Open XDR. What is it?

Open XDR is a unified, AI-powered approach to detection and response, that collects and correlates all existing security tools, to protect the entire enterprise attack surface effectively and efficiently. Open XDR is more like ‘Everything Detection and Response’, more than eXtended Detection and Response, because it must defend against all threats across the entire attack surface. The only way to do this is by integrating with existing security tools.

XDR combines elements of security information and event management (SIEM); security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR); endpoint detection and response (EDR); and network traffic analysis (NTA) in a cloud-based platform.

Architecturally, Open XDR is about unifying and simplifying the entire Security Stack for the purpose of radically improving detection and response. At any given enterprise, a Security Stack will consist of numerous capabilities like SIEM, EDR, NDR, SOAR and more. These capabilities were never designed to work with each other, and teams spend too much time managing multiple tools, which is what leads to the problems of today – too many tools, not enough people, not right data. That’s where Open XDR comes in – unify all capabilities together, correlate alerts from individual tools into a holistic incident, simplify by reducing administrative overhead cost. AI and automation comes in as the only technically feasible way of protecting the entire attack surface effectively and efficiently, which is why it is a key architectural attribute of Open XDR.

The outcome of Open XDR is protecting your business from threats from a single platform versus multiple tools that have weak or non-existent connections band-aiding it all together. And the ultimate outcome of Open XDR is radically improved detection and response at a price business’s can afford.

Difference between XDR and SIEM

XDR and SIEM are more like partner products.

XDR is an EDR or MDR platform that collects data from network security sources and correlates threat indicators. Think across email platforms and firewall or IDS/IPS devices to give you more accurate context and reduce the responding teams’ burden. This is often a part of your SOAR playbook as well.

XDR is a system that provides real-time coordinated protection and a deep focus on incident response…SIEM collects data and gives you a view across your whole enterprise to detect, investigate, and respond accordingly.

Why XDR?

Cyber attackers have the upper hand. They have countless ways of breaking into target environments undetected, evading detection by established security solutions, and exfiltrating data or encrypting it for ransom (or, increasingly, doing both!)

No individual security tool is able to catch and respond to all of these tactics. It takes an ecosystem of the best tools for each requirement, and they have to work well together to reduce the manual effort that leads to analyst burnout, and accelerate detection and response so that enterprises can protect themselves and their customers from increasingly advanced threats.

Why Creative Ground Tech?

Creative Ground Tech offers several key differentiating factors that make it a great fit for an open XDR deployment in the enterprise.

1. NDR is covert and agentless: While advanced attackers can evade EDR and erase or tamper with activity logs, they have no way of knowing whether their network traffic is being observed. NDR catches threats other tools miss by observing the ground truth on the network.
2. Access NDR detections anywhere: For many SOCs, the SIEM is the primary console from which security detections and investigations are conducted. Creative Ground Tech Screaned-360 NDR can share detections with your SIEM or other tool of your choice so you get seamless access to more confident detections and forensic details.
3. Decrypt network traffic for faster detection and instant forensics: Screaned-360 captures and decrypts packets for instant access to forensic details in any investigation. It integrates with other foundational components of an XDR framework to correlate network forensics with other data sources for a complete view of the attack campaign.
4. Achieve greater MITRE ATT&CK security coverage: If you want to detect every attacker technique on the MITRE framework, you need NDR in your lineup. Creative Ground Tech is among NDR provider listed as a contributor to the MITRE ATT&CK framework, and ATT&CK is integrated directly into our Screaned-360 user interface.
5. Gain a passive, always-current inventory of every device: The CIS controls (v8, 2021) recommends a passive asset discovery tool to identify assets connected to the network. Screaned-360 NDR delivers this promise, assuring always-up-to-date inventory and complete monitoring coverage.
6. Automate response through SOAR, SIEM, Firewall, and EDR Partners: Screaned-360 uses robust REST APIs and our Open Data Stream technology to enable turnkey integration with every foundational tool in the XDR lineup of your choice to enable rapid, automated response to threats, using the technology that best meets your needs.

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