What is Extended Detection and Response (XDR)?

We live in a digital world where our daily activities are related to the use of the internet. We now not only use it for entertainment like watching movies, downloading music, or browsing the internet, but we also work remotely, do online business, and use online banking. Nowadays, almost all of our everyday activities are done online. This, of course, had its dark side, because cybercriminals are aiming to steal, corrupt, or encrypt our sensitive information in order to gain financial benefits. There are countless threats that they have designed in order to penetrate our security systems and tools, and they are constantly evolving and becoming more advanced and sophisticated day by day.

Unfortunately, as we know, traditional antivirus programs are not able to respond to and prevent these advanced threats. This is where XDR steps in and takes charge in order to ensure robust protection against all known and unknown cyber threats. XDR successfully protects users and organizations from becoming victims of cybercriminals destructive attacks.

What is XDR, and how does it protect us? XDR, also known as extended detection and response, is a security tool that is constantly evolving and upgrading and serves for threat prevention, detection, and response. XDR solutions collect data from different tools in an organization’s security technology stack in order to create greater context with all needed information for Security Operations Center (SOC) teams to perform faster threat detection, investigation, and response.

Key features for XDR include detecting security incidents, automating response capabilities, and integrating intelligence and telemetry data from multiple sources with security analytics to correlate and contextualize security events and alerts.

How does XDR Work?

Extended detection and response collects and automatically correlates data across multiple security layers like email, endpoint, server, cloud workload, and network. This helps for faster detection of threats and cyberattacks and also leads to improved investigation and response times through security analysis. Implementing XDR helps an enterprise minimize product sprawl, enhance platform integration, reduce alert fatigue, and trim operational expenses. The process happens in three steps:

Step 1: Ingest and normalize volumes of data from endpoints.

Step 2. Detect: Analyze and correlate data to automatically detect stealthy and sophisticated threats with advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML).

Step 3. Respond: XDR prioritizes threat data by severity so that threat hunters can quickly analyze and triage new events and automate investigation and response activities.

What are the benefits of XDR?

XDR provides countless substantial benefits to every organization and user in order to strengthen their cybersecurity posture. These benefits are essential in intercepting the advanced and sophisticated cyberattacks that aim to compromise their victims' computing environments. Let's have a closer look at the general and most important benefits that XDR provides to its users.

Better visibility across networks:

XDR offers insight into a company's infrastructure by bringing together data from sources, simplifying the security teams monitoring tasks. This comprehensive approach eliminates the need for different security and response tools focusing on network aspects, leading to increased efficiency and effectiveness.

By gathering signals from all parts of the environment and using analytics engine, XDR enables AI and ML technologies to enhance threat intelligence, detection, and response capabilities. Even subtle signals that may go unnoticed at endpoints can reveal patterns and identify gaps pointing to threats that require immediate attention.

No false-positive threat alerts:

Other existing security tools are known for generating a lot of false positive threat alerts, which is a time-wasting process for every security analyst team because they have to investigate and take actions related to threats that are actually not real cyber attacks. This can be an annoying process for every security team. Minimizing the number of false cyberattack alerts and focusing on the real ones helps remediate threats faster. Alert fatigue degrades the performance of a security team in several ways:

• wasting time investigating a false-positive alert;
• Desensitizing team members to legitimate alerts;
• Missing important alarms that indicate real threats that need attention.

Luckily, XDR eliminates this problem and has the ability to report only the real cyber threats, so you and your security team will have the opportunity to focus on the real threats instead of dealing with false positives.

Improved and more advanced automation:

An XDR system automates reactions through entity behavior analytics within your environment. The automated reactions alleviate the pressure on cybersecurity staff, enabling XDR to manage responses and freeing up team members to focus on cases requiring their input. Automated reactions consistently outpace procedures in terms of speed. Through XDR automation, threats are promptly addressed to prevent harm to the environment and further consequences for your organization.

Immediate and efficient threat detection and response:

Improved visibility and automated managed detection lead to a lot faster and more efficient threat endpoint detection and incident response. All threats are identified based on suspicious behavior and coordinated threat intelligence, making it possible for these attacks to be addressed immediately.

