By Andreas Korsdal Stensballe | 904 words | Read time: 5 minutes
In today’s cyber world, where malicious actors grow increasingly creative with their hacking methods, staying secure can feel like a constant challenge. Fortunately, a wide range of cybersecurity tools exist to help you navigate that task – and one of the most important is Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR).
What exactly is EDR?
Imagine your office building has a security guard at the front door. The guard keeps a list of known troublemakers and stops them from entering.
But what if a clever thief disguises themselves to slip through? Or what if an employee with a valid key card starts stealing things? The guard at the door would miss that completely – and that’s where EDR comes in.
EDR is a cornerstone of modern cybersecurity, continuously and automatically monitoring endpoint activity across your organisation.
Its purpose is to help you detect, respond to, and resolve threats before they cause harm.
You can think of EDR as the next evolution of traditional antivirus software, and while antivirus programs protect against known malware, they fall short against new or evolving threats.
EDR takes things further by using advanced methods to continuously monitor both known and unknown threats – and by giving you the tools to investigate and remediate incidents quickly.
The four core functions of EDR
In general, an EDR system performs four essential tasks:
- Collect security data
- Detect and respond to threats
- Enable forensic investigation and threat hunting
- Integrate and report
Collect security data
EDR collects security information either through lightweight agents running on all endpoints or directly via the built-in capabilities of the endpoint’s operating system.
Here, it collects data and monitors which processes are running, which servers endpoints connect to, and which files are being accessed.
This data allows EDR to detect threats in real time by identifying malicious content or suspicious activity patterns.
Modern solutions also use behavioural analytics, where individual events are understood and analysed as part of a broader context, enabling them to detect new and modified attack methods.
As a market leader in endpoint protection, CrowdStrike leverages this approach through its Falcon Insight EDR agent and Falcon Prevent antivirus.
Together, they identify and neutralise threats in real time using AI-driven behavioural analytics.
Detect and respond to threats
To detect threats, modern EDR systems rely on analytics, machine learning, and AI to identify patterns of suspicious behaviour.
The technical analytics behind an EDR system work with Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) and Indicators of Attack (IOAs). By correlating collected endpoint data with known IOCs or IOAs, EDR can spot and stop attacks early.
CrowdStrike enhances this capability with its extensive threat intelligence library.
Using Exprt.AI technology, it can match IOCs and IOAs to specific threat actors and recommend appropriate responses.
EDR systems also provide automated response features, such as creating and prioritising alerts, isolating compromised devices from the network, and more.
This enables security teams to isolate compromised endpoints, prioritise alerts, and contain network threats – all in real time – avoiding potential breaches and increasing operational efficiency.
CrowdStrike uses advanced generative AI and agentic workflows, which enable autonomous reasoning and action.
Forensic investigation and threat hunting
Once a threat is isolated, security specialists can use EDR’s forensic tools to thoroughly investigate the incident.
They can map the attack path, delete malicious files, restore configurations, patch vulnerabilities, and more.
Furthermore, this wealth of data enables proactive threat hunting, allowing security specialists to actively track or hunt for potential threats that might still be lurking within the environment, using known IOCs, forensic analytics, and behavioural insights.
This makes EDR not just a reactive tool, but also proactive in defending against cyber threats.
Integrate and report
EDR systems integrate seamlessly with other parts of the security infrastructure.
This increases visibility, enhances data use, and improves overall observability.
They can also generate reports that measure performance metrics, showing key parameters for business and compliance – such as mean time to response (MTTR) and adherence to regulatory requirements.
To improve both data quality and reporting, CrowdStrike offers integration with a wide range of critical SaaS applications and third-party systems.
This allows EDR to gather telemetry data from more sources, improving analyses and further strengthening automation and insight.
Increasing security automation
As mentioned earlier, EDR is a cornerstone of your cybersecurity ecosystem.
To enhance automation even further, EDR can work alongside other tools such as SIEM and SOAR.
With SIEM, you can correlate logs and EDR data to identify potential threats.
When a threat is confirmed, your SOAR platform can automatically act on that information to contain and remediate it, streamlining your security operations from detection to resolution.
Managed detection and response
Managing an entire network of endpoints with EDR can be a demanding task, requiring time and expertise. That’s why, at Trifork Security, we offer support through our dedicated Managed Detection and Response (MDR) team.
We combine industry-leading tools, including MDR, EDR, XDR, SIEM, and SOAR, into a cohesive, expert-led service, that can be tailored to fit your specific needs.
If you would like to learn more about how our partnership with CrowdStrike and our MDR services can strengthen your cybersecurity posture and give you peace of mind, please reach out.