Get Extended Protection Beyond the Endpoint with XDR

Forty-five is the average number of cybersecurity-related tools deployed on an enterprise network. But it's been found that the more cybersecurity tools an enterprise deploys, the less of a defense it has. More tools create too much distribution and disjointedness. Taking a streamlined approach with full, cross-platform visibility and remediation capabilities will help you detect fast-moving threats and stop breaches. Easier said than done, I know. But even more challenging, is the rapidly increasing number of endpoints, where most attacks originate.

According to a 2021 Future Workforce Report, "Pre-pandemic, businesses expected that in five years 38% of their remote workforce would be fully remote, while today they expect 58% to be fully remote in five years." What this means for us is that a tremendous amount of work will soon be done through endpoints, thereby making them extremely attractive to attackers.

The endpoint has been a major target for cyber attackers. We are lucky EDR solutions do a great job at providing deep visibility and protection of each endpoint, but the rapidly growing number of them calls for a wider net of protection, ideally from an integrated solution. 

Enter: XDR

XDR is designed to detect sophisticated and distributed attacks without adding more complexity to the security stack. As an integrated detection system it aggregates data from across the enterprise and applies data analytics and threat intelligence to identify trends and known threats so you can act quickly. 

XDR extends protection across the entire infrastructure by connecting the dots between siloed security solutions to enable detection and response across networks, cloud workloads, servers, email and more.

Taken from a 2021 Forrester article by analyst, Allie Mellen:

The importance of data correlation 

The high volumes of data generated aren't meaningless. Quite the contrary, in fact. This data, when un-siloed and correlated with other high-signal data — like endpoint detection and response (EDR) telemetry — can offer incredibly valuable context for threat detection and response turning low-confidence signals into high-confidence alerts.

XDR does exactly this. It breaks down the barriers between siloed security solutions so they can work together to improve threat visibility, detection and response time. When implemented on a cloud-native platform, DR has the scalability and power to: 

• Ingest and centralize the volumes of data from endpoints and security solutions across the enterprise.
• Leverage advanced automation and technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to parse data, correlate it to the attack surface that was penetrated and perform analysis and prioritization.
• Normalize the data, reorganizing it so that users can properly utilize it for further queries and analysis in threat-hunting and investigation.
• Present security teams with this data in a single console that not only allows users to access cross-domain information for hunting and investigation but also to direct and orchestrate response.

XDR delivered from a cloud-native platform dramatically improves threat visibility and reduces the length of time required to identify and respond to an attack, enabling advanced forensic investigation and threat-hunting capabilities across multiple domains from a single console.

The right approach to XDR

With the right XDR approach, you can improve visibility and accelerate better-informed threat detection and response in an increasingly complex threat landscape. 

Here's what to look for when moving to an XDR solution to gain maximum benefit.

• Faster, high-fidelity detection: extend protection technologies to third-party data sources for high-fidelity detection, investigation and hunting across the attack surface.
• Best-of-breed ecosystem: unify relevant telemetry from multiple technologies and domains to enable faster response to threats, wherever they occur.
• Reduce total cost of ownership: extend the value of your security stack by making it work together.
• Streamlined response: empower security teams to design and automate multistage, multiplatform response workflows for surgical, full-stack remediation.
• More efficient SecOps: Intelligently correlate data from multiple sources rapidly at scale to deliver actionable security insights from a single console.

Here are the right questions to ask before making a decision on an XDR solution:

• Does the solution have native endpoint detection and response capabilities?
• Is there unified thru-centric information and intelligence for accurate detection and streamlined responses?
• Is there automated detection across IT environments, cloud workloads, network, email and endpoints to reduce triage time and expedite response?
• Are there cloud-based integrations to ingest logs and events from multiple data sources and third parties?
• Is there an established strategic partner alliance with industry-leading solution providers?

As a final note, here's a little warning: don't fall for the guise of FAUXDR. Unfortunately, there are vendors out there that will try to sell you on a fabricated "XDR" solution. 

So, remember: 

• NDR is not XDR
• SOAR is not XDR
• SIEM is not XDR
• NDR + SOAR + SIEM is not XDR

Contact us today to see how WWT is helping some of the world's biggest organizations find the right XDR solution.