Extended detection and response (XDR) collects and automatically correlates data across multiple security layers — email, endpoint, server, cloud workload, and network. This allows for faster detection of threats and improved investigation and response times through security analysis.
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Understanding extended detection and response (XDR)
Stealthy threats evade detection. They hide between security silos and disconnected solution alerts, propagating as time passes. In the meantime, overwhelmed security analysts try to triage and investigate with narrow, disconnected attack viewpoints.
XDR breaks down these silos using a holistic approach to detection and response. It collects and correlates detections and deep activity data across multiple security layers including email, endpoint, server, cloud workloads, and network. This superset of rich data undergoes automated analysis, helping you detects threats more quickly and effectively. As a result, security operations centre (SOC) analysts are proactively equipped to do more and take quicker action through investigations.
How XDR works
XDR consolidates the strengths of key capabilities, including security information and event management (SIEM) and security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR). Leveraging powerful AI and machine learning (ML), it gathers and analyses threat data in real time from all available security layers. Through this analysis, XDR can identify suspicious behaviors, patterns, and anomalies—security events which are then correlated to inform an automated risk response.
This centralised approach enables streamlined, nimbler operations and a stronger security strategy. XDR helps you stay ahead of threat actors by anticipating risk rather than only being able to react when it’s too late. This is achieved by linking together related data and security events, delivering risk scoring for contextual awareness, and prioritising alerts and response measures in order of urgency.
Historical context and evolution of XDR
The term XDR first appeared in 2018, originally conceived as an evolution of endpoint detection and response (EDR). Over the years, the definition of XDR has changed in tandem with the threat landscape, with ever-increasing importance placed on shifting from reactive to proactive strategies. Today, as IBM notes, the potential of XDR goes beyond the tools and functionalities it integrates. It has evolved into a powerful centralised data and reporting solution for security events and threat management, one that removes internal process barriers while strengthening risk resilience.
Depending on how XDR is implemented and used, it can empower organisations to improve threat detection, expand their risk visibility, and realise other benefits. In other words, XDR is more than a technological shift; it’s a strategic realignment that promises to reshape the cybersecurity industry.
XDR solutions for SOC challenges
When it comes to detection and response, security operations centre (SOC) analysts are faced with a daunting responsibility. They must quickly identify critical threats to limit risk and damage to your organisation.
Minimising alert fatigue
IT and SOC teams are often overwhelmed with alerts coming from different solutions. They have limited means in which to correlate and prioritise these alerts, and struggle to quickly and effectively weed through the noise for critical events. XDR automatically ties together a series of lower-confidence activities into a higher-confidence event, surfacing fewer and more prioritised alerts for action.
Addressing visibility gaps between security solutions
Many security products provide visibility into activity. Each solution offers a specific perspective and collects and provides data as relevant and useful for that function. Integration between security solutions can enable data exchange and consolidation. The value is often limited by the type and depth of the data collected and the level of correlated analysis possible. This means there are gaps in what an analyst can see and do. XDR, by contrast, collects and provides access to a full data lake of activity across individual security tools, including detections, telemetry, metadata, and NetFlow. Applying sophisticated analytics and threat intelligence, it provides the full context needed for an attack-centric view of an entire chain of events across security layers.
Streamlining security investigations
When faced with many logs and alerts but no clear indicators, it’s difficult to know what to look for. If you find an issue or threat, it’s hard to map out its path and impact across your organisation. Performing an investigation can be a time-consuming, manual effort—if there are even the resources needed to do it. XDR automates threat investigations by eliminating manual steps and provides rich data and tools for analysis that would otherwise be impossible. Consider, for example, automated root cause analysis. An analyst can clearly see the timeline and attack path that may cross email, endpoints, servers, cloud workloads, and networks. The analyst now can assess each step of the attack to enact the necessary response.
