Identify threats that are highly sophisticated or hidden
Track threats across multiple system components
Improve detection and response speed
Investigate threats more effectively and efficiently
XDR was developed as an alternative to point security solutions which were limited to only one security layer, or could only perform event correlation without response. It is the evolution of solutions like endpoint detection and response (EDR) and network traffic analysis (NTA).
While still useful, these layer-specific tools tend to generate greater volumes of alerts, require more time to investigate and respond to events, and require more maintenance and management. In contrast, XDR consolidates tooling and enables security teams to work more effectively and efficiently.
This is part of an extensive series of guides about cybersecurity.
XDR solutions rely on a range of analytics for threat detection. Below are some of the analytical features that are typically included:
Analysis of both internal and external traffic—ensures that malicious insiders and compromised credentials are detected as well as identifying external attacks. By monitoring and analyzing both internal and external traffic, XDR is able to identify a threat even if it has already bypassed your system perimeter.
Integrated threat intelligence—incorporates information on known attack methods, tools, sources, and strategies across multiple attack vectors. Threat intelligence enables XDR to learn from attacks on other systems and use that information to detect similar events in your environment.
Machine learning-based detection—includes supervised and semi-supervised methods that work to identify threats based on behavioral baselines. Machine learning technologies enable XDR to detect zero-day threats and non-traditional threats that can bypass signature-based methods.
2. Investigation and Response
Once suspicious events are detected, XDR can provide tools that help security teams determine the severity of a threat and respond accordingly. Below are some of the features included in XDR that can assist with investigation and response:
Correlation of related alerts and data—tools can automatically group related alerts, build attack timelines from activity logs, and prioritize events. This helps teams quickly determine the root cause of an attack and can help them predict what an attacker might do next.
Centralized user interface (UI)—enables analysts to investigate and respond to events from the same console. This helps speed up response time and makes documentation of responses simpler.
Response orchestration capabilities—enables response actions directly through XDR interfaces, as well as communication between tooling. For example, XDR can update endpoint policies across the enterprise, in response to an automatically blocked attack on a single endpoint.
3. Dynamic and Flexible Deployments
XDR solutions are designed to provide additional benefits over time. Below are some of the features that help accomplish this goal:
Security orchestration—ability to integrate with and leverage existing controls for unified and standardized responses. XDR solutions can also include automation features to help ensure that policies and tooling are deployed consistently.
Scalable storage and compute—XDR uses cloud resources that are able to scale to meet your data and analysis needs. This ensures that historical data, useful for identifying and investigating advanced persistent threats or other long-running attacks, remains available.
Improvement over time—inclusion of machine learning ensures that solutions become more effective at detecting a broader range of attacks over time. This, in combination with inclusion of threat intelligence, helps ensure the maximum number of threats are detected and prevented.
Want to dive deep into XDR? Here are some resources
An XDR platform can provide the following benefits:
Improved prevention capabilities—inclusion of threat intelligence and adaptive machine learning can help ensure that solutions are able to implement protections against the greatest variety of attacks. Additionally, continuous monitoring along with automated response can help block a threat as soon as it is detected to prevent damage.
Granular visibility—provides full user data at an endpoint in combination with network and application communications. This includes information on access permissions, applications in use, and files accessed. Having full visibility across your system, including on-premises and in the cloud enables you to detect and block attacks faster.
Effective response—robust data collection and analysis allows you to trace an attack path and reconstruct attacker actions. This provides the information needed to locate the attacker wherever they are. It also provides valuable information that you can apply to strengthen your defenses.
Greater control—includes the ability to both blacklist and whitelist traffic and processes. This ensures that only approved actions and users can enter your system.
Better productivity—centralization reduces the number of alerts and increases alerting accuracy. This means fewer false positives to sift through. Also, since XDR is a unified platform and not a combination of multiple point solutions, it is easier to maintain and manage, and reduces the number of interfaces that security must access during a response.
Use Cases for XDR
XDR provides support for a wide range of network security responsibilities. It can also be adopted to help support specific use cases, depending on the maturity of your security team. Below are three use cases that mirror the tiers security professionals are often classified with.
