Why EDR Is Essential
Older antimalware was intended to detect file-based, known threats (malware). Today's attackers use fileless methods, stolen credentials/ID impersonation, and human-operated ransomware that easily evade legacy antivirus. As threats evolve, an increasing number of businesses are realizing that antivirus alone does not provide an adequate level of protection; thus, Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) has become a requirement for modern security practices.
Introduction
For several decades, deploying antivirus on endpoint devices was thought to be enough to protect those devices from cybercrime. If a computer had antivirus software installed and the software was kept current, the computer was assumed to be "protected." This is no longer a correct assumption. Attackers have developed ways to use stolen identities, abuse built-in system tools to gain administrator rights, and otherwise work within an environment utilizing manual processes rather than utilizing readily identified malware. As a result, businesses relying on legacy antivirus expose themselves to substantially more risk than those utilizing EDR alone in terms of the potential for ransomware attacks, breach incidents, and non-compliance with regulatory authorities.
The Evolving Cyber Threat Landscape
The types of attacks being perpetrated today are gaining sophistication and targeting, in addition to having a greater ability to remain hidden, making modern attackers more persistent than previous attackers who relied upon malware as their primary attack method. Modern-day attackers utilize legitimate user credentials, trusted applications, and built-in operating system resources/tools to blend into an organization or network rather than use blatantly malicious tactics.
Modern Attacks Demand Behavioral Detection
Modern attackers are employing more sophisticated techniques, which include the use of stolen credentials, lateral movement, escalating their access privileges, and leveraging the existing resources of the network or device (known as “living-off-the-land”). Most signature-based antivirus solutions will recognize these types of actions as legitimate; hence, they cannot detect them. To detect these types of attack, organizations need security solutions that will continuously observe endpoint behavior and correlate activity to other behavioral trends over time. The process of observing behavioral patterns allows security teams to identify anomalies, patterns associated with suspicious behavior, and to understand how an attack progresses through the network this is something that traditional antivirus tools cannot provide.
Why EDR Is Essential
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) solves the issues with traditional antivirus by offering continuous visibility to organizations of endpoint activity. The EDR provides visibility into what processes are being executed on an endpoint, what users are doing on an endpoint, and how the system behaves in real time, which allows for detecting suspicious activity before any significant damage occurs.
The rapid investigation and response capabilities EDR provides allows security personnel to track the timeline of the attack, isolate any compromised endpoints, and contain threats before they can spread. For that ability to maintain operational resilience, an organization needs to obtain visibility and control over any attack.
How EDR Fits into a Broader Security Strategy
While EDR has a focus on endpoint protection, to have a complete security strategy an organization needs to consider multiple controls to achieve protection. Extended Detection and Response (XDR) is an evolution of EDR and provides an organization with the ability to correlate event signals across its endpoint, email, network, cloud, and identity systems, thereby allowing for faster detection of complex and multi-staged attacks while reducing the amount of noise.
Beyond Tools: Proactive Security Services
Dependence upon technology alone will not prohibit all types of breaches. The majority of successful breaches take advantage of human error (misconfiguration, weak controls, untested processes) rather than technology errors (missing tools). VAPT (vulnerability assessment and penetration testing) allow organizations to determine vulnerabilities before attackers do! Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) services align security controls with Frameworks/Grid Structures like ISO 27001 and SOC 2 to ensure risk reduction and compliance preparation working hand-in-hand!
Business Impact of Relying Only on Antivirus
Organizations that depend solely on an AV solution typically discover incidents after Ransomware executes, Data is compromised, or the computer systems were taken offline. An AV-only (antivirus) solution frequently results in downtime, lost revenues, Regulatory transgressions, and damage to its brand. An organization that employs Endpoint Detection & Response (EDR), Extended Detection & Response (XDR), Managed Detection & Response (MDR), and proactive cybersecurity offerings typically detect threats early on, which results in a reduced amount of business disruption and a better ability to show a more intimidating security stance during audits and customer procurement process assessments.
Antivirus Still Has a Role-But Not Alone
Even though Antivirus still serves as a baseline control to block out known and commodity threats; it should no longer be considered as a comprehensive solution for threat prevention. Cybersecurity is now based on continuous monitoring, behavioral analytics, and rapid incident response capabilities that address both unknown and advanced attack methods.
Conclusion
In addition to offering protection from malware, today's Cybersecurity focuses on visibility, detection and response to threats throughout the entire environment. As the nature of these attacks continues to change, companies are now forced to go past the traditional "antivirus" approach to securing endpoints and utilize more sophisticated techniques for security at the endpoint level via advanced EDR solutions.
Advanced Endpoint Detection and Response solutions, commonly referred to as "EDR", are an essential component of identifying the activity of newer types of cyberattacks, containing threats before they can do damage, and reducing the overall risk associated with cybersecurity.
Ancrew Global offers an array of cyber security solutions, including but not limited to, EDR solutions. We encourage you to reach out to us to set up an appointment to review our security services.