Minimized impact on your organization's environment:

Real threats to the infrastructure are lessened by minimizing false alerts and enhancing visibility. By reducing distractions, XDR is enabling security teams to focus on addressing threats with an efficient response that involves decisive actions.

These are the general benefits that the XDR provides to every organization; the combination of them ensures business continuity and uninterrupted processes that traditional security silos can't provide. XDR security solutions are taking cybersecurity to another level, being able to improve the effectiveness of your security teams, minimize the TCO, and, of course, intercept active threats at their early stages. Thus, you have peace of mind knowing that your organization is being protected in the best possible way.

What do XDR Systems consist of?

XDR systems, also known as Extended Detection and Response, are a comprehensive security solution that merges multiple security technologies into a unified, single platform. These different tools and technologies work together to provide robust threat detection and response capabilities. In order to stop every single known and unknown sophisticated attack and to ensure an enhanced endpoint security layer.

At the heart of XDR systems are advanced detection capabilities, including endpoint protection and response, network traffic analysis, and user behavior analytics. All these components constantly monitor and analyze any suspicious activity across an organization's IT infrastructure and environment. With the main purpose of identifying potential threats.

Furthermore, if any security incident occurs and the system detects external or internal threats, the XDR system uses its automated response mechanisms that can quickly contain and mitigate security incidents. Thus, XDR provides the ability to respond to these cyberattacks in real-time while reducing the impact of these complex attacks and protecting the organization from facing further destructive consequences.

Another crucial benefit of XDR is that it uses machine learning algorithms and artificial intelligence to update and improve threat detection efficiency by collecting and analyzing data on cyber threats using new and advanced approaches and patterns. With all these defense mechanisms, XDR systems are able to adapt to evolving, complex threats and provide robust protection against them. Thus, organization owners will have peace of mind knowing that no matter what happens, their business won't be affected, and it will maintain its continuity and uninterrupted operations.

XDR consists of a comprehensive set of security tools and technologies that work together with the main goal of detecting, analyzing, and responding to cyber threats promptly. By implementing an XDR solution, organizations will enhance their overall security posture, ensure better protection for their sensitive data, and prevent complex cyber attacks.

Common XDR Use Cases for Security Operations

Every organization values its digital security in order to protect its sensitive information and data. The constant rise in cyber threats requires proactive and enhanced security measures to win the battle against cybercriminals. Extended Detection and Response (XDR) has proven to be an essential aspect of cybersecurity, providing comprehensive threat detection and response throughout the network and intercepting every single threat at its early stage. Let's explore the most important XDR use cases that will give us more information on its effectiveness and efficiency.

• Threat hunting

The first major use case of XDR involves automated threat detection. The XDR system gathers data from network sources on a regular basis. It employs machine learning models to examine this data for patterns and signs of security breaches. These models can adapt to the evolving cybersecurity landscape, enabling them to combat emerging cyber threats. By automating threat detection and advanced analytics, the process of identifying risks is expedited, leading to more efficient response times.

• Integrated Security Orchestration

Another critical XDR use case is the integration and orchestration of different security systems. Many companies use multiple individual security tools. Merging them within an XDR framework can offer enhanced protection that will be a lot more efficient and easy to manage. This orchestration enables centralized visibility, logging, analysis, and reporting to maintain a holistic view of the company's network security.

• Instant Incident Response

Instant incident response is another vital XDR use case. XDR's comprehensive integration offers security teams alerts filled with context-revealing breaches and full threat information. This heightened visibility enables security teams to act promptly, shortening the gap between detecting threats and resolving them effectively. Which, of course, leads to business continuity and uninterrupted processes.

• Threat intelligence enrichment

XDR platforms provide the capability to enrich local threat intelligence with global intelligence. The amalgamation of these two sources of threat intelligence sharing enables organizations to fearlessly face advanced persistent threats (APTs) and targeted attacks. It also identifies the patterns of cyber criminals and helps predict their suspicious activities ahead of their execution, so you will be protected from all known and unknown cyber attacks. And your endpoint data will be fully protected from all the sophisticated attacks by threat intelligence.

