“If I have antivirus, I am safe from cyber security threats” …sadly not. Whilst it has given us protection for many years, traditional antivirus is no longer enough to keep your business safe from modern-day cyber threats.
So, what’s the next best thing? Endpoint detection and response (EDR). Let’s compare antivirus and EDR.
How does Antivirus work?
Antivirus mainly protects based on what it already knows. Antivirus software holds a list of malicious files. If a malicious file is detected on your device, antivirus matches this to its existing list and deletes the file from the system.
However, as cyber threats evolve, the protection provided by antivirus is declining as it struggles to detect new threats. Attackers often create multiple variants of their software, so it doesn’t match to software on the existing antivirus list.
How does Endpoint Detection and Response work?
Endpoint detection and response (EDR) is designed to cover the flaws of antivirus.
For those that don’t know, and endpoint is a laptop, workstation, server; essentially any entry-point to your company network.
EDR performs real-time scanning of files and behaviours on an endpoint. It then collects data and analyses this to establish threat patterns.
If it detects suspicious behaviour, it isolates the file until it is validated. EDR also includes automated remediation; undoing any damage caused by malicious files.
Antivirus vs Endpoint Detection and Response
As EDR continuously scans changes to your endpoint, threats are detected much faster than with antivirus. There’s no waiting for a virus list or a scan to act. EDR can immediately stop malicious behaviour and alert IT teams.
Scans also take less time and use less resource as EDR uses the cloud to offload some processing from the endpoint.
By choosing EDR through us, you also get a detailed timeline of any incident. You’ll be able to view a history of the attack, including every alert. This helps to find the source of an attack to learn from it.
