Today, security teams are short-staffed, network complexity continues to increase, and the cost of data breaches is on the rise. And the majority of all cyber-attacks happen to small businesses and midmarket enterprises. When it comes to cybersecurity, these IT teams have the toughest job out there. XDR is a combination of services and technology that offers an opportunity to reverse these trends, so let’s take a deeper look into how today’s challenges can be eliminated with this next-generation solution.

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Mar 26, 2022

What is Extended Detection and Response (XDR)?

Today, security teams are short-staffed, network complexity continues to increase, and the cost of data breaches is on the rise. And the majority of all cyber-attacks happen to small businesses and midmarket enterprises. When it comes to cybersecurity, these IT teams have the toughest job out there. XDR is a combination of services and technology that offers an opportunity to reverse these trends, so let’s take a deeper look into how today’s challenges can be eliminated with this next-generation solution. 

Extended Detection and Response (XDR) is defined as a security technology that safeguards IT infrastructure by offering enhanced visibility, quick threat analysis, and faster response. It is an advanced version of Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) that employs deeper analytics and automation to detect, analyze, and remediate security threats. It enables a multi-layered approach to respond to cybersecurity issues by providing unified visibility across an organization’s entire IT infrastructure.


Challenge #1

The cybersecurity skills shortage remains a problem for many organizations, and a recent report conducted by the  Information Systems Security Association (ISSA)  and industry analyst firm Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) affirms this challenge. It revealed that a heavier workload (62 percent), unfilled positions (38 percent) and worker burnout (38 percent) are contributing to the skills gap, and most (95 percent) said they believe the gap has not improved in recent years.


Challenge #2

Second, organizations use lots of different security tools, which are contributing to complexity across their environment. In fact, many enterprises use an average of 19 different security tools and many organizations aren’t convinced of the effectiveness of these tools. These solutions generate thousands of alerts each day that need to be reviewed. And most of these tools operate in isolation making it more difficult to determine which alerts should be at the top of the threat triage.


Challenge #3

Lastly, the average cost of a data breach continues to rise. The IBM  Cost of a Data Breach Study 2021 found that the price tag for a breach had increased to $4.24 million, the highest total cost in the history of the IBM report.

Additionally, small business does not imply low costs when it comes to cyber-attacks. 57% of SMBs believe they will not be targeted by online criminals, but nearly 20% have been attacked recently. Small businesses are experiencing a surge in data breaches, with an average cost of $108,000 per breach.


The XDR Advantage

An XDR solution provides a unified investigation and response across remote endpoints, mobile devices, cloud platforms, and applications to predict, prevent, and end malicious operations. Using automated technologies and manual investigations, XDR can eliminate false positives allowing organizations to focus solely on real security events.

Furthermore, an XDR solution works to break down the data silos across devices, applications, productivity suites, user identities, and cloud deployments that attackers rely on to remain undetected.

XDR provides security teams with the complete attack story, including all related attack elements from the root cause across all affected machines and users. Security teams will have the full context of an incident without all the noise, so they can instantly understand an attack and focus on what matters most. This advanced surveillance solution allows security teams to detect sooner and remediate faster, ultimately reducing attacker dwell time and reducing the cost of security incidents.