How To Choose The Best EDR Vendor For Your Needs
by Abdul Aziz Mondal Business Intelligence 13 September 2021
Out of the various tools that have been at the center of digital asset protection, there is one of the increasingly prevalent cybersecurity solutions that has become the tool of choice for security teams all over the world (over a third of them, in fact): that solution is EDR, or endpoint detection and response. With automation in place to analyze your computer or network’s behavior and to react to detected threats, EDR has become one of the most frequently adopted tools in the fight against the evolving existence of cyber threats.
By putting an EDR program in place, companies can experience a better sense of security with good reason: this technology integrates old-school protections like antivirus and firewalls with new features like AI-powered behavioral analysis and automated network and device controls to create an all-inclusive platform of protection.
To have this working for you is to know that threats will be found and that they will be resolved automatically; that’s not even to mention the mapping capabilities that make your approach to analysis and response more holistic and well-informed than ever before. EDR platforms are the way businesses of the future protect themselves today.
Questions To Answer Before You Start Evaluating Vendors
It’s important before you invest that you think about what kind of EDR solution you’ll need. EDR vendors can differ in the way that they handle a business’s needs, and so by asking yourself the following questions, you’ll actually be saving yourself from an arduous shopping process. Instead, you’ll create a laundry list of items, specifications for your situation, that make one type of EDR more advantageous than others. Go ahead and ask yourself:
What Are My Needs?
There are various aspects of a business’s network security that can be defined by the problems that it’s having. With that in mind, it’s imperative that you ask yourself what your primary needs for an EDR are.
For example, if you’re experiencing low visibility on your endpoints, and you find that’s at the heart of many of your network’s issues, it might be best for you to look for an EDR program that caters to that with comprehensive network visibility mapping. If you’re experiencing frequent incidents with data loss, however, that’s another need to address, and it requires a different set of specifics as far as the right EDR software goes.
Another problem, like regular violations to compliance standards (and the hefty fines that come with that), can be the source of your needs, and to remedy this, you’d be on the lookout for an EDR that is regularly updated for regulatory compliance standards in whatever industry your business operates. With all this in mind, it may seem like it’s a lot to answer — like defining your needs is too much of a hassle.
But it’s guaranteed that by doing this before looking at EDR vendors, you’ll know what makes the most sense for your operation — and you’ll know which vendors are wrong for you sooner, making it even easier to find the one that’s right for you.
Who Is My Security Team?
This may seem like an odd question to ask yourself. After all, for those of you with smaller businesses, you may not have a designated security team. Other businesses may have exactly that, but not know why it’s relevant to choosing the right EDR platform.
Regardless if you have a large security team or you’re the only one protecting your endpoints, you’ll still need an EDR that fits your situation. If you can’t commit time to set up and operating the EDR tool you choose, you’re defeating the purpose; not all EDR platforms analyze threats and respond in the same way, and in most cases, well-trained professionals are needed to make the most of the cyber security tools you implement.
That’s because you’ll be using the tool to hunt for threats across the network, as well as to fortify the defenses that are in place already — especially with research provided about the security landscape. For those of you who can’t assign personnel to the round-the-clock job that is EDR, there are managed detection and response platforms that can be used instead, and in those cases, you are able to receive help from trained cyber security personnel provided by the vendor.
How Does The Platform Operate?
Whether it’s the type of threats your company is prone to or the ways that it finds threats, EDR has differences in operation that make each tool worth scrutinizing.
One of the most important things to identify is any limitations to detection, like whether a specific EDR solution is incapable of sandboxing, or whether it receives updated threat intelligence from reliable outside sources. Apart from that, there’s also whether a tool has blind spots.
Can the EDR you choose identify insider threats or suspicious application behavior? Can it flag compromised credentials, or prevent file-based attacks? These limitations and blind spots are often present in numerous programs, so to find what your business needs in terms of security, it’s only right that you identify what blind spots and limitations you can’t allow in your security approach.
Finding Vendors That Match Your Needs
In using these questions, you’ll already have an idea of what not to look for in a platform, as well as what to look for. However, you can also utilize Gartner’s Magic Quadrant, a series of market analyses of IT tools in competitive markets, including cyber security. To get an idea of the best performing EDR vendors on the market, check out the 2021 Magic Quadrant report on endpoint protection platforms.
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