Tier 1: triage—XDR solutions can be adopted as the primary tool for aggregating data, monitoring systems, detecting events, and alerting security teams. These systems can form the base for further efforts or can enable a hand-off to higher level teams.
Tier 2: investigation—teams can use solutions as repositories of analyses and information on events. This information, in combination with threat intelligence can be used to investigate events, evaluate responses, and train security staff.
Tier 3: threat hunting—data collected by XDR solutions can be used as a baseline for performing threat hunting operations. These operations proactively seek evidence of threats that have been overlooked by systems and analysts. Data used for, and collected during, threat hunting processes can also be used to create new threat intelligence which is then used to strengthen existing security policies and systems.
How XDR Differs From Other Security Solutions
XDR is different from other security tools in that it centralizes, normalizes, and correlates data from multiple sources. These capabilities enable more complete visibility and can expose less obvious events.
By collecting and analyzing data from multiple sources, XDR solutions are able to better validate alerts, thereby reducing false positives and increasing reliability. This helps reduce any time teams might waste on excessive or inaccurate alerts. According to Gartner, this results in improved productivity in security teams and allows faster, more automated responses.
Although similar results can be achieved with a combination of EDR and security incident and event management (SIEM) solutions, XDR goes beyond these capabilities. SIEM solutions collect shallow data from many sources while XDR collects deeper data from targeted sources. These collection methods enable XDR to provide better context for events and eliminate the need for manual tuning or integration of data. Moreover, because the alert sources are native to the XDR solution, the integration and maintenance effort required for monitoring alerts in a SIEM is eliminated.
You can learn more about endpoint security concepts in our guides:
EPP vs. EDR: What Matters More, Prevention or Response?
The Security Operations Center (SOC) is an organizational unit responsible for identifying, responding to, and mitigating security threats. The main goal of the SOC is to identify and react to threats quickly and effectively to minimize damage to the organization. Detection and response across multiple security layers, powered by XDR, can help achieve this goal.
Here are a few SOC challenges that can be addressed by XDR solutions:
Alert overload – security information and event management (SIEM) solutions send thousands of alerts to SOC analysts. Research has shown that for mid-sized companies, security tools can generate as many as 2 million alerts per day. Analysts cannot process and prioritize this number of alerts, leading to alert fatigue. XDR cuts through the noise by combining multiple events into a single high-confidence alert, automatically prioritizing the most important alerts.
Gaps in visibility – in a traditional SOC, different security tools provide visibility over different parts of the IT environment. For example, firewalls provide visibility and control over network traffic while endpoint security tools offer visibility over security events on endpoints. However, combining the data from these tools requires manual work and expertise. XDR can help by automatically combining event data from multiple security tools and saving it in a data lake for historical analysis. It also provides advanced analytics that can construct an attack chain from multiple, isolated events.
Difficulty of investigations – it is very time consuming for security analysts to create a complete picture of a threat and identify its path and impact. XDR eliminates these manual processes, fully automating forensic investigations and root cause analysis. It sho;ws the complete path and timeline of an attack, and provides contextual event data and access to full datasets to allow analysts to perform deeper analysis of an incident.
Slow detection and response – because of the above challenges, many threats are missed by the SOC, or cannot be adequately investigated. This increases response times and dwell times of threats in corporate systems. XDR can improve key SOC performance metrics like mean time to respond (MTTR) and mean time to detect (MTTD), by improving threat detection rates and speeding response times.
EDR vs XDR
EDR was created to provide perimeter-wide protection for a system. This was an advancement on existing methods as it provided coverage for a primary component in an attack: endpoints. The result was proactive endpoint security that covered many security gaps and blindspots.
Effective use of EDR still requires collaboration with other tools and processes, however. It cannot protect your system on its own. It also cannot provide full visibility of your system. Rather, it can provide limited visibility into what actions attackers are taking on your endpoints. If you want to know what happened throughout the attack, you need to bring in other monitoring and detection tools.
XDR was designed to fill this information gap. Unlike EDR, it can provide visibility into every phase of an attack, from endpoint to payload. By integrating XDR into your security platform, you can collate information from across your systems. This helps you determine a more accurate picture of past attacks as well as attacks in progress. This is especially important as networks become more distributed and more external services are incorporated and provided system access.
