well as EDR, along with other security data to give you a more cohesive approach to detection across all your security environments.