1. Low maintenance cost: due to the close to zero false directions and positives, you also benefit from a scan of backups that provide a unique protection level for you and your data.
2. High efficiency: simple protection configuration with attack graph visualization run by XD.
3. Mspthreats.com: unique knowledge of MSP threats and regulatory compliance.

Key Capabilities of XDR and what should you look for

As we already clarified, XDR platforms coordinate cyberthreat detection and response across an organization’s infrastructure endpoints. They assist in cyberattacks by effectively integrating different security tools into one platform and dismantling conventional security barriers to boost cybersecurity. The XDR platform employs automation and machine learning to rapidly identify and respond to all threats. Automated playbooks are able to execute predefined actions based on threat severity, reducing response time (automated responses) and allowing security teams to focus on more strategic tasks.

Let's have a closer look and explore in detail the key capabilities of XDR and what you should look for when choosing your XDR service provider.

Incident-based investigation

XDR collects low-level alerts and links them to form incidents, helping security analysts gain a full understanding of each possible cyberattack more efficiently. This eliminates the need for analysts to manually sort through scattered data to identify and comprehend cyber threat activity, ultimately boosting productivity and facilitating responses.

Real-time Monitoring

Traditional solutions often lack real-time monitoring capabilities, which can pose difficulties in identifying and addressing threats promptly.

XDR offers real-time monitoring and continuous threat detection throughout the IT environment. This proactive strategy aids in recognizing and preventing threats at a stage that reduces the risk of harm.

Improved visibility and detection capabilities

Visibility and detection are key aspects of threat mitigation. If you can’t spot a threat, you can’t identify it or investigate it promptly, and you certainly can’t stop it at its early stage before things have escalated. Threat actors leverage the cloud and machine learning to wage massive, multifaceted attacks that allow them to establish persistence and exfiltrate valuable data and intellectual property, which they then use to gain financial benefits.

Data retention

Cybercriminals display patience and determination. They understand that by operating at a pace, they can evade detection effectively by outlasting the log retention periods of the security tools they face. XDR gathers, links, and evaluates information from network, endpoint, and cloud resources in one location, providing a data archive of 30 days or longer.

Analyzing both internal and external traffic

Traditional methods of detection tend to focus on external attackers, which may not offer a broader perspective on all potential threat actors and insider threats. It's crucial for detection strategies to not only monitor attacks coming from beyond but also scrutinize internal threats by identifying unusual or suspicious activities, as well as instances of credential misuse.

Integration of threat intelligence

Your security tools must be able to deal not only with known but also with unknown attacks. One method of balancing the scales is by leveraging known attacks that other organizations see first. Detection needs to rely on threat intelligence gathered across a global network of enterprises. When an organization within the extended network identifies an attack, you can use the knowledge gained from that initial attack to identify subsequent attacks within your own environment. So threat intelligence implemented in XDR is extremely valuable because it collects information about new and still unknown threats. Thus, it will recognize the attack at its early stage and not give things a chance to escalate.

Machine learning detection

To identify traditional malware attacks, like those that manipulate legitimate system files, exploit scripting environments, and target the registry, detection methods must employ sophisticated analytical strategies to examine all gathered data effectively. These sophisticated analytics methods encompass both supervised and semi-supervised machine learning techniques.

Automatic disruption of advanced cyberattacks

By leveraging security signals and other automated analysis features, XDR can identify every single cyberattack. It promptly triggers responses, such as isolating compromised devices and user accounts, to thwart them. With these tools, companies can lower their exposure to risks, minimize the impact of incidents, and streamline the remediation processes.

Healing of affected assets

XDR's automated features restore assets that have fallen victim to ransomware, phishing, and business email scams to their previous healthy condition. It carries out tasks like halting activities, eliminating harmful rules, and isolating impacted devices and user accounts. By freeing up security teams from tasks, they can concentrate on tackling high-priority cybersecurity threats.

Why does your business need an XDR security system?

Every business owner would like to ensure the best possible protection for his organization. As we all know, cyberattacks are the number one reason in the world for financial losses. In order to prevent such scenarios for your business, it is a must to implement an XDR security system in your overall security strategy. Why is that? Because XDR provides you with a protection level that no antivirus program or other security tool could provide you with. Furthermore, the best XDR service providers will not only equip you with automated prevention, detection, and response services but also with recovery and forensics.