Improving detection and response times
The result of these challenges is that threats go undetected for too long, increasing mean time to respond (MTTR) and raising the risk and consequences of an attack. XDR ultimately leads to much-needed improvements in threat detection rates and response times. Increasingly, organisations are measuring and monitoring mean-time-to-detect (MTTD) and MTTR as key performance metrics. Likewise, they evaluate solution value and investments in terms of how they drive these metrics and thus reduce the enterprise’s business risks.
The architecture of XDR platforms
XDR platforms are purpose-built for the streamlined integration of data sources for enhanced detection, combining insights from network, email, endpoint, and cloud workload security layers. These feed activity and security event data from cloud and on-premises environments into a centralised, unified repository—a data lake—for automated threat detection and hunting, sweeping, and root cause analysis. In addition, XDR platforms are designed to scale with your organisation and interface with SIEM and SOAR, bolstering the effectiveness of real-time monitoring and automated response mechanisms.
- Learn more about the security layers that can feed into XDR
Benefits of XDR security
When organisations leverage XDR, they gain opportunities to simplify and strengthen their security operations, streamline and consolidate data flows, and anticipate threats.
Key benefits of XDR include:
Improved threat detection capabilities and actionable insights
Amidst the ever-evolving threat and technology landscape, keeping pace with threat actors is not enough. Your organisation must be able to outpace them, which is where expanded risk visibility and proactive risk management come into play. XDR enables SOC teams to better anticipate and manage risk through its advanced threat detection capabilities. Making use of AI, ML, and real-time analytics, it parses all information retained within the data lake to deliver clear, contextual insights while reducing false positives and minimising human error.
More effective incident response
Some risk patterns may not be as immediately obvious to human eyes—particularly those of SOC teams overwhelmed with alerts who may also be spread too thin, understaffed, and/or underequipped. Simplified, automated incident response via XDR prevents threat actors from taking advantage of these vulnerabilities. Having detected and prioritised risks in order of urgency, it quickly addresses threats while reducing operational strain.
Greater cost-effectiveness compared to traditional security solutions
By reducing dwell time—up to 65% in some cases—protecting against zero-day threats, and consolidating point solutions across the entire environment, XDR platforms pave the way for significant cost savings. They alleviate pressure and lessen workloads within SOC and IT teams, helping to reduce employee and resource strain. In addition, centralising data and reporting enables the streamlining, informing, and acceleration of investigations. Security management is also simplified and made more efficient through a more user-friendly, interconnected platform experience rather than separate solutions and capabilities.
Comparing XDR to other detection and response technologies
While each of the options below has their own place and purpose within modern security strategies, XDR helps to support and streamline their processes, making it an indispensable technology for SOC teams.
XDR vs. SIEM
Organisations use SIEM to collect logs and alerts from multiple solutions. While SIEM consolidates information from multiple sources for centralised visibility, it tends to produce an overwhelming number of individual alerts. These are difficult to parse and prioritise, which can lead to high dwell time and low risk awareness.
XDR interfaces with SIEM to organise log information and deliver a big-picture view. It collects deep activity data and feeds it into the data lake for extended sweeping, hunting, and investigation across security layers. Applying AI and expert analytics to the rich data set enables fewer, more contextual and actionable alerts, which are ported over to the connected SIEM solution. XDR doesn’t replace the SIEM but augments it, reducing the time required by SOC analysts to assess relevant alerts and logs, making it easier to determine which need immediate attention and deeper investigations.
XDR vs. MDR vs. EDR
Despite the depth of its capabilities, EDR on its own is restricted because it can only detect and respond to threats inside managed endpoints. These restrictions ultimately limit response effectiveness within the SOC. Likewise, network traffic analysis (NTA) tool purview is limited to the network and monitored network segments. NTA solutions tend to drive a massive number of logs. The correlation between network alerts and other activity data is critical to make sense and drive value from network alerts.
XDR builds on these technologies to deliver a big-picture view across the entire environment. It broadens the scope of threats that can be detected while visualising which users and endpoints are the most vulnerable.
