Extended Detection and Response (XDR) For Small Business

One of the latest trends in cybersecurity technology is eXtended Detection and Response (XDR).

XDR is a comprehensive security platform that integrates multiple security tools to provide a holistic view of an organization’s security posture. It goes beyond traditional Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) / Managed EDR (MDR) solutions by not only monitoring endpoints but also networks, email, and cloud environments.

This centralized approach enables organizations to detect and respond to cyber threats more effectively and efficiently.

One of the key advantages of XDR is its ability to correlate and analyze data from different sources in real-time. By aggregating and correlating data from multiple sources, XDR can provide better context to security alerts and incidents, helping security teams prioritize and respond to threats more effectively. In addition, XDR focuses on automated response – in contrast with traditional SIEM, which facilitates manual investigation and response.

For example, if an employee’s endpoint is compromised and starts sending out unusual network traffic, XDR can quickly identify this anomalous behavior and take automated actions to contain the threat.

In essence, XDR operates as an integrated security ecosystem—a central nervous system for an organization’s cybersecurity infrastructure—that leverages comprehensive data integration, sophisticated analytics, and automated response capabilities to provide a more robust defense against modern, complex threats.

XDR is a powerful tool that small businesses can use to improve their security posture. Implementing an XDR solution can significantly enhance a small business’s security posture by providing comprehensive threat detection and response capabilities.

How XDR Works

XDR functions as a unified security platform that collects, correlates, and analyzes data from multiple security layers across an organization’s digital environment.

When data flows into an XDR system, it is first aggregated from a variety of sources. This raw information is then normalized and enriched with contextual details, allowing the system to make sense of disparate data types and establish correlations between events that might otherwise seem unrelated.

As suspicious activities emerge—whether they are anomalous endpoint behaviors, unusual network traffic patterns, or irregularities in cloud or email systems—XDR correlates them across the various integrated data sources. This process is important because it helps piece together the full context of an incident, revealing complex, multi-vector attacks that may start on one platform and quickly spread to others.

Once a potential threat is identified, the platform can trigger a series of automated responses designed to contain and mitigate the threat rapidly. These automated actions are guided by predefined security policies and orchestration workflows. In addition, XDR will also generate alerts that bring visibility to the issue and can be used to support the incident response and investigation processes.

XDR And EDR

When it comes to cybersecurity for small businesses, understanding the difference between XDR (Extended Detection and Response) and EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response) technologies is important.

XDR is a comprehensive security solution that integrates multiple security components into a unified platform. However it doesn’t necessarily include a dedicated EDR agent, which is best for detecting malicious activity on an endpoint. Every XDR and EDR are different, but in general EDR goes much deeper in terms of monitoring the system while XDR without EDR performs higher-level system queries that can be effective (but arguably not as effective) at detecting malicious activity on an endpoint.

XDR’s strength is in providing visibility and response capabilities across endpoints, through the network, and in cloud environments and apps, allowing for effective threat detection and response that goes beyond what EDR installed on a single endpoint can do. However, EDR is still more effective at picking up malicious activity on that one endpoint.

This is why we include an extendable, fully-managed EDR in our Security Essentials service bundle. It allows us to provide true EDR capabilities (managed by one of the best teams in the business), extend it across multiple endpoints, and integrate it with Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace for cloud and app coverage.

XDR vs. SIEM

XDR is similar to SIEM in several respects. They both use agents installed on devices across the network to collect logs and data, and then assess the data to detect and respond to threats in the network.

However, the approach taken by XDR is a bit different because it is often designed as an extension of EDR. When we have EDR or MDR on multiple devices, we can not only look at what is happening on each machine; we can also correlate data between machines.

One of the primary differences is that SIEM, at its core, is designed to facilitate manual operations by a working team in a SOC. What SIEM does is tie together different helpful logs and event information and provide an application that helps teams search through many (sometimes millions) bits of information. SIEM can be integrated with rules to provide alerts and visibility when something malicious may be happening, but the investigation and triage process is typically manual; SIEM is a tool designed for dedicated defensive cybersecurity teams.

XDR on the other hand, tries to use more automated features that help reduce the manual workload. There is still manual investigation and response work required, but the purpose of XDR is to detect, alert, and respond when something malicious is happening – not to provide a huge, searchable database for security teams to wield.

However in practical use, XDR and SIEM are often integrated together. Or, XDR is implemented and the data is piped into a SIEM; in other words, the two work together for the best results.