5 min

Implementing endpoint security best practices is crucially important in times when a remote working culture has become commonplace. Security-conscious organizations realizing the need for high-end and timely cyber protection strive to find a modern Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) or Extended Detection and Response (XDR) solution that comes with an enhanced set of features.

The dynamic pace of the cybersecurity industry forces organizations to be highly scalable and flexible when it comes to their preferences for the security toolkit. Organizations are looking for ways to easily overcome the challenges of cross-tool migrations with cost-efficient and time-saving solutions. Taking advantage of cutting-edge products that support multiple technologies, like SOC Prime’s Detection as Code platform, might be a reasonable investment for businesses with multiple EDR & XDR solutions in use. For added flexibility when collaborating with endpoint security vendors, they can leverage Uncoder.IO, the online Sigma translation engine for saved searches, filters, queries, API requests, which helps SOC analysts, threat hunters, and detection engineers to convert detections on the fly to multiple EDR and XDR formats in use.

EDR and XDR platforms are continuously evolving and there is plenty of choice on the market. But how to find the right solution that will turn out to be the most effective in 2022? Let’s review the common features of both and check the most prominent examples.

The Importance of Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)

EDR uses a proactive cybersecurity approach focused on monitoring endpoints in real-time. EDR solutions analyze systems and networks for anomalies while maintaining essential security standards. These tools also simplify the threat remediation process by automating responses and thus removing malware. In addition, they can reduce the risk of data leakage and system failure.

This type of software is mostly used by security professionals on an enterprise level. Yet, as long as it comes with a lot of automation capabilities, it’s not as advanced as other cybersecurity systems that require more human interaction.

Enhancing Security With Extended Detection and Response

XDR platforms encompass multiple security features for incident detection and response, providing visibility across an extended set of endpoints like devices, servers, applications, cloud environments, and networks.

Further on, these cutting-edge technologies normalize and correlate data from a variety of sources. In addition, a powerful analysis and prioritization enable advanced hunting, detecting, and remediating capabilities. XDR allows cross-customer threat hunting and keeps data analysis and security centralized, while EDR detects and responds to threats within certain operational silos.

Best EDR & XDR Technologies in 2022

A particular EDR or XDR solution should be chosen with regard to the enterprise’s network configuration, hardware inventory, and the range of tasks that the SOC team wants to focus on.

Below is the list of the industry leaders in EDR & XDR software. Mostly, they consist of various products integrated into one platform, so each organization can choose the security pack that fits its current size and is easy to scale once the network of endpoints becomes larger and more complex.

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint

Microsoft’s enterprise endpoint security platform helps to discover, prioritize, and remediate vulnerabilities and misconfigurations in real-time. Its core features include:

  • Automated investigation and remediation
  • High operational speed
  • Endpoint behavioral sensors
  • Cloud security analytics
  • Intelligent decision-making algorithms
  • Defense against sophisticated threats like file-less attacks, polymorphic, metamorphic, and undiscovered malware
  • Attack surface reduction
  • The assistance of Microsoft Threat Experts
  • Integration with multiple Microsoft-native solutions

This platform is part of Microsoft’s suite of Defender products (others are Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps, for Office 360, IoT, and Identity MDI). Fast operation that comes within an established ecosystem of products from a market leader is what attracts organizations from a wide variety of industries and encourages them to choose Microsoft Defender for Endpoint.

SentinelOne Singularity

The SentinelOne Singularity XDR enables AI-powered detection, hunting, and response capabilities across endpoints, containers, cloud workloads, and IoT devices that are manageable from a single platform. Key characteristics:

  • Doesn’t depend on signatures
  • Works regardless of the Internet connectivity
  • Automatically schedules updates for the rules
  • Provides an ability to remotely control endpoints and isolate the host’s incident response
  • Delivers real-time visibility on a dashboard
  • Enables in-depth analysis and path tracing

SentinelOne’s innovation and technology are trusted by the world’s major companies like Samsung, EA, Politico, Aston Martin and recognized by the industry-leading research organizations, including Gartner, MITRE Engenuity, and SE Labs.

CrowdStrike Falcon

CrowdStrike was recently updated from EDR to a full-fledged XDR solution after acquiring Humio and establishing a partnership with Google Cloud and Zscaler. Their Falcon XDR provides

ML-based threat detection and response with integrated threat intelligence and immediate response. Other advantages include:

  • Enhanced prevention against the newest threats such as unknown malware, ransomware, malware-free, and file-less attacks
  • Better visibility with details, context, and history of each alert
  • Automated, scripted, and analyst-driven intervention capabilities
  • Immediate assessment of the origin, impact, and severity of threats
  • Recovery guidance

CrowdStrike claims to be part of a larger group of organizations. The benefit of this collaboration stems from the fact that data from one source circulates within this group and anyone involved has an ability to benefit from that knowledge.

FireEye Endpoint Security

FireEye offers a single modular agent for all-rounded endpoint protection. This integrated solution consists of multiple engines that provide visibility into the known and unknown threats, as well as alert fatigue minimization and accelerated response. The detailed threat analysis is enabled in a unified management workflow. FireEye Endpoint Security is able to:

  • Conduct exhaustive inspection and analysis of threat indicators
  • Use machine learning to stop advanced threats
  • Apply behavior analysis for halting application exploits
  • Protect from emerging threat vectors
  • Block common malware with a signature-based engine

This solution is designed to address the gaps of the traditional EDR and provide improved visibility of endpoints in a faster and more efficient way. Security analysts can also apply advanced inspection tools for adapting their cyber defense in real-time.

VMware Carbon Black Cloud Endpoint

Carbon Black (or CB Defense for short) acts as an XDR-ready infrastructure that extends the usual security capabilities for endpoints into a unified, context-centric platform. This security technology enables native support for automated cross-domain controls.

CB Defense provides threat prediction, detection, prevention, and remediation as a result of putting forth the unique streaming analytics. This software is available either as SaaS or through MSSPs. Prominent features include:

  • Ability to manage asset profiles according to applicable policies
  • Threat hunting and containment
  • Third-party integration through API
  • Automated investigation workflow
  • Managed alert monitoring and triage 24/7
  • Real-time device assessment and remediation

VMware Carbon Black Cloud consolidates multiple endpoint security capabilities in a single threat prevention console. The ability to see the full cycle of a file before and after a threat was detected is appreciated by security engineers that utilize this software.

All in all, EDR and XDR consist of a variety of software solutions that can be quite different in use depending on the particular provider. SOC teams should make their choice depending on their current integrations, network infrastructure, and organization-specific security needs.

This is a contribution by SOC Prime.