Deception vs EDR: What’s the Best Threat Defense Strategy?

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

Introduction

Cybersecurity is a daily challenge for businesses, with threats constantly evolving. Two approaches that are emerging to strengthen your security posture are Deception technology and Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) tools. But what are the differences and advantages of each? This article compares Deception and EDR to help choose the best strategy.

What is Deception Technology?

Deception technology uses deceptive security traps to identify and fool attackers. Dummy assets such as fake endpoints, documents, credentials, and network traffic are created to confuse hackers and divert them from valuable resources.

Key benefits include:

• Early detection of threats – traps attract attackers and generate alerts as soon as there is an intrusion.
• Active deception – confuse and slow down hackers by redirecting them to fake assets.
• Fewer false positives – only unauthorized access triggers alerts.
• Threat intelligence – gain valuable insight into attacker tactics and techniques.

Deception solutions are effective against a wide range of internal and external threats.

What is Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)?

EDR tools are focused on detecting and responding to endpoint threats. They use agents installed on laptops, servers, IoT devices and other endpoints to monitor suspicious events and activities.

The main advantages include:

• Endpoint visibility – EDR agents provide real-time telemetry about processes, network connections, and anomalous behavior.
• Advanced detection – behavioral analysis, machine learning and signatures to detect attacks never seen before.
• Responsiveness – EDR tools allow you to contain threats, isolate compromised devices and initiate remediation actions.
• Threat hunting – ability to search for threats at scale across all endpoints.

EDRs are effective against malware, targeted attacks, and insider threats.

Comparison between Deception and EDR

While both technologies aim to strengthen security, they have complementary approaches with different strengths:

In summary, Deception technology focuses on deception and initial intrusion detection, while EDR provides visibility, detection and responsiveness on endpoints.

How Deception and EDR work

Let’s dive into the specific actions Deception technology and EDR tools take to counter threats:

Deception Actions:

• It generates fake data such as documents, credentials and network traffic to attract hackers
• Create fake endpoints and servers to confuse attackers
• Isolate and analyze malware targeting deceptive traps
• Provides instant alerts as soon as fake credentials are used or traps are triggered
• Track attackers’ lateral movement across the network with false hop points
• Acquire threat intelligence about adversary tactics, techniques, and procedures

EDR actions:

• Agents monitor filesystems, processes, network connections, and logs on each endpoint in real time
• Detect exploits, lateral movement, and threat persistence techniques
• Use machine learning to identify anomalous activities and processes
• Automatically block and isolate compromised devices
• Fornisce capacità di threat hunting per cercare proattivamente le intrusioni
• It allows you to analyze and contain an attack in progress
• Generate incident alerts and automate security responses

In summary, Deception lures and tricks attackers, while EDR detects and blocks infiltrating threats.

Conclusion

Deception technology and EDR tools are both invaluable in strengthening the security of organizations against today’s threats.

Deception provides early intrusion detection and the advantage of active deception, while EDR provides endpoint-level visibility, detection, and response capabilities. By integrating them together, you get unmatched active “on and off” network defense protection.

In fact, by combining Secure Online Desktop’s Active Defense Deception service with their SOCaaS EDR solutions, you can cover the corporate perimeter and critical endpoints with deceptive traps and real-time threat detection.

This multi-layered approach to active cyber defense helps identify and stop attacks in their early stages, dramatically reducing the risk of security breaches.

Useful links:

• EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response)
• The SOAR Benefit: Simplify Investigation and Response
• The importance of ICT monitoring