What is Network Detection and Response (NDR)?: The Ultimate Guide for IT Leaders
Network detection and response is a network security technology designed to monitor, identify, and respond to potential threats within network traffic. NDR solutions perform continuous monitoring and incorporate advanced functionality, such as AI-based threat detection and automated responses to security incidents.
Since most threats come over the network, NDR is critical to gaining visibility and control over potential attacks. The advanced capabilities integrated into NDR solutions are also increasingly vital as cyberattacks grow more subtle and sophisticated.
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How NDR Works: Advanced Techniques and Technologies
NDR solutions continue to evolve as new techniques and technologies are introduced. And as artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) mature, they are increasingly integrated into NDR solutions.
One common application of AI/ML in NDR is anomaly detection. AI/ML is highly effective at analyzing large volumes of data to extract trends and define baseline behavior. Based on this information, AI/ML can identify deviations from the norm, which may indicate true threats or false positive detections.
The application of AI/ML to NDR enhances the efficiency and effectiveness of these solutions.
Automated threat detection and prevention enables organizations to block attacks before they pose a risk to an organization’s security. Additionally, automation can help security teams to scale by eliminating reliance on manual processes.
The Evolution of Network Detection and Response
Like many security solutions, network detection and response began with signature-based systems. Intrusion detection systems (IDS) initially attempted to match databases of signatures of known malware and other threats to network traffic. However, this approach only enables the detection of threats for which a signature already exists.
As cyber threats grew more sophisticated and technology improved, network traffic analysis (NTA) tools emerged to enhance network threat detection. These solutions incorporated behavioral analysis as well, enabling them to identify cyberattacks based on malicious or unusual behaviors in network traffic.
As corporate networks grew more complex and real-time threat detection and response became more vital, modern NDR solutions emerged. These tools incorporate AI/ML-based threat detection, automated responses, and integrated protection across on-prem and cloud environments.
NDR vs. Other Security Solutions: A Comprehensive Comparison
NDR is one of several network security solutions designed to analyze security data to identify potential cyber threats. Other major examples include security information and event management (SIEM), endpoint detection and response (EDR), and extended detection and response (XDR) solutions. Some of the key capabilities and differences between these technologies are summarized in the following table.
While these solutions have overlapping goals, they are largely complementary technologies. For example, NDR focuses on the network, while EDR provides visibility into the endpoint. By deploying both, an organization implements defense in depth as threats that slip past network-based defenses can be identified and addressed on the target endpoint and vice versa.
Benefits of Implementing NDR for Enterprise Networks
NDR is the latest iteration of network defense technologies. Some of the benefits that it provides to the enterprise include:
- Enhanced Threat Detection: NDR analyzes large volumes of security data using AI/ML to identify anomalies, trends, and suspicious behavior that indicate potential cyberattacks. By providing greater insight into security data combined with advanced analytics, NDR enhances organizations’ abilities to identify network-level threats.
- Faster Incident Response: In addition to rapidly detecting security threats, NDR can automatically execute incident response activities. This expedites the organization’s response to potential threats, reducing the damage and cost to the organization.
- Improved Network Visibility: NDR inspects network traffic and extracts data of interest, such as cyberattacks and other unusual events of interest in an organization’s network. By filtering out the noise, it provides network and security teams with an improved understanding of significant events occurring within their network.
- Reduced Risk of Breaches and Cyberattacks: NDR expedites threat detection and response, reducing the time that an attacker might have access to an organization’s network. This decreases the risk of data breaches and other cyberattacks by depriving the attacker of the opportunity to carry them out.
NDR in Cloud and Hybrid Environments
Cloud and hybrid environments introduce significant challenges for NDR. In cloud environments, an organization’s control over the network is limited, and some solutions designed for on-prem environments may not be a viable option. Hybrid and multi-cloud environments exacerbate the issue by providing the organization with multiple environments to monitor and protect.
NDR solutions are adapting to these environments through the introduction of cloud-native solutions that integrate with cloud platforms via APIs. Virtual network taps provide insight into cloud network traffic, and solutions increasingly offer support for cloud-specific network challenges, such as serverless or containerized environments.
When implementing NDR for multi-cloud and hybrid infrastructures, unification is critical to maintaining consistent visibility and control. Solutions that provide support for all architectures — and integrate with related tools like cloud security posture management (CSPM) solutions — reduce the risk of visibility and security gaps that leave the organization vulnerable to exploitation.
Challenges and Considerations for NDR Deployment
Deploying NDR can dramatically enhance an organization’s visibility into its network and ability to quickly and effectively detect and remediate potential threats. However, organizations looking to deploy NDR commonly experience certain challenges, including the following:
- Integration with Existing Security Tools: Many organizations already have complex security architectures, and introducing another standalone security solution only serves to increase management complexity and introduce new security gaps. NDR solutions should offer integration with other security solutions, either via API integrations or as part of a consolidated security platform.
- Scalability and Performance Concerns: NDR solutions should inspect all traffic moving through the organization’s network and require the ability to block suspicious or malicious network flows before they reach their intended destination. An appliance’s capabilities are limited by its hardware, and, when additional capacity, bandwidth, or performance are required, it needs to be replaced at a high cost. Cloud-native NDR offerings can leverage the cloud’s flexibility and scalability to ensure that NDR can operate at line speed without compromising on security.
- Data Privacy and Compliance Issues: Like many cybersecurity solutions, NDR needs visibility into potentially sensitive data to identify and protect against cyberattacks. When designing and implementing an NDR deployment, organizations need to consider regulatory requirements and ensure that they follow them. For example, log files containing sensitive data may need to be encrypted and have access requirements in place.
- Required Skill Sets: Effective configuration and management of NDR solutions requires various niche skills, such as network management, data analytics, cloud management, and cybersecurity. Organizations may close any skills gaps through targeted recruiting, internal training, or using a managed service where the required capabilities are made available by the service provider.
Evaluating NDR Solutions: Key Factors for IT Leaders
NDR solutions have evolved significantly over the years, and different solutions may fall at different points on the path from IDS to NDR. When evaluating NDR solutions, some key things to look for include:
- ML-Based Anomaly Detection: Modern NDR solutions use AI/ML for anomaly detection, enabling them to identify novel, zero-day threats for which no signature exists.
- Automated Response Capabilities: NDR solutions should offer automated incident response capabilities to enable organizations to rapidly remediate identified threats.
- Threat Intelligence Integration: Threat intelligence provides insight into recent attack trends and campaigns, improving detection speed and accuracy. NDR solutions should automatically ingest threat intelligence to gain insight into emerging and evolving threats.
- Reporting and Visualization Tools: NDR solutions should incorporate advanced reporting and visualization tools to enhance network visibility and support regulatory compliance and threat-hunting activities.
- Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Support: As companies increasingly embrace cloud environments, NDR solutions must offer consolidated visibility and control across on-prem and cloud environments.
- Cloud-Native Scalability: Scalability is essential to the performance of NDR solutions, making a cloud-native design vital to meet business needs.
- Vendor Track Record: NDR vendors should have a strong track record in developing security solutions that innovate and provide the features that enterprises need.
All of these factors contribute to the expected return on investment (ROI) that an NDR solution will provide to the business. For example, decreasing mean time to detect and respond (MTTR and MTTD) reduces the incidence and cost of data breaches and other incidents. Companies can also experience cost savings due to increased efficiency and enhanced compliance as a result of NDR’s automation and reporting capabilities.
The