5 Signs That You’re Ready for EDR

At what point are you ready for endpoint detection and response (EDR)? That question may be easier than ever to answer, thanks to attackers’ penchant for adapting to many of the defenses that organizations have put in place.

Data from ransomware leak sites shows that attackers managed to hit significantly more victims last year (4,700) compared to 2022 (2,800). So it’s a safe bet that ensuring attackers and their malicious tools aren’t loitering undetected in your environment is likely topping your worry list. And if it isn’t, I’d argue it should be. 

EDR is important because endpoints are plentiful and multiplying—and those endpoints are a favorite attack vector for bad actors. Numerous use cases benefit—or are even enabled by—EDR, from threat hunting to remote remediation. But how do you know when you’re ready to take that step? 

When to deploy EDR: 5 signs that you’re ready

You’ll know when you’re ready for EDR when current defenses prove less effective. But what does that look like? These signs offer strong evidence that it’s time to deploy EDR.

1. Ransomware attacks are sidestepping your defenses. Ransomware attacks were up 48% in 2023, leading security chiefs to conclude that standard prevention techniques aren’t cutting it. They’re right: More sophisticated attacks are outmaneuvering even the behavioral detections in NGAV. But with the right solution, you can lure all types of ransomware into a trap and keep them contained.
2. Legacy AV isn’t providing the protection you need. Signature-based protections that focus on “known bad” can't keep up with advanced signature-free, malwareless attacks. The answer is to replace enterprise AV with a combination of front-line NGAV protections and the additional line of defense that is EDR. NGAV will stop nearly everything, with EDR delivering proactive security to detect and contain even sophisticated attacks.
3. Dwell time is too great. The time between when an attack begins and when you detect it is “dwell time,” which often is the most dangerous phase of an attack. (In some cases, dwell time can last months, with attackers roosting in your infrastructure, building back doors into your key systems, and planning to wreak havoc.) You can deploy EDR to accelerate detection and response and enable proactive, granular threat hunting, thus cutting short the time attackers spend in your systems. 
4. Emerging attacks take you by surprise—more than once. It’s one thing to fall for an attack once, but twice? It happens. One study found that 80% of companies that paid ransoms to attackers were hit again—often by the same attacker. One reason: They lack the ability to monitor suspicious activity and hunt down threats before they hurt their infrastructure and their business. With the right EDR solution, you can delve into each stage of that original attack to understand the attackers’ behavior and techniques. This allows you to learn from every new attack technique so you don’t fall victim to the same attack later on. But to do this effectively, you need extensive visibility with contextualized intelligence, which your threat hunting team can use to really understand what’s happening. (It also helps to have an effective EDR platform supporting your threat hunting efforts, because some of those repeat ransomware offenders didn’t infiltrate those organizations a second time—they actually never left. A threat hunting program will help you spot and then eradicate that lingering adversary.)
5. You’re having a hard time meeting cyber insurance and industry compliance requirements with your current security stack. Now more than ever, companies have to prove they are placing the appropriate security controls on their environment, users and even partners. This is where the right EDR solution comes in: It provides you with demonstrable visibility and context so you can show regulators and insurers that the controls you have in place extend to every endpoint, network and more. In fact, visibility is a key element in the cybersecurity framework published by NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology), which is especially vital for organizations in healthcare, manufacturing, financial services and government.

EDR—from the pioneers of EDR

What makes for a superior EDR solution? One that incorporates everything a security team needs to detect and respond to advanced attacks. For many organizations, the EDR solution of choice is Carbon Black EDR, which is part of the solution portfolio at Broadcom’s Enterprise Security Group. Carbon Black EDR provides immediate access to the most complete picture of an attack, reducing lengthy investigations from days to minutes. With Carbon Black, security teams can proactively hunt for threats, uncover suspicious behavior, disrupt active attacks, and address gaps in defenses before attackers can.  The result? A proactive and unified defense against evolving threats.

On the hunt for your next EDR solution? Read the eBook, How To Feel More Secure About EDR to learn what to look for in an EDR solution and six key questions to ask when choosing a vendor best aligned with your cybersecurity needs.