Managed Detection and Response (MDR) is a solution that provides an alternative to an in-house SOC. It provides security tools and outsourced security experts which can protect an organization against threats. MDR providers typically offer:
24/7 network monitoring and detection of security incidents by human security analysts.
Incident investigation and response managed by the MDR provider’s SOC.
Security technology such as EDR, XDR, and SIEM platforms, deployed within an organization’s environment and managed by the SOC provider.
The last element is the key difference between MDR and traditional Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP). By deploying advanced security solutions into an organization’s environment, MDR security experts gain deep visibility and granular control over IT assets, enabling them to effectively detect and respond to threats.
Both MDR and XDR help security teams deal with limited resources and growing threats, by they do so in different ways:
MDR supplements the internal security team – it offers SOC as a service, performing most of the tasks needed to protect the organization’s critical assets. In many cases, the MDR provider will provide an XDR solution as part of its offering, but the solution will be operated by the MDR’s staff rather than in-house security teams. This can provide significant cost savings compared to maintaining a full SOC and XDR technology in-house.
XDR automates security tasks and improves analyst productivity – if an organization maintains an in-house SOC, it can improve its effectiveness to detect and respond to threats. XDR saves time for security teams, allowing them to investigate and respond to real threats to the business.
Both MDR and XDR can help an organization identify and respond to threats more effectively. The main question is whether the organization is capable of maintaining an in-house SOC and implementing the necessary security technologies. For organizations just starting to build their security infrastructure, MDR will typically provide a more cost effective solution and significantly faster ramp up.
How Does XDR Work with SIEM?
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) is used in most security operations centers as a central repository of security event data and a way to generate alerts from security events. XDR can extend SIEM by tapping into SIEM data, and combining it with data from point solutions that integrate with the XDR platform.
XDR can take SIEM one step further. For example, when a SIEM platform generates an alert, instead of having security analysts manually go into endpoint security systems or cloud systems to investigate further, XDR can do this automatically. It can combine data from the SIEM with forensic data from endpoints and cloud resources, and create a complete attack story. Analysts can immediately understand the full scope of the threat and respond to it.
XDR also enables more advanced analytics. SIEM was traditionally based on statistical correlation rules, while XDR introduces AI-driven analysis that establishes behavioral baselines, and identifies anomalies based on these baselines. It can add another layer of analysis to SIEM data, saving even more time for security analysts and improving the time to detection and response.
Mistakes to Avoid With XDR Platforms
While XDR platforms are a significant improvement over traditional tools and many EDR systems, these solutions are not foolproof. To ensure that your implementation is effective and that you are getting the greatest protection for your investments, make sure to avoid the following mistakes.
Complexity of integration
XDR solutions need to integrate smoothly with your existing solutions. If integration requires excessive work or custom plugins, you lose out on productivity gains. You’ll likely also have to sacrifice some of the control and visibility that makes XDR an improvement over alternatives. If the platform you want doesn’t integrate well, you’re likely better off finding another.
While you may not get all of the features of your preferred platform, not having to maintain or build an integration from scratch can be worth the compromise. Being able to take advantage of native integration enables you to implement a new platform quickly and provides immediate protection enhancements.
Likewise, when looking to integrate additional tooling with your XDR, make sure to prioritize those that are already compatible. In general, you should be wary of applications, tools, and services that require additional integration work since this is a debt you’ll have to carry forward.
Lack of sufficient automation
Automation is a key driver of the efficiency of XDR. The ability to automate tracking, alerts, and responses is what reduces the workload of security teams and enables them to focus on higher-level tasks. However, automation needs to go beyond simply sandboxing processes or blocking all traffic to be effective.
The XDR platform you choose should ideally include automation that adapts to current system conditions and responds based on multiple parameters. For example, recognizing when a device has connected to your network and being able to either match it to a previous user profile or assigning it a temporary status. This can then enable you to more closely monitor unknown devices and more quickly restrict potentially malicious access.
Operational complexity
XDR platforms are supposed to ease the efforts of security and response teams. This goes beyond interfaces and dashboards and extends to configuration and maintenance requirements. If a solution is difficult to update or does not enable settings to be easily set or changed, its value decreases.
