EDR vs MDR vs XDR... What’s Right for Your Business?

Unfortunately, email monitoring for attacks is not where businesses’ need for cybersecurity goes away. The is a great importance in detection and response in order to stop malware on endpoints. This can be found in three forms: EDR, MDR, and XDR.  Currently, it is recommended that every small business is equipped with MDR to protect from attacks.  

What is EDR?  

Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) protects users' endpoints by aggregating data about the endpoint and analyzing that data in order to detect potential threats. When these threats are detected, the tool can automatically react in three ways. EDR can delete the malware, and isolate it from the endpoint to stop spreading or interrupt the attack. 

In order to detect threats quicker than attackers can design and launch their attacks, EDR systems utilize artificial intelligence (AI). The AI scans log files generated by endpoints in order to identify any trends or patterns that might infer a potential attack.  

The end product of EDR is typically an alert to experts of any potential attacks, log files, and an analysis derived from these files. Overall, EDR is an essential tool that can detect and potentially stop malware on users’ endpoints.  

What is MDR?  

Managed Detection and Response (MDR) is a service (like ForceNow) that manages threats by investigating alerts and responding in an appropriate way to resolve the incident. The burden of responding to threats (sometimes as much as 10,000 a day) is too much for many small businesses.  MDRs provide around-the-clock monitoring to ensure any business can stop cyber threats; effectively taking the responsibility off the hands of your business and into the hands of experts. This is why working with an MDR – like ForceNow – can also help with cybersecurity compliance requirements. 

To detect threats typical EDR does not pick up on, MDRs utilize specific security tools that can be quite expensive for smaller businesses (especially when many of these threats are false positives). MDRs can use these tools to hunt for threats to minimize business security risks.  

What is XDR?  

XDR or eXtended Detection and Response is a culmination into one software solution of endpoint, cloud resource, and network monitoring for malware detection and incident response to decrease integration requirements.  

XDR has the capability to automatically respond to attacks as a means of addressing potential threats. It uses AI algorithms to detect and resolve lower-level attacks. Additionally, it provides logs that can be utilized by experts to investigate attacks.  

XDR provides users with a holistic, aggregated solution to detect and respond to endpoint threats. Yet, because XDR is still in the early stages of development, there might be issues that can result in spammed identical and unlinked alerts. Such occurrences can impose a significant burden on businesses, causing them to experience a slowdown and inundation of excessive alerts.

How ForceNow Can Help 

Overall, a detection and response solution is necessary to be properly protected against attacks. Although EDR and XDR are effective in detecting attacks, smaller businesses often find it overwhelming to take on the responsibility of responding to these threats. This is why MDR is the best solution! 

If you’re looking for an MDR solution, consider partnering with ForceNow. We provide 27x7 monitoring, detecting, and investigating security threats to protect your small business.