Endpoint Detection & Response (EDR)

This Buyer’s Compass explains how to use KuppingerCole’s Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) guidance during RFI/RFP cycles by focusing on the most decision-relevant use cases, functional and non-functional selection criteria, prerequisites, and vendor questions. The goal is to help organizations quickly narrow the field to a shortlist for deeper RFIs and proofs of concept, while ensuring required technical and organizational foundations are in place. It emphasizes that this is a starting point rather than a complete vendor selection methodology.

The document clarifies the common confusion between Endpoint Protection Platforms (EPP) and EDR. EPP (often called AV/NGAV) aims to prevent compromise before or during execution and may include controls like URL filtering and device firewalls. EDR, by contrast, looks for evidence that malware bypassed defenses, centralizes endpoint telemetry, supports remote examination, and enables investigation, attribution theories, and remediation. Many vendors bundle EPP and EDR in a single agent, which can be valuable for organizations that resist deploying additional endpoint agents.

Primary drivers for EDR adoption include reducing mean time to remediate (MTTR) and data leakage, improving endpoint visibility and feeding SIEM/SOAR processes, and addressing situations where interest in EDR may actually indicate weak EPP. Core EDR use cases center on near real-time detection and evaluation of anomalies, threat hunting and forensics, automated remediation, and damage containment.

Selection guidance highlights high-impact functional criteria such as heuristic event correlation, updated IOC intelligence, ML-assisted triage, interactive querying, memory analysis, recording/playback, evidence collection, telemetry dashboards, integrations, secure console access, and reliable agent deployment. Non-functional criteria include deployment models, vendor maturity and focus, customer base, partner ecosystem, roadmap, responsiveness, documentation, and price. Successful outcomes depend on endpoint management and protection maturity, skilled analysts (or MDR), executive-backed rollout plans, defined responsibilities, incident response processes, and risk-based policies.

• EDR solutions are data analytics platforms specialized at finding and remediating malicious activities on endpoints.
• EDR solutions centralize endpoint activity logs and support remote examination, reporting, and remediation of compromised machines.
• EPP focuses on preventing malware compromise prior to or during execution, while EDR focuses on detecting evidence of compromise and effects after bypass.
• Some vendors bundle EPP and EDR and activate EDR functionality through licensing while using the same endpoint agent.
• Many organizations maintain a “not one more endpoint agent” policy.
• Reports by researchers show the average time to detect breaches is still upward of 6 months.
• For threat hunting utility, organizations generally need to retain large volumes of logs, up to one year’s worth.
• Full packet capture and full activity recording are not feasible to run at all times.
• Cloud-based EDR storage can increase bandwidth concerns depending on how much telemetry agents collect.
• EDR tools require knowledgeable security analysts and are not a substitute for cybersecurity professionals even when “AI/ML” is used.

• “This document is not a complete guideline for selecting vendors but should provide an excellent starting point to streamline the decision-making process.”
• “In short, EPP tries to stop malware from compromising machines, whereas EDR looks for signs of past compromises and remediates the victim machines.”
• “Many organizations today have a ‘not one more endpoint agent’ policy…”
• “Discover and remediate threats more quickly (reduce MTTR) and stop data leakage.”
• “It is important to note that EDR tools require knowledgeable security analysts to properly operate.”
• “Though almost all EDR products on the market boast about using ‘AI/ML’… this does not mean that such solutions are a substitute for cybersecurity professionals.”
• “Attackers have learned to slow down these actions so as to not attract attention.”
• “Recording operations can be CPU intensive, and require large volumes of log space…”
• “To be effective, EDR must be deployed across many types of computing devices, operating systems, and platforms that the enterprise uses.”
• “We sometimes see situations where organizations struggle not because of technical weaknesses or underperforming products, but because of a lack of organizational maturity.”