As we all know, when a cyberattack hits, it can be very destructive and affect the future of your organization. We have been witnessing countless successful businesses collapsing after a cyberattack, or at least slowing their development. So the best vendors that provide you with XDR services are able to equip you with a complete security stack. Being able to stop every ransomware attack and be compliant with the NIST framework, which helps you with your vulnerability assessments and patch management. Furthermore, the vendor should provide you with advanced antivirus and XDR solutions enriched with backup and recovery capabilities. All these features will provide you with complete protection, and, in case of escalation, you will be able to restore your business from scratch with a blink of an eye.

If your security strategy has all these key components, then you can rest assured that no matter what happens, there won't be destructive consequences for your organization, and you can rest assured that your business security is able to handle every cyberattack or other unexpected scenario.

Can small businesses benefit from XDR, or is it only for large enterprises?

Yes, XDR is suitable for all businesses of all sizes. It can provide a robust, comprehensive security solution that simplifies security management, no matter the size of your business. However, it’s important to consider your specific security needs and resources before making a decision. Because every organization should be aware of its needs in order to meet the budget they can spend on cybersecurity. Larger enterprises, for instance, would need various security tools and features, which means higher expenses per month. On the other hand, smaller businesses would need fewer features and infrastructure, so their TCO would be way lower.

What are the challenges organizations face when implementing XDR?

For sure, being equipped with XDR solution services is a blessing, but what challenges may every organization face when implementing this security tool? There are several challenges organizations may face when implementing XDR, including:

Cost and complexity: XDR solutions can be more expensive and complex than traditional security solutions, requiring time, money, and expertise to implement and manage effectively. But remember, it will work miracles, enhancing your cybersecurity capabilities.

Integrating with already existing security processes and tools: Integrating with the security systems and procedures is crucial for XDR, as it involves merging with the organization's established security technologies and processes. This integration can pose challenges and may demand effort and resources to put into practice. So the integration might take some time and adjustments, but afterwards, you will only benefit from the robust security that XDR will provide you with.

Expertise and training: Using XDR could be demanding, as it needs well-trained staff to handle it. This might pose a challenge for organizations that have limited security resources or expertise. 

Resistance to change: Implementing XDR may require significant changes to an organization’s security infrastructure and processes, which can be met with resistance from your staff because they will have to learn new things, which could be stressful for them.

Implementing XDR solutions to your already existing security tools is a must for every self-respected organization. Because it will take your security tools to another level. Thus, you will be able to enjoy your business continuity and stop worrying if something unexpected can stop you from reaching your business goals.

XDR vs. SIEM (Security Information and Event Management)

XDR and SIEM solutions are tools that collect and analyze network data for contextual threat awareness. However, SIEMs do not have the ability to automatically orchestrate real-time responses to cyber threats across multiple endpoints and cloud environments. SIEM is a log collection tool with the main purpose of supporting compliance, storage, and analysis; on the other hand, XDR focuses on endpoint data and optimization. XDR covers areas that SIEM does not since it has advanced capabilities that can focus on the highest priority events.

XDR vs Other Threat Detection and Response Systems

When it comes to threat detection and response systems, XDR stands out as a game-changer in the cybersecurity landscape. Unlike traditional systems that focus on individual security layers, XDR offers a holistic approach, by integrating multiple security components into a unified platform. Providing you with advanced and complete protection in the constant battle against the countless cyber threats. One of the key advantages of XDR over other systems is its ability to correlate data from various sources, providing a comprehensive view of potential threats across the entire IT environment.

This proactive approach enables faster detection and response to cyber incidents, minimizing the impact of breaches and spreading the attack, through your endpoints. Moreover, XDR leverages advanced analytics and machine learning capabilities to identify complex threats that may go undetected by traditional systems. By automating threat detection and response processes, XDR helps organizations enhance their overall security posture and stay ahead of evolving cyber threats. We can definitely say that, the superior visibility, correlation capabilities, and automation features of XDR make it a compelling choice for organizations looking to strengthen their cybersecurity defenses. Embracing XDR can significantly enhance threat detection and response capabilities, ensuring proactive protection against sophisticated cyber threats.