Additionally, if a platform is constructed of various technologies that are not natively-linked, your teams are effectively still using disparate tools. These tools are unlikely to be as effective and are more likely to require extra operational efforts. Instead, you should look for platforms that include native services and functionalities that don’t require external add-ons.
XDR Security with Cynet 360
Beyond XDR – Autonomous Breach Protection
Cynet 360 is the world’s first Autonomous Breach Protection platform that natively integrates the endpoint, network and user attack prevention & detection of XDR with the automated investigation and remediation capabilities of SOAR, backed by a 24/7 world-class MDR service. End to end, fully automated breach protection is now within reach of any organization, regardless of security team size and skill level.
Endpoint protection—Multilayered protection against malware, ransomware, exploits and fileless attacks
Network protection—Protecting against scanning attacks, MITM, lateral movement and data exfiltration
User protection—Preset behavior rules coupled with dynamic behavior profiling to detect malicious anomalies
Deception— Wide array of network, user, file decoys to lure advanced attackers into revealing their hidden presence
SOAR Layer: Response Automation
Investigation— Automated root cause and impact analysis
Findings—Actionable conclusions on the attack’s origin and its affected entities
Remediation— Elimination of malicious presence, activity and infrastructure across user, network and endpoint attacks
Visualization— Intuitive flow layout of the attack and the automated response flow
MDR Layer: Expert Monitoring and Oversight
Alert monitoring— First line of defense against incoming alerts, prioritizing and notifying customer on critical events
Attack investigation—Detailed analysis reports on the attacks that targeted the customer
Proactive threat hunting—Search for malicious artifacts and IoC within the customer’s environment
Incident response guidance— Remote assistance in isolation and removal of malicious infrastructure, presence and activity
Simple Deployment
Cynet 360 can be deployed across thousands of endpoints in less than two hours. It can be immediately used to uncover advanced threats and then perform automatic or manual remediation, disrupt malicious activity and minimize damage caused by attacks.
See Our Additional Guides on Key Cybersecurity Topics
Together with our content partners, we have authored in-depth guides on several other topics that can also be useful as you explore the world of Cybersecurity.
Extended means XDR can provide insight into data in networks, clouds, endpoints, and applications (unlike traditional EDR which only focused on endpoints).
Detection means XDR has automated analysis capabilities that can help it identify anomalies in the IT environment, detect potential security incidents, and provide the full attack story.
Response means that XDR gives security teams the tools to immediately respond to an attack, by locking down endpoints, applying network segmentation, or other proactive measures.
Why is XDR Important?
The main promise of XDR is to reduce the likelihood of breaches that will have an impact on an organization and its customers.
XDR gives analysts contextual information about real attacks that can help them understand, contain and eradicate the threat more quickly. It can do this by combining data sources from the entire cybersecurity ecosystem, including endpoints but extending to networks, cloud resources and other resources, and helping analysts visualize the entire kill chain.
In addition, XDR can achieve significant efficiencies in security organizations, which suffer from a talent shortage and scarce resources. XDR is a unified platform, rather than a set of separate security tools, making it easy to deploy, upgrade, expand, and manage. This reduces the need for extensive training and certifications, and improves productivity, especially for Tier 1 security analysts.
What is the Difference Between Point Solutions (NGAV, EDR, NDR, etc.) and XDR?
XDR collects activity data from multiple vectors including endpoints, servers, and networks, providing a level of detection that is difficult or impossible to achieve with SIEM or isolated security solutions.
Tools like next generation antivirus (NGAV), endpoint detection and response (EDR) or network detection and response (NDR) are only effective against attacks that are focused on one layer of the security environment, and find it difficult to detect and respond to threats that cross multiple layers, for example leveraging a compromised endpoint to attack the network.
Is XDR Better than EDR?
XDR takes endpoint detection and response (EDR) one step further, evolving the original EDR approach which focused on a single security vector.
EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response) is still of great value, and XDR solutions continue to leverage EDR capabilities to protect endpoints. However, EDR is ultimately limited because it can only see the endpoint in a complex attack story. This limits the scope of the threats that can be detected and mitigated. In this sense, XDR is better than just EDR alone, because it extends the benefits of EDR to threats that go beyond the endpoint to target additional security layers
Which are the Top XDR Solutions?
Here are five leading XDR security solution providers:
