Cybersecurity and acronyms go hand in hand. Get to know the latest cybersecurity term: XDR
Cybersecurity and acronyms tend to go hand in hand. The latest is XDR, otherwise known as extended detection and response. If you haven’t heard of it you will, as it promises to help security operations improve their ability to detect and respond to threats across increasingly complex, diverse, and growing IT environments. Security vendors of all types — from endpoint protection to SIEM and beyond — are making acquisitions and marketing to XDR. In fact, according to 451 Research, between March and August 2021, there were 17 deals driven by vendors looking to build out their XDR capabilities. Definitions can vary widely for XDR, depending on what a vendor is selling, and this is creating confusion amongst even the most seasoned security pros. However, at its core, XDR is essentially an approach that combines multiple security tools used in threat detection and response to expand and improve data collection, correlation, contextualization, and analytics for the purpose of improving and coordinating detection response and remediation, as well as threat hunting. XDR does this in three, key ways: XDR represents the evolution of current capabilities in threat detection and response – something increasingly required given the rapid rise in digitalization among businesses and predicted explosion of endpoint and IoT. For example, the past 18 months have seen enterprises of all sizes increase their digital footprint, thanks in part to the pandemic as well as the acceleration of digital transformation or modernization. This has heaped added pressure onto security personnel who are struggling to keep systems secure with limited resources and a skills shortage.
