As endpoint detection and response platforms become more prevalent, security operations centers (SOCs) are developing new capabilities. This article explores how endpoint detection and response can empower SOCs by enhancing their existing endpoint protection infrastructure, reducing the volume of alerts they receive, allowing them to better respond to endpoint events, and helping them prioritize remediation activities.
What are endpoint detection and response solutions?
Endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions are tools that automate endpoint visibility, incident investigation, policy enforcement, standard operating procedures (SOPs), and reporting. Many EDR solutions also provide visual correlation across endpoint devices and endpoint forensics analysis tools for post-breach investigations of endpoint activity.
How were threats monitored pre-EDR?
In the past, endpoint threats were identified through manual processes designed to detect malware by looking at endpoint data — a process that wasn’t very effective. Furthermore, analysis and endpoint forensics used to entail the seizure of machines to recover information about threats that infiltrated the system. This process typically puts a machine or two out of commission for a while, which hurts business productivity.
| Related article: Why traditional antivirus software is no longer enough, and why you need EDR. |
How can SentinelOne’s automated EDR up your security operations center’s game?
SentinelOne endpoint detection and response solution provides important benefits over legacy antivirus products such as:
Time savings
Automated EDR tools reduce manual endpoint investigations from hours to seconds — allowing security teams to focus on bigger picture activities, like strategy and planning. These tools also allow for detection and response to occur almost simultaneously, resulting in time savings that are crucial these days with so many threat actors using a wide variety of attack techniques.
Good interoperability
SentinelOne’s automated EDR tools integrate with existing network management tools so that SOC analysts can use those applications for managing endpoints.
For example, these solutions can send alerts via standards-based protocols like syslog or SNMP. This allows SOC analysts to view endpoint alerts through their standard consoles instead of having to separately configure endpoint logging agents on endpoint servers.
Seamless integration
A well-integrated data flow ecosystem will allow for standardized data that result in fewer or no hand-offs and tool or platform changes, as well as a stable foundation for automation. Defining automated workflows to support your incident response procedure will reduce the amount of human contact and latency at each stage. This will have a beneficial influence on time-based measurements while freeing up human analysts to focus on more complex judgments.
Powerful metrics
SOC analysts can also use endpoint detection data to identify trends in endpoint counts over time across an entire enterprise. For instance, they can detect suspicious activity that seems out of step with normal IT growth—such as seeing a sharp drop in endpoint counts following a natural disaster.
Reduction in endpoint volumes
The automated EDR blocks malware at the kernel level before it has a chance to run on the endpoint. This means that no malware activity is ever seen on the endpoint itself resulting in cleaner endpoints with fewer overall false positives.
Advanced detection
SentinelOne provides dynamic behavior monitoring capabilities to enable SOCs to identify indicators of endpoint compromise (IOCs) across the enterprise with specificity and speed previously not possible. It also detects threats at every level, preventing malware from hiding in endpoint resources like memory, registry, files, processes, or network connections.
Beyond these advanced endpoint detection mechanisms, SentinelOne is able to automatically remove malicious binaries that traditional antivirus programs cannot touch – increasing the effectiveness of endpoint protection infrastructure investments even further by reducing endpoint noise. The result is shorter visibility into endpoint events for SOC analysts, reducing alert fatigue and leading to better prioritization of remediation activities.
Get advanced threat protection and experience the benefits of the SentinelOne automated endpoint detection and response platform through Austin Technology. Contact us today to schedule a system assessment and to receive a quote.
