What Is EDR?
EDR provide multilayered, integrated endpoint protection. Key features of an EDR security solution include:
- Alert Triage: Security analysts are often overwhelmed by large volumes of alerts from various cybersecurity solutions. EDR triages potential malicious events, enabling security analysts to focus their efforts where they are most effective.
- Threat Hunting Support: Threat hunting enables an organization to identify and respond to threats that were not detected or blocked by enterprise security solutions. EDR solutions should provide integrated support for threat hunting activities.
- Data Aggregation and Enrichment: Contextual information is vital to differentiating between true cyberattacks and false positives. EDR solutions aggregate data from multiple sources and use this data to more accurately identify true threats.
- Integrated Incident Response: EDR should offer support for incident response within the same console. By eliminating context switching, this supports more rapid incident response.
- Multiple Response Options: Different security incidents require different types and levels of response. An EDR security solution should provide multiple options (quarantine, eradication, etc.) for an analyst to address the issue.
These EDR features provide significant security benefits, including:
- Improved Security Visibility: EDR centralize data collection and analytics. This provides an organization with more in-depth visibility into the current security posture of its endpoints.
- Streamlined Incident Response: By using automated data collection, aggregation, and some response activitie, the process of gaining vital security context enables rapid response.
- Automated Remediation: EDR allows an organization to define automated procedures for incident response activities. This reduces the impact and cost of the incident to the organization.
Contextualized Threat Hunting: EDR solutions provide threat hunters with access to the data and context required for threat hunting. This enables more rapid and effective threat hunting and the detection of potential indications of a previously unknown incident.
What Is Antivirus?
Antivirus solutions are designed to identify malicious software or code that has infected a computer. AVs use various methods to identify potential malware infections, including:
- Signature-Based Detection: Signature-based detection identifies known threats based on signatures such as file hashes, command and control domains, IP addresses, and similar features.
- Heuristic Detection: Heuristic or anomaly detection identifies malware based on unusual or malicious functionality. This enables it to identify zero-day threats that signature-based detection would miss.
- Rootkit Detection: Rootkit detection identifies malware designed to acquire deep, administrative access to an infected computer.
- Real-Time Detection: Real-time detection attempts to identify malware at time of use by scanning and monitoring recently-accessed files.
AV solutions enable the detection and remediation of malware infections on a computer. This can include terminating malicious processes, quarantining suspicious files, and eradicating malware infections.
EDR vs Antivirus - What’s The Difference?
AV provides the ability to detect and respond to malware on an infected computer using a variety of different techniques. EDR incorporates AV and other endpoint security functionality providing more fully-featured protection against a wide range of potential threats.
Why AV Is Not Enough
AV is designed to identify malware on a computer, but cyber threat actors are growing increasingly sophisticated. Traditional, signature-based detection is no longer effective at identifying modern malware due to the rapid evolution of malware and the use of unique malware and infrastructure for cyberattack campaigns. Additionally, malware developers are using various techniques such as fileless malware to evade detection by antivirus solutions.
Detection of modern threats to endpoint security requires more information and context than is available to AV systems. EDR integrates a range of security functions, enabling it to detect trends and other indicators of a successful incursion. Additionally, the response capabilities provided by EDR enable security analysts to more quickly act to address potential security incidents, limiting the impact of an attack.
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