What is an EDR? Why is it different from an antivirus?

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The techniques used by cybercriminals are becoming increasingly targeted and sophisticated. For this reason, protecting the endpoint and the network perimeter is no longer enough.

There are new risks (such as the human factor) and different attack vectors (malware, exploits, APTs) that force us to strengthen user security.

This is where the EDR tool comes into play. An evolution of the traditional antivirus. It serves to provide visibility and respond to advanced threats.

We will look at the differences between the EDR and EPP terms.

Then we will analyze in detail the differentiating elements of EDR solutions. We will also discover why they are trending in endpoint security.

What is an endpoint?

An endpoint is any computing device connected to a network (some examples are desktop computers, laptops, and mobile devices).

What is EPP?

Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) is the current term we use to refer to the traditional antivirus. It is a security solution designed to detect and block threats at the device level.

It includes features such as:

antivirus, antimalware, intrusion prevention (IPS), data loss prevention (DLP)

and the more advanced ones:

exploit prevention, anti-ransomware technology, etc.

Antivirus tools have a preventive approach. They use signatures to identify threats: The potentially malicious file is compared against the database. If the signature matches, it is classified as malware.

They also offer proactive protection based on heuristics:

A file is analyzed and its behavior is compared against a set of criteria that determine whether a file is malicious.

EPP is a first-line defense mechanism. It is effective at blocking primarily known threats. However, the latest solutions have evolved to use a broader range of detection techniques.

What is EDR in cybersecurity?

Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) is a tool that provides continuous monitoring and analysis of the endpoint and the network.

The goal is to identify, detect, and prevent advanced threats (APTs) more easily.

EDR was initially designed more for large enterprises with dedicated SOCs.

Today, the demand for this type of solution has shifted to companies of all sizes.

Market evolution

The natural evolution of the market has led the various vendors to progressively integrate EDR capabilities into their EPP products. The goal is for the organization to be protected against any possible security incident — whether it is a traditional threat, a vulnerable application, or an unknown threat.

It provides additional tools for hunting unknown threats. It is possible to perform forensic analysis and respond quickly and effectively to attacks.

EDR technology detects attacks that our antivirus has missed.

It monitors and evaluates all network activity (user events, files, processes, registry, memory, and network).

It detects cyberattacks in real time and allows immediate action to be taken if necessary.

**_EDR vs EPP_**

_An EPP focuses solely on perimeter prevention_. Its goal is to prevent threats from entering the network.

_EDR is focused on advanced threats_, those designed to evade the first layer of defense and successfully penetrate the network. It detects that activity and contains the adversary before they can move laterally within the network.

How an EDR works

EDR is more effective than an antivirus at detecting unknown malware because it uses a series of novel techniques, such as:

Machine learning and analytics.
Sandboxing.
Alerts generated by external systems (IOCs or indicators of compromise), categorization of incidents to act quickly on the most critical ones.
Historical incident investigation: the origin and evolution of malware is traced to take preventive measures against future incidents.
Remediation tools to remove infected files, quarantine them, and restore the system to its pre-infection state.

what is an EDR in computing

How does EDR act?

EDR monitors endpoint activity and classifies files according to whether they are safe, dangerous, or "unknown."

When it detects suspicious (unknown) files on one of the endpoints (e.g., an email attachment), it automatically sends it to the cloud. It remains isolated in a test environment and is executed simulating how a real user would behave.

Meanwhile, a machine learning system observes and learns from the threat's behavior.

After observing it for a period of time, it can be determined whether it is safe or dangerous. If it is considered dangerous, it will be blocked across all endpoints. This way, if that file is detected again on any endpoint in the future, it will be immediately blocked, preventing its execution.

EDR features

Key EDR features

There are many EDR solutions on the market, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. These are the key intelligent detection and response capabilities for endpoints.

Detection

They use AI (artificial intelligence) to reduce the false positive rate.

Teams can optimize key resources and focus on important IT tasks instead of reviewing a large volume of alerts and false positives.

Designed to monitor and respond to a variety of threats, not just malware.

It is a defense against a wide range of threats, such as ransomware, malware, botnets, and other known and unknown threats. Unauthorized access, stealthy data theft attacks, etc.

Containment

Enables advanced threat blocking.

Not only is it capable of quickly detecting new threats, but it can also handle live attacks and protect us while they are occurring.

Investigation

Rapid incident response.

Any organization is at risk of falling victim to a cyberattack. EDR enables a fast and precise response to incidents. The goal is to stop an attack and get back to work as quickly as possible.

Remediation

Thorough endpoint repair.

So that systems can be restored to their pre-infection state.

edr endpoint

EDR benefits

How do EDR tools improve our security?

Greater anticipation of targeted attacks. With the prevention model (pre-infection) and the detection model (post-infection), behavioral patterns are analyzed and it is possible to anticipate threats.
Less exposure time to security incidents. Thanks to a reactive approach, we can act within a matter of seconds or minutes.
They provide complete visibility into the threats on our endpoints. Thanks to guided investigation, it is easier to understand the origin of incidents, the path an attack has taken, the impact, who has been affected, and how to respond.

EDR use cases

Intelligent endpoint detection and response gives security teams the visibility and expertise to answer the most complex questions about an incident:

"What happened after the infection?"
"Has there been any spread?"
"What other machines were infected and have shown no symptoms?"
"What other systems have downloaded the same malware but have not yet executed it?"

In what types of scenarios is EDR recommended?

Where the traditional antivirus cannot reach, but EDR can.

Phishing attacks. A cybercriminal steals our credentials and accesses our systems legitimately. Activities such as attempting to escalate privileges or move laterally to other endpoints will leave a trail that our antivirus will not be able to detect.

Office documents with embedded malicious macros or PDFs containing malicious JavaScript code. The antivirus only checks the initial document and does not act if it launches a script to download malware. The malware could then lurk in the background undetected, infect the user, and spread across the network.

Fileless malware. The cybercriminal loads and executes malicious code entirely from the system's memory without touching the file system. Since there is no file to analyze, the antivirus will not detect any suspicious activity.

Highly polymorphic malware. Polymorphic viruses continuously change their behavior to avoid being detected by an antivirus.

Factors to consider before investing in an EDR solution

Before acquiring a solution of this type, we must weigh various factors.

What kind of resources do I have to adopt an EDR solution?

It is true that EDR solutions are gaining traction among SMBs, but it is also true that many of them lack the resources to maximize the benefits of this technology.

Using advanced EDR features, such as forensic analysis, suspicious activity analysis, and artificial intelligence (AI), requires dedicating resources (human and technical) to manage all the information the EDR generates on a day-to-day basis.

Do we have a dedicated IT security team?

Will we need to hire more staff or contract a SOC through a specialized partner?

If we do not have or do not want to allocate internal resources for the deployment, migration, and configuration of EDR solutions, we can rely on technicians who are specialized and certified in the use of these tools.

There is also a new managed support service in which the partner assists the internal IT department with the deployment and launch of the solution.

In addition, their technical support team will handle monitoring, threat hunting, detection, and response around the clock. This is what is known as the MTR (Managed Threat Response) service.

Is an EDR tool easy to manage?

As mentioned at the beginning, EDR solutions were originally designed for SOCs with technical staff dedicated to analyzing attacks and responding to them.

Vendors are aware that most organizations do not have those resources.

That is why they are providing simple management interfaces in which users can access all their endpoint information in a couple of clicks, receive alerts, view detections, and carry out guided investigations.