Acronis Advanced Security + XDR

Acronis has created a product that is capable of providing every business owner with everything needed to have the best possible protection for his organization. The product is named Acronis Advanced Security + XDR; this is the most complete cyber protection that has ever been made. You will be able to benefit from the extended detection and response services that will identify and kill every known and unknown cyber attack at its early stage.

With the latest technologies and approaches that are implemented in our product, you will have peace of mind knowing that your business will keep operating properly and that the ongoing support processes will be uninterrupted 24/7/365. Furthermore, the automation in Acronis Advanced Security + XDR will keep your security processes fully automated, and the hard work of dealing with advanced and sophisticated threats will be done without needing you to move a finger.

One of the most astonishing aspects of our product is the visibility that you will have over every attack that tries to penetrate your security systems. It will provide information, like how it got in. How did it hide its tracks? What did it try to harm, and how did it try to spread? Our product will give you complete visibility, and of course, it will take care of these attacks for you. The attack database is constantly upgrading and collecting information about the latest approaches and techniques used by cybercriminals.

Our best solution against ransomware will be next to you when dealing with this type of attack. Behavior-based detection and automated recovery will be your best allies in unexpected scenarios. Thus, you will know that native integration between cybersecurity, data protection, and management will help you to overcome and intercept every attack, and all these features are combined in the same solution, which of course will decrease the TCO.

A complete security stack is one of the major benefits that Acronis Advanced Security + XDR will provide you with. What do we mean by a complete security stack? It means that you will be equipped with active protection against ransomware and malware. Our product is certified by VB100, ICSA Labs, and AV-Comparatives, confirming the effectiveness and reliability of dealing with all known and unknown cyber threat attacks and their patterns.

Additionally, you and your organization will be secured by complete coverage of the NIST framework, which is known for prevention with vulnerability assessments and patch management. Active protection from antivirus and XDR will also cover your back in every situation that you may face on a daily basis. You can also rely on our cyber protection operations centers and MDR services, which will guarantee continuous real-time monitoring and incident management and resolution when tough times come. Furthermore, your security will be enhanced with AI automation, providing you with behavior-based detection, AI-based filtering of XDR events, and AI assistance for configuration and deployment.

Backup and recovery is another critical feature that you will be able to benefit from in emergency situations. Our company has been an industry leader for so many years in backup and recovery, winning countless prizes related to the most advanced and reliable backup and recovery services. Thus, we will provide you with the opportunity to recover your full database whenever you need to from scratch, and this will happen with the speed of a blink of an eye.

Our product is equally effective for users, organizations, and MSPs because you receive complete protection and endpoint management in a single solution. As we know, MSPs are now reliant on different security solutions in order to provide their clients with complete protection. This was until that moment, but now times have changed, and Acronis Advanced Security + XDR provides you with all these tools and features in a single solution.

MSPs can benefit from our completely integrated security stack designed specifically for MSPs and their users, which includes antivirus software, XDR, MDR, backup, disaster recovery, endpoint management, and monitoring. Do you think that it can get any better? Well, the answer is that this is not everything that Acronis will provide for you. Our product guarantees low management effort, a single agent and console, and a central policy configuration.

Additionally, our behavior-based detection using a secondary copy of data for learning and reducing false security alerts will take care of stopping the time-consuming processes of investigating false alarms, which we all know are quite annoying not only for business owners but also for the security teams.

Another fundamental benefit that Acronis Advanced Security + EDR will provide you with is its low impact on the performance of your systems. This is achieved by using a single agent for all protection services optimized for minimum resource consumption. Our product is also designed to provide ease of use by equipping you with a single console for all services and a single dashboard for monitoring and reporting, which makes our product extremely user-friendly.

Last but not least, our integration platform for MSP tools is an extensible and customizable platform, giving you the opportunity to integrate your favorite tools into a single technology stack. Additionally, another advantage of our product is the value for money you pay; it can be really measured because you are receiving the best possible protection combined with backup, disaster recovery, and all the additional features, which makes our product the best available on the market. Millions of users, businesses, and MSPs have chosen to use our services, and they have never been more satisfied. So if you want to become part of our family and ensure the best cyber security for you and your business, don't hesitate any more and This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..