Make Threat Hunting Easier with Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)

July 9, 2024

Studies have estimated that roughly 90% of successful cyberattacks and 70% of successful data breaches originate at endpoint devices. Proactive threat hunting is critical to catching and resolving potential incidents quickly and completely – it is like installing a revolving searchlight over a high-security zone.

 

With a strategic endpoint detection and response (EDR) solution, organizations trade complex architectures and expensive security tools for valuable data insights that make threat hunting easier and more effective. 

 

 

Evolving Beyond SIEM Systems

In the past, security information and event management (SIEM systems that provided security insights across your entire network were enough. But today, beyond the basic monitoring and compliance capabilities of a SIEM, you also need responsive, AI-powered, real-time security across all your endpoints.

 

As a result, many CISOs and security teams are adopting a modern endpoint detection and response (EDR) solution along with a centralized data lake.

 

These offers several key benefits:

 

  • Easier data collection and storage
  • Effectively turns raw data into structured data
  • Flexibility for big data and machine learning applications
  • Includes tool capabilities for more in-depth insights
  • More cost-effective than a data warehouse

 

Leveraging data lakes to help your organization store and manage the data from your EDR solution improves threat detection and response capabilities. It also lessens the need to send expensive telemetry into a SIEM. Many organizations find significant cost savings with such an approach.

 

Another key feature is that your data is readily available when needed, and you won’t have to wait for a vendor to restore your data, especially when every minute counts.

 

 

Endpoint Detection and Response for Network Data Insights

Increased visibility of all your endpoints is just one of the many benefits of an EDR solution.

 

EDR offers a comprehensive view of all your business activities, so you no longer need to rely on correlating endpoint, firewall activity and system data to tell a complete story.

 

A single, robust, real-time threat intelligence solution can help your organization simplify ownership and reduce the number of configurations to manage, thus freeing up your security team to focus on other areas. So, you spend less time configuring and more time delivering.

 

Proactive threat hunting is just one of the non-negotiables when it comes to evaluating an endpoint protection platform.

 

Discover five more elements to look for in this infographic.

 

 

Defense In Depth Firewall Capabilities

Legacy tools, like firewalls, can increase your risk of breaches and create issues when confronted with an increasingly sophisticated threat landscape. They expand the attack surface, enable compromise through the need for organizations to inspect high volumes of encrypted traffic, allow lateral threat movement and fail to stop data loss.

 

Advanced EDR solutions can now create local firewall rules — allowing your organization to develop much more granular data governance policies. Extending your defense in depth strategy to firewall will secure your organization’s cyber infrastructure amidst a rapidly evolving threat landscape.

 

Today, EDR is a baseline security requirement for anything endpoint related. It’s equally as critical as a corporate firewall protecting the network. Together, these create a great place to start for a foundational defense in depth strategy.

 

 

Endpoint Detection and Response for Better Outcomes

Challenges with decentralized workforces, non-traditional and rogue devices, limited or redundant tools coverage and compliance requirements are making one thing true for all organizations, regardless of size or industry. Your endpoint strategy deserves your attention. Integrating EDR into your security stack allows you to protect your data in the face of these challenges, through intuitive and proactive threat hunting.

 

Organizations looking to strengthen their endpoint detection and response strategy and reduce spending should compare EDR and SIEM costs and use cases. We have often seen the switch from SIEM to EDR pay for itself.

 

Contact our experts to learn more about EDR and how it can simplify threat hunting. 

 

John Pelton
Senior Director of Cyber Operations | Optiv
John Pelton is Optiv’s Sr. Director of Detection in Response within Managed Services and leads a team in safeguarding clients’ environments comprised of engineers, analysts and hunters. John has previously led client success organizations and has a heavy emphasis on client satisfaction, process optimizations and effective risk management.