Why Do Businesses Need XDR Security?

What is XDR? You may have heard of the term XDR, which has been circulating in the cybersecurity industry for several years now.

today I will explain what XDR is and whether it's only for companies with a large security budget and well-developed security programs or is essential for businesses of any size.

If you're unsure whether it's worthwhile to invest in XDR now or the near future, let's take a closer look and find out together.

What is XDR?

XDR stands for extended detection and response and refers to a type of cybersecurity solution that both monitors and mitigates cyberattacks.

XDR is a "SaaS-based, vendor-specific security threat detection and incident response platform that combines different security products into a unified security operations system that unifies all licensed components," according to Gartner.

XDR was created as an alternative to security products that could only conduct event correlation without response or were limited to only one security layer.

This technology gathers information from a multitude of security layers, including endpoints, emails, servers, clouds, and networks, and then correlates it. This means that, rather than focusing just on endpoint detection, XDR can help security teams identify, investigate, and handle threats across multiple layers of security.

The main benefits of XDR are improved protection, detection capabilities, increased productivity of the operational security team, and reduced ownership costs.

How does XDR work?

XDR is essentially a tool and data combination, and it constitutes major progress in enterprise security capabilities. Because XDR has access to raw data obtained across the environment, it can identify cybercriminals who use legitimate software to obtain access to the system, which is something that security information and event management software are frequently unable to do.

It automates the analysis and correlation of activity data, enabling security teams to better contain threats. It can cover network detections, lateral movement, abnormal connections, beacons, exfiltration, and the distribution of malicious artifacts.

Finally, XDR, like EDR, responds to the threat to contain and eliminate it, but XDR's advanced data gathering and integration with the environment enable it to handle the affected asset more effectively.

XDR platforms give cybersecurity specialists the holistic visibility and context they need to deal with threats in a targeted and successful manner.

XDR has three parts: telemetry and data analysis, detection, and response.

Telemetry and data analysis:

As I said before, XDR gathers and monitors data across various security layers, not just endpoints. It then uses data analysis to correlate context from thousands of alerts from across those layers to surface a much smaller number of high-priority alerts, thereby preventing security teams from becoming overwhelmed.

Detection:

Because of its superior visibility, XDR can look through alerts and report on the ones that need to be addressed. That same visibility enables it to establish baselines of normal behavior within an environment, allowing for the identification of threats leveraging software, ports, and protocols, as well as investigating the source of the threat to prevent it from spreading to other parts of the system.

Response:

XDR can keep under control and eliminate threats it detects, as well as update security policies to avoid similar incidents from happening again in the future.

Unlike EDR, which only protects endpoints and workloads, XDR responds to threats across all security control points it comes into contact with, from container security to networks and servers.

To recap, the main features of an XDR solution are: cyberattack detection and response, comprehensive behavior analysis, shared threat intelligence (both internal and external), automatic alert confirmation, and complete data integration, all in a unified interface.

Why enterprises need XDR security

Security Operations Center (SOC) teams need a platform that intelligently aggregates all relevant security data and identifies sophisticated threat actors.

As cybercriminals employ more advanced tactics, techniques, and procedures to bypass and exploit conventional security control systems, enterprises are trying desperately to ensure security for increasing numbers of exposed digital assets, both inside and outside the traditional network perimeter.

Security teams have been stretched for years, and the pressure regarding the resources has been amplified by recent work-from-home requirements.

Security specialists are once again being asked to do more with the same or fewer resources and limited budgets.

Organizations must have centralized and proactive security measures to protect their entire landscape of technology assets, including legacy endpoints, mobile, network, and cloud workloads, without overworking their employees and internal management resources.

With cybercriminals on the prowl, corporate security and risk managers are left to deal with too many disparate security tools and data sets from too many vendors.

Security personnel struggle with a flood of data that leads to alert overload, numerous false positives, and a lack of data integration with analysis tools or incident response, all while working under unprecedented levels of pressure.

This is why enterprise security and risk management leaders should consider the security benefits and productivity value of a modern solution such as XDR.