End Point Detection and Response (EDR) is a solution which records and stores endpoint-system-level behavior, uses various data analytics techniques to detect suspicious system behavior, provides contextual information, blocks malicious activity, and provides remediation suggestions to restore affected systems.
The primary capabilities in EDR can mainly be categorised as follows:
- incident detection
- incident containment at the endpoint
- incident investigation
- guidance on remediation
Traditional Approach for End Point Detection Fails!
Businesses & Security Practitioners are under a constant belief that a robust Anti Virus/ Next Gen Anti Virus solution is the answer to counter threats in today's landscape. While, I observe unfortunately that isn't the case!
AV solutions are built to cut down on known attacks to itself! The fundamental principle of AV's intelligence is known threat signatures/ Hashes which consistently are kept updated via definitions plaguing end system performance and your business users keep cribbing majority of the times about the same. Inspite of the pain of frequent updates if you are of an opinion that the end computers are safe; unfortunately, the hard truth is a BIG NO. An attack which is beyond AV's signature intelligence is never detected and this is what the real challenge which attackers are exploiting today.
Gone are the days, where cyber criminals were lame- today, cyber crime is super organized and adaption of ML by cyber criminals has been long before. In majority of my experiences in handling Incident Response activities of our potential clients; one thing has always stayed common; AV solutions are always bypassed! And it doesn't matter if it is AV or Next Gen AV.
Truth be told, with Hybrid work culture, thanks to COVID; the problem has now become two-fold. The best approach in countering this challenge is to focus on Behavior driven threat detection and automation involved response activities where EDR should be your trusted functionality.
Why does my organization need a EDR today?
Protect yourself from Zero-Day attacks from anywhere
With advance attacks such as APT, Zero Day, and sophisticated non-state threats consistently plaguing an organization’s brand and operations, the need of the hour is to think like an attacker or even beyond to up the ante!
Today, hybrid work is a reality, and most employees of every company have the option to work remotely, from anywhere in the world. Extensive visibility is super essential on compute devices in this context, as we never know which network a user might be connected to, thereby exposing them to some level of inherent threat. EDR brings in significant visibility by consistently focusing on in-memory executions, keeping track of system processes patterns such as: Parent, Child, Services, Registry modifications, Cron job creation, etc. across the environment at the same time.
Once a malicious activity is observed, the EDR module can go ahead and block the threat actor before the damage is done, ensuring your business are safe.
Robust Incident Response enablement
In the eventuality of a breach, your security analyst has to spend a large time collecting artifacts from various endpoints in building evidence. Time is of great essence particularly when there is a beach. EDR collects and stores crucial artifacts enabling better incident response and also enables Threat containment and Hunt teams in carrying out swift actions in building assurance.