Managed detection and response (MDR) can also be used to help set up and oversee XDR platform implementations. MDR is an external service that helps organisations monitor and respond to cyber threats. SIEM and XDR—in this instance, managed XDR (MXDR)—are core components within the service. Through its threat hunting, discovery, and response measures along with 24/7 monitoring, MDR frees up internal SOC teams, enabling them to focus on important tasks such as reviewing post-incident policies and maintaining regulatory compliance.
XDR vs. NDR
Network detection and response (NDR) is designed to identify anomalies and respond to threats within your infrastructure. Network traffic and device behavior are monitored, with NDR particularly effective at identifying unmanaged assets that could pose security risks. Much like EDR, it leverages AI, ML, and analytics to spot patterns, using accumulated insights to differentiate between tangible threats and harmless, anomalous device behavior. XDR can leverage these granular insights—again, fed into the data lake—to help inform detection and response measures, particularly when it comes to lateral movement and how devices are interacting with the network.
Key use cases for integrated XDR platforms vs. traditional security measures
Platform-integrated XDR security enables breakthrough risk resilience and faster, more agile security operations compared to traditional, isolated alternatives. Ideal use cases include:
- The use of XDR in threat hunting, leveraging comprehensive data lake insights and automated threat detection capabilities
- Incident response scenarios, including IT, OT, and IoT security risk isolation, account compromise and insider threat management, malware and ransomware detection, and zero-day threat management
- A wide range of environmental applications, including:
- Safeguarding patient and employee data in healthcare
- Identifying fraud and phishing threats in retail and finance
- Preventing breaches in government and public service organisations
- Securing industrial IoT systems and confidential product information
Capabilities of XDR platforms that help enhance security posture
Multiple security layers beyond the endpoint
To perform extended detection and response activities, you need at least two layers. XDR goes further by gathering and analyses activity data from multiple layers within its data lake. All applicable information is made available for effective correlation and analysis in the most relevant structure. Pulling from a single vendor’s native security stack prevents vendor and solution proliferation. It also provides an unmatched depth of integration and interaction between detection, investigation, and response capabilities.
Purpose-built AI, XDR telemetry, and expert security analytics
Collecting data is one benefit of XDR, but applying analytics and intelligence to drive better, faster detection is critical. As collecting telemetry becomes a commodity, security analytics, combined with threat intelligence, drive value that can turn information into insight and action.
An analytics engine fed by native, intelligent sensors offers more effective security analytics than can otherwise be achieved on top of third-party products and telemetry. Any given vendor will have a much deeper understanding of their own solutions’ data than a third party’s data. You can ensure optimised analytical capabilities by giving priority to XDR solutions that are purpose-built for a vendor’s native security stack.
A single, interconnected, and automated XDR platform for complete visibility
XDR enables more insightful investigations because you can make logical connections from the data provided within a single view. Having a graphical, attack-centric timeline view can provide answers in one place, including:
- How the user got infected
- What was the first point of entry
- What or who else is part of the same attack
- Where the threat originated
- How the threat spread
- How many other users have access to the same threat
XDR augments your SOC analysts’ capabilities and streamlines workflows. It optimises teams’ efforts by speeding up or removing manual steps, and enables views and analyses that can’t be done in media. In addition, its Integration with SIEM and SOAR enables your SOC analysts to orchestrate XDR insights with your broader security ecosystem.
How to implement XDR in your organisation
If interested in getting started with XDR, consult this breakdown of implementation steps:
- Assess your cybersecurity posture and risk score and identify all assets to help determine your current detection and response capabilities
- Consult with an XDR solution provider to identify options that best align with your security needs
- With guidance and support from the provider—and/or through a managed service, if they have one—integrate the XDR solution with your network and connect it to your endpoints
- Provide XDR platform training to educate your team on proper usage, best practices, and how to maximise the potential of included capabilities
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