The world of cybersecurity doesn’t lack for acronyms. Whether it’s protocols and standards or tools and technology, the market is dominated by an endless array of capital letters. In recent years, as both technology and threat actors have evolved, more and more solutions are being branded with “D’s” and “R’s” for “detection and response.”
This adaptation has been driven by a constantly changing threat landscape, where for most organizations, a cybersecurity intrusion is now a matter of “when” not “if.” Being able to detect and swiftly respond to these incidents before they turn into full breaches can prevent costly downtime, exfiltrated data, reputation damage, and more.
There are many types of solutions that focus on detection and response for a wide range of threats using a variety of methods, often aided by machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI). However, the scope of each detection and response solution can vary. Understanding how these detection and response solutions differ can help your organization make the right investment for your security and business goals and better secure your environment in an evolving threat landscape.
What is EDR?
Endpoint detection and response (EDR) monitors endpoints across an organization’s extended IT environment in order to identify and remediate anomalous activity and potential endpoint threats from internal or external sources. Residing on many types of hosts including desktops and laptops, servers, mobile devices, and more, EDR is designed to actively defend endpoints by identifying events that are known-bad or unusual, and facilitating follow-on actions, such as automated or guided investigation and remediation steps.
Utilizing integrated monitoring technology, in addition to detecting threats EDR solutions can also provide visibility into endpoint behavior. EDR operates through an agent software that is deployed to endpoints within the organization and records activity taking place on that system.
Benefits of EDR
Because the endpoint is a foundational component of any IT environment, EDR offers multiple benefits for security teams looking to harden their attack surface and detect potential threats faster and earlier.
Benefits of EDR include:
- Behavioral detection: Unlike tools that only monitor for known threats, EDR can help organizations detect suspicious activities that may indicate an unknown threat type through a behavioral detection engine.
- Lateral movement/threat escalation prevention: EDR helps security teams detect threats early, often before a threat actor can move from the endpoint to other parts of the environment. Through automated actions, or with the assistance of a security team, endpoint threats can often be isolated quickly, further preventing lateral movement.
- Contextualization: EDR can provide more context behind a threat or incident so security teams can tailor their response and apply proactive security measures post-incident.
- Remediation speed: EDR, through alerting and automated remediation, can help accelerate breach investigations and limit potential incident damage.
Challenges of EDR
Threat actors have any number of ways to launch and execute attacks, many of which don’t directly involve compromising the endpoint. As such, relying solely or primarily on EDR for threat detection can create gaps in an organization’s defenses.
Challenges of EDR include:
- Limited monitoring capabilities: While endpoints are an important part of an organization’s environment, they are not the only target for threat actors, especially in early stages of an attack. In fact, unsecured remote desktop protocol (RDP) and compromised VPN credentials are the leading root causes of ransomware cases investigated by Arctic Wolf® Incident Response in 2024. Both of those root causes are application-based, not endpoint-based, highlighting how threat actors can work around EDR detection to gain initial access.
- Limited visibility: EDR only provides a security team with visibility to the endpoint and often prioritizes its own telemetry for the purpose of threat detection. This isn’t to say that visibility into the endpoint isn’t valuable, but it should be one of many sources that security teams (or security solutions) monitor. Correlating multiple sources of telemetry for broad visibility can reduce alert noise and lead to earlier, more precise detections.
- EDR is a tool: Like other security tools, EDR doesn’t solve for common security team challenges, including lack of personnel, lack of expertise, inability to fine-tune tools, and the inability to respond to threats 24×7. Set-up, configuration, and consistent adjustments for EDR solutions take time, budget, and knowledge organizations may not have readily available.
What is NDR?
Network detection and response (NDR) directs its detection capabilities onto data observed from the network traffic that flows through an organization. NDR vendors may have multiple approaches to how they observe and analyze this traffic, but in general, NDR solutions are based on network sensors. This is typically a physical network device, a virtual appliance, or a combination of both, which are placed “in line” with the network — essentially observing live network traffic flows as they head toward their destinations — or in a mirrored configuration, where traffic is copied and forwarded to the sensor for analysis.
