How to protect your business from cyber attacks with XDR

Faced with an intensification of cybercrime, cybersecurity has become a dominant concern for companies in recent years. IT administrators are beginning to realize that their security architecture must be able to adapt to constant change if they want to stay ahead. Let’s explore how real the threats are and what effective systems need to be in place to discourage them.

Cyber ​​Threats: What is your organization at risk?

According to the US Chamber of Commerce, there are 31.7 million small businesses in the United States, which represents 99.9% of all US businesses. As cyberattack threats increase, 88% of small business owners admit they are vulnerable and are concerned about what solutions are available at affordable costs. Recent headlines clearly show that cyber attacks affect all organizations without discrimination, regardless of sector or size. In fact, the global costs of cybercrime continue to rise and are expected to reach $10.5 trillion by 2025, according to predictions from the 2022 Cybersecurity Almanac.

Beyond frequency, cyber attacks are also becoming more complex. With the help of technology, cybercriminals are developing threats capable of entering systems through multiple entry points, making detection more difficult and increasing the chances that the threats will succeed.

All of this leads to the conclusion that detection and response solutions focused solely on desktops are no longer sufficient to ensure optimal protection for an organization.

XDR: The future of cybersecurity?

Born from EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response), the XDR (Extended Detection and Response) ecosystem offers to go even further by consolidating multiple products within a single incident detection and response platform. This cross-infrastructure capability is the common denominator of XDR, which at this stage stands out as an optimal solution to prevent cyber attacks.

Fully automated, this system replaces detection and investigation processes previously performed manually by internal resources. Due to its “thick” nature, an XDR interface can analyze and detect multiple security vectors, such as network, cloud, messaging, and other third-party security points.

This ability to provide a single pane of glass automates much of the diagnostics and decision-making for the people involved by freeing them from time-consuming and administrative tasks.

While XDR is truly within the reach of any organization, realizing its full benefits depends on the cybersecurity maturity of the organization. Organizations that do not have the resources (software or human) are likely to benefit greatly from this solution. Medium-to-high-maturity cybersecurity organizations, on the other hand, who may already have the resources, will see a benefit in automating making sense of data, leaving people free to further mitigate threats.

What to look for in an XDR provider

Ultimately, any company planning to equip itself with an XDR interface seeks to maximize its operational efficiency by reducing the risks that affect the company’s security. When evaluating XDR providers, it is necessary to verify if the proposed solutions allow:

• More accurate detection, leading to more accurate prevention.
• Greater adaptability to the evolution of technologies and infrastructures.
• Fewer blind spots and better overview.
• Fastest Time to Detection or Mean Time to Detection (MTTD).
• Fastest time to remediate or mean time to response (MTTR).
• Faster and more accurate investigations (fewer false positives) for greater control across the entire IT infrastructure.

When evaluating vendors, look under the hood and ask questions. Ask, for example, if the data from all separate vectors was automatically evaluated and classified, and whether or not the system provides meaningful and actionable next steps. Ultimately, partnering with a company that helps your business stay one step ahead of the competition and properly arm itself against new emerging threats is essential.

Aparna Rayasam is Product Manager at Trellix.