Cyber threats continue to grow in sophistication and complexity, and it is either you keep up with the security trends or suffer the consequences. In business, cyber-criminals look for vulnerabilities and loopholes to find their way in and attack. One of the main focuses of cyber-criminals is the endpoint in the business.
Without a doubt, your business has several endpoints that make up the business network. These include desktops and laptops, servers, printers, workstations, smart sensors, etc. Employees also use personal devices like tablets, laptops, and smartwatches to remotely log in to the company’s network, further increasing the number of endpoints. These endpoints create vulnerabilities because cyber-attackers and criminals can leverage weaknesses in an endpoint, bypass the target’s network security, and use them to gain access to confidential and sensitive data unauthorizedly.
According to a recent study, 68% of companies have been victims of endpoint threats and attacks, leading to severe data breaching incidents and damage. Although your business already has an antivirus solution and a firewall in place, the first line of defense for your endpoint network can be breached. Therefore, what more could be needed to protect your endpoint network? You need total IT management, and this is where Endpoint Detection and Response come in.
What is EDR?
EDR stands for Endpoint Detection and Response. It is an integrated cyber security tool that combines real-time constant monitoring and gathering of data to understand how cyber threats behave and automatically detects and responds to endpoint threats
Simply put, while your antivirus solution and firewall are trying to prevent cyber criminals from breaching and attacking your network, EDR looks for threats lurking inside it, looking for any suspicious activity.
While some endpoint protection solution purely focuses on blocking threats, endpoint detection and response solution focuses on a more holistic approach. This approach includes monitoring and analyzing endpoint usage, using various data analytics strategies to detect and identify suspicious behaviors, blocking malicious activities, and notifying the company’s IT teams to respond quickly to the attacks.
The main capabilities of EDR include the following
- Detection
- Containment
- Investigation
- Remediation
EDR follows these sequence to protect your endpoint network and prevents attacks from spreading further.
Why Traditional Approach for EDR Fails
Many businesses are under the impression and belief that having a strong Antivirus/Next Gen Antivirus and firewall is the one-stop solution to cyber threats and attacks. However, that isn’t the case.
Antivirus solutions are designed to cut down known attacks on themselves. An attack beyond the signature of an antivirus intelligence is never detected, which is why cyber attackers are exploiting it today. Gone are the days when cyber-attacker and criminals used easy-to-detect methods. Today, cybercrime has become more sophisticated and complex, and no matter what, Antivirus or Next Gen Antivirus solutions can always be bypassed.
As a result, the best approach is to carry out a constant and ongoing behavioral analysis. This is an activity EDR should be your trusted functionality.
What Do Endpoint Detection and Response Solutions Protect Against?
Due to COVID, flexible work arrangements were brought into place; therefore, many companies allow employees to work from home and access the business network through their personal devices. In the long run, it could create significant vulnerabilities due to carelessness on the employee’s part that could affect the business.
There are so many threats and attacks EDR solutions can protect against, including:
- Active persistent threats: These threats are difficult to handle because they are built to be hard to detect while stealing data that will be used by the attacker. EDR, when paired with automated threat response, monitors and discovers active persistent threats and efficiently counters them before too much data is stolen by the attacker.
- Insider Attacks: An insider threat is one of the cyber threats that are on the rise. This is a threat that comes from within the organization. EDR can help thwart insider threats that bypass the company’s security measures by checking the integrity of network endpoints. In particular, EDR solutions can help to identify abnormal use patterns immediately.
- Malware Programs: Some malware programs are installed on the network endpoints. EDR solutions help quickly eliminate these threats and limit the company’s exposure to malware-based programs and their impacts.
Being able to detect and counter threats is an essential need for EDR solutions.
Why Your Company Needs to Implement EDR
Implementing endpoint detection and response (EDR) security can be extremely beneficial to your company. Here are some major reasons why your company needs EDR
- Help detects threats that go unnoticed
So many cyber criminals hide in plain sight, and their attacks go unnoticed for a very long time. This is a lot of time for the cyber-criminal to notice all your company’s vulnerabilities and cause some severe damage.
EDR helps detects threats that tend to go unnoticed. It uses advanced analytics that can indicate a security breach.
- Allows proactive threat hunting
An EDR solution allows you proactively hunt for threats by allowing you to monitor strange behaviors, suspicious activities, and other signs of threats across your endpoint. This, in turn, gives your IT team enough information needed to investigate and prevent an attack.
- Simplifies endpoint management
With the EDR solution, your company will be able to detect, identify, and contain threats and attacks, all from a single centralized platform. This means that no matter where the device is located, your IT team can immediately respond to the breach or attack.
- Enhance threat detection
Many companies lack the visibility needed to understand what goes on in their endpoints. Using EDR threat intelligence, your company will be able to enhance the threat detection abilities in endpoints. Your company will also have access to a wide range of data relating to current threats and their attributes.
- Speeds up detection time
When it comes to detecting and preventing a breach, time is essential. During a breach, your IT team has to speed hours collecting threat or attack pieces from various endpoints in the building. This takes time, slowing down the rate of detecting and preventing the breach, thereby allowing the hacker to have time to siphon many business data. EDR collects and stores all the important pieces, enabling better detection time and allowing the IT team to carry out swift actions to contain the breach.
- Saves your company’s reputation
EDR solutions save your company from having a ruined reputation and the severe outcomes of the breach.
Ready to Set Up EDR Solutions for Your company?
EDR has a lot of benefits that can improve how your company detects and responds to cyber incidents, threats, and attacks. At B-Comp, we help our clients implement sophisticated cybersecurity tools like EDR.
Contact us at (303) 282-4934 or visit our website for further information.