Instead of detecting threats based on unusual endpoint processes or granular events such as with EDR, NDR instead looks for potential threats based on anomalies within network flows, such as unauthorized or unusual protocols, port utilization, malformed packets, odd timing and transfer sizes, and more. NDR automated actions can often include triggering alerts, dropping packets, quarantining a device, and generating forensic evidence.
Benefits of NDR
Because an organization’s network is often complex, having the ability to detect unusual behaviors within it can make a major difference when it comes to threat response.
Benefits of NDR include:
- NDR doesn’t need an endpoint agent deployed or attached to every endpoint: This makes NDR an ideal solution for more complex environments where threats may more often originate outside the endpoint, or an organization operates a critical mass of endpoints on which EDR cannot be installed, such as Internet of Things (IoT) or operational technology (OT) devices.
- NDR can respond to unauthorized devices: Similarly, if an attacker plugs an unauthorized device into an organization’s network, NDR solutions can detect this based on the new traffic flow, triggering an alert and even automated response.
- Broad visibility into the network: Whereas EDR is limited to the endpoint, NDR covers the entirety of the network, gaining broader visibility into actions an attacker may perform on the network during an incident, including reconnaissance or discovery activities that can be precursors to more sophisticated attacks.
- Earlier threat response: Intrusions may begin with discovery activities somewhere in the network, which an NDR solution would detect, while an EDR would not. This ability to develop trends based on the breadth of activity across the enterprise network can give an organization an earlier opportunity to identify nefarious actions that an EDR often cannot identify.
Challenges of NDR
Similar to EDR, NDR only operates within the confines of an organization’s network, which creates a few drawbacks.
Challenges of NDR include:
- Network perimeters can be in flux: Hybrid work models have blurred the lines of traditional network perimeters, meaning traffic may generate outside a well-defined network. This limits NDR’s visibility and subsequent effectiveness.
- NDR can’t monitor endpoints: Some attacks do begin on the endpoint, and NDR’s visibility is limited to the network, meaning activity that happens on endpoints is outside the solution’s scope. The same is true for identity or cloud telemetry. This limited scope means important attack precursors can go unseen.
- Operational complexity and potential false positives: If an organization’s network grows both in size and complexity as a business expands, so must the NDR solution: at a minimum this means adding more sensors but usually upgrading software licenses too. Subsequently, it can prove difficult and costly to maintain the tool as a network adapts, and an expanding network can lead to a high volume of false positives or traffic noise, or conversely coverage gaps if network growth isn’t carefully managed.
What is XDR?
Extended Detection and Response (XDR) is a growing hybrid technology that offers a single, unified platform to threat detection and response, providing consolidation, correlation, and contextualization of data and tools.
XDR is a tool, often anchored to an EDR tool, designed to correlate signals from different telemetry sources across the IT estate and provide unified, coordinated threat detection, investigation and response. XDR solves the challenge that many cyber attacks originate elsewhere in an organization’s environment, such as in the cloud or with identity sources. This common anchoring to the endpoint means that, while XDR can apply detections beyond single source and move beyond siloed detection and response tools, the major focus of the tool is often integration with EDR or EPP.
Open XDR vs. Native XDR
Before looking at the benefits and challenges of deploying and maintaining an XDR platform, it’s important to note that there are two main kinds of XDR platforms: open XDR and native XDR. Both take in multiple sources of telemetry across an organization’s tech stack and environment, but with a caveat. If the tool is open, it can allow telemetry ingestions from third-party tools. If the tool is native, also referred to as closed XDR, integrations and subsequent telemetry ingestions are limited to other tools only from the same vendor as the XDR tool. Sometimes, native XDR providers will permit integrations from third-party tools, but only at an additional cost.
Benefits of XDR
XDR was specifically designed to consolidate telemetry, provide broader visibility, and reduce false positives, simplifying and accelerating an organization’s threat detection and analysis capabilities.
Benefits of XDR include:
- Streamlined and consolidated visibility: XDR not only draws on multiple sources of telemetry but also ingests the data and presents it through a single pane of glass, allowing security teams to view their environments and detections through a holistic lens.
- Correlated telemetry: By extending the reach beyond the endpoint, XDR can correlate data from multiple sources, resulting in more precise and actionable alerts that give a clearer picture into what is happening, often simultaneously, within an organization’s network.
- Reduction of false positives: The two benefits above, streamlined visibility and correlated telemetry, increase the confidence level of detections, resulting in a reduction of false positives, which can in turn reduce alert fatigue, allowing security teams to both understand their environment better and work more efficiently.
- Faster alert response: Because there are fewer false positives, and investigation and remediation actions can be conducted through a single interface, security teams utilizing XDR are often able to respond to alerts faster and more thoroughly, which can prevent incidents from escalating into full-scale breaches.
What is MDR?
MDR is a detection and response solution that combines human effort and expertise with a unified platform. The objective is to provide the same in-depth detection correlation and contextualization found in a Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) tool , but augment it with continuous monitoring, experienced threat investigation, and rapid response via a robust managed services approach.
MDR solutions offer up to 24×7 human analyst coverage , creating opportunities for organizations to better monitor, detect, and respond to threats after hours, without needing additional internal security headcount or in-house expertise. While this differentiator makes MDR a managed service approach to detection and response, some MDR solutions are more product-focused, where managed services are offered on top of tools. Others are service-focused, offering detection and monitoring of the existing security stack. The main feature for any MDR solution, however, is the human element.
Benefits of MDR
Having extra expertise on hand offers a variety of benefits, especially for organizations that may lack the budget or staff to handle all their security needs in-house.
Benefits of MDR include:
- Broad visibility: MDR solutions often work with an organization’s existing technology stack to discover and profile assets as well as collect data and security event observations from multiple sources of telemetry.
- Constant monitoring and response: MDR solutions offer up to 24×7 monitoring with a human team that can respond to potential threats as they occur, even after hours or on weekends when an internal security team may be short-staffed or unavailable.
- Guided Remediation: MDR personnel will work with an organizations’ security teams on rapid threat investigation and remediation, creating speed, expertise, and efficiency within the response process.
- Better use of technology: Having a built-in team of experts can not only relieve internal security teams of the need to configure and maintain their detection and response tool but also opens the door for the MDR team to optimize that tech, enhancing the overall security posture.
Challenges of MDR
The human element can be a double-edged sword in the world of cybersecurity. As such, relying on a third-party for your organization’s security outcomes creates challenges alongside the advantages.
Drawbacks of MDR include:
- Coverage and scope limitations: A vendor selling MDR may be doing so in name only; when it comes down to the coverage and scope, certain aspects of the network are excluded or deprioritized. Additionally, the solution may not integrate with certain parts of an organization’s existing tech stack, requiring a “rip and replace” situation for broader coverage.
- Varying response capabilities: Organizations should scrutinize how an MDR provider responds to the threats it detects and what actions it can take. This can vary by provider and can affect security outcomes, such as what actions are automated or pre-approved and what exactly does “alerting” entail, especially if it’s after normal working hours.
- Discrepancy with the expertise provided by the human element: While MDR offers a managed human element, the scope of that can vary by vendor. Are there named security experts with strong knowledge of your environment? How will you communicate with them? What is the overall scope of the management? The answers to those questions can vary by vendor and contract and should be considered before deploying an MDR solution.
Arctic Wolf Aurora Endpoint Security and Managed Detection and Response
Every organization needs a cybersecurity threat detection and response solution, but there’s no single option for every organization. The choice depends on factors including security maturity level, security goals, business needs, budget, and more.
Arctic Wolf delivers a suite of comprehensive security operations solutions, including Arctic Wolf® Managed Detection and Response and Aurora™ Endpoint Security. No matter where your organization is in its security journey, Arctic Wolf provides purpose-built technology alongside industry-leading expertise to ensure that your organization is not only able to address immediate threats but is able to continually improve your security posture over time.
Take a deep dive into how Arctic Wolf Security Operations is able to stop threats while hardening organizations’ security postures.
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