In 2013, Gartner analyst Anton Chuvakin coined the term “endpoint detection and response” (EDR) to describe emerging security solutions that detect suspicious endpoint activity. Since then, the market has exploded — spawning next-generation variations like extended detection and response (XDR) and Managed EDR that now dominate the endpoint detection and response landscape.
EDR has also evolved beyond its original scope. According to Arctic Wolf research, nearly half of all organisations now use two or more next-generation endpoint security solutions that extend into broader network telemetry, including email and identity sources.
So where does EDR fit into your security strategy today? Let’s take a closer look.
What Is EDR?
Endpoint detection and response (EDR) in cybersecurity refers to a host-based security solution that monitors endpoints within an organisation’s IT environment to detect and respond to malicious and/or anomalous activity that originates from internal or external sources.
Gartner® defines the security solution as one that “records and stores endpoint-system-level behaviors, uses various data analytics techniques to detect suspicious system behavior, provides contextual information, blocks malicious activity, and provides remediation suggestions to restore affected systems.”
EDV vs. EPP
While often connected, EDR is not the same as endpoint protection platform (EPP) solutions. EPP refers to multiple technologies (like antivirus software and firewalls) meant to protect a network’s endpoint from cyber threats like malware using techniques such as signature-based detection, machine learning, and host-based intrusion prevention. EDR, however, is focused on monitoring endpoints and offers threat detection, investigation, and response capabilities. In today’s threat landscape, it’s common for organisations to use both EDR and an endpoint solution like EPP to enhance their endpoint security.
How Does EDR Security Work?
An effective EDR solution allows security teams to focus on detecting and investigating suspicious activities on endpoints, creating faster, more effective responses. EDR allows organisations to focus on proactive cybersecurity, taking in and acting on data around their endpoints before a threat escalates.
EDR works by installing a lightweight agent on endpoints within the organisation. The agent monitors 24×7, looking for any activity that is potentially malicious or matches a known attack indicator. The agent then sends telemetry to a central management system, which automatically performs analysis and correlation before sending an alert.
From there, an analyst investigates the alert to determine if the attack is false or actionable. If real, they can gather details about the attack and, based on this information, develop an appropriate response. Having this response capability is what differentiates EDR from other endpoint-focused security solutions. And, as many attacks involve endpoints, that capability has helped EDR become a critical component of any cybersecurity strategy.
While EDR features vary, most include the ability to isolate the host system from the rest of the network to prevent the attack from spreading to other endpoints in the environment. In addition to isolation capabilities, some EDR vendors offer advanced or active responses, such as terminating processes.
EDR has also evolved to utilise artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) capabilities to detect threats faster and with more precision, as well as to automate response actions. This technological advancement allows for advanced detection, noise reduction, faster investigations, and predictive defense capabilities.
EDR in Action
A finance employee at a mid-sized company clicks on what appears to be a legitimate invoice email. Unknown to them, the attachment contains malware, which attempts to execute on the endpoint in order to spread across the network. The organisation’s EDR solution detects the abnormal behavior, and flags both the unusual file encryption activity and the process attempting to communicate with an external command-and-control server. The EDR solution automatically isolates the infected endpoint from the network, terminates the malicious process, and alerts the security team with detailed forensic data showing exactly how the attack unfolded.
What Are the Benefits of Endpoint Security?
The endpoint is often a top target for threat actors. If they can reach the endpoint, they can launch malware, ransomware, or other attacks that can spread across a network. It can also give threat actors access to other aspects of an organisation’s IT environment, like networks and the cloud. This makes EDR security not only beneficial, but foundational for organizations looking to improve their cybersecurity.
EDR security has a few components that make it unique from other detection solutions, including:
- Automatically detecting endpoint threats
- Utilising advanced technology to constantly monitor endpoints
- Working proactively to prevent major breaches
Additional Benefits of EDR Solutions
Visibility
Visibility is critical not only for being able to understand vulnerabilities or threats within a security environment, but for assessment and action. Real-time visibility helps an organisation act against malicious threats before major damage occurs.
Behavioral protection
Unlike tools that only monitor for known threats, EDR can identify new, suspicious activity and flag it as a possible threat for the IT or security team. Many EDR solutions now employ machine learning (ML) or artificial intelligence (AI) to better understand user and system behavior patterns and make threat identification more precise.
Insight and context
Insight is as critical as visibility. To further the security journey, an organisation needs to understand where threats are coming from and why they need to harden their endpoints and overall environment. Insight and context also help at the moment of attack, allowing an organisation to tailor their response to a threat’s specific characteristics.
Remediation speed
If an organisation can quickly identify a threat and respond accordingly, that speeds up remediation — accelerating the investigation and limiting breach damage. It also allows an organisation to “stop a threat” instead of “respond to an incident,” meaning it can shut down suspicious behavior or a threat actor trying to make initial access versus having to respond to a full-blown cyber attack where lateral movement and escalation has possibly occurred.
Operational efficiency through noise reduction
EDR’s common use of behavioral analytics and machine learning helps filter out noise and reduce false alerts, allowing security teams to focus on genuine threats rather than wasting time investigating benign activity.
Threat containment
EDR solutions can automatically isolate compromised endpoints from the network the moment a threat is detected, preventing lateral movement and stopping attacks before they escalate into serious incidents or data breaches.
Despite these significant benefits, organisations often face challenges when implementing EDR.
Common Issues with EDR Solutions
While EDR provides foundational endpoint protection that’s vital to any organisation’s cybersecurity strategy, implementing and managing it effectively can present significant challenges — particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
The main issue with these solutions is an organisation’s inability to manage them in-house. Before organisations can fully leverage EDR capabilities and the telemetry they provide, they need security professionals who understand how to configure, tune, and maintain these solutions.
Several factors make in-house EDR management difficult, including:
- Budget constraints
- Resource constraints
- Complexity and expertise gaps
- Incomplete deployment
This is where managed EDR (mEDR) comes in.
The Value of Managed EDR
Managed endpoint security pairs technology with a dedicated security operations team — often available 24×7 — to handle monitoring, investigation, and containment on an organisation’s behalf.
This model can:
- Provide expert-led investigations and faster incident response times
- Reduce alert fatigue and operational burdens on security teams
- Eliminate the need for more IT and security staffing
- Ensure continuous fine-tuning for improved threat detection and response
- Lower the total operational cost without sacrificing security quality
- Support scalability of an endpoint security program
EDR vs Other Detection and Response Solutions
While endpoint detection and response solutions are still a cornerstone of cybersecurity, both security and the threat landscape have evolved in recent years. Not only are organisations more fragmented, cloud-centric, and access-focused than ever before, but threat actors have created new ways of exploiting weaknesses in defenses, and learned how to manipulate legitimate access, bypass endpoints, or utilise other methods to launch sophisticated attacks.
As such, newer detection and response solutions have gained ground in the market, primarily managed detection and response (MDR) and extended detection and response (XDR).
EDR vs XDR
XDR goes beyond the endpoint, pulling in other sources of telemetry including network, users, and more (depending on the specific solution), to correlate alongside endpoint data. This gives an organisation broader visibility, allowing them to make better threat detection and response decisions. EDR is a vital component of XDR, but it is only one part of it. XDR can also be native, which only draws upon the XDR provider’s portfolio, or open, leveraging multiple tools, vendors, and security telemetry sources to meet an organization’s needs.
EDR vs MDR
Managed detection and response (MDR) and EDR are not an “either/or” choice for organisations. Rather, EDR is a component of MDR, which utilizes the same endpoint detection features and expands coverage beyond endpoints to provide more comprehensive coverage across the IT environment, all while being managed by a third-party, alleviating operational burdens for security teams.
An MDR solution goes beyond endpoints to offer multi-dimensional monitoring of endpoint, network, identity, and cloud workloads. With this holistic oversight, organisations are better able to effectively identify and respond to threats no matter where they originate.
Going Beyond EDR For Holistic Security
Endpoint security helps organisations begin their journey to build resilience, reduce risk, and transform their cybersecurity strategy, but endpoint security alone is not enough to stop sophisticated attacks in a rapidly evolving threat landscape.
The best security is one that’s both proactive and reactive, and one that understands that the endpoint is just one of many components that needs strong defense. Arctic Wolf not only offers AI-powered, market leading endpoint protection, but has integrated endpoint security into a larger, holistic security operations approach. Arctic Wolf Security Operations Bundles offer comprehensive risk reduction for your organisation, helping your business reduce attack frequency and severity, while creating risk transfer opportunities.
Learn more about Arctic Wolf’s Security Operations approach.
Not sure which endpoint security solution is best for your organisation’s needs? Examine the marketplace in depth with our complete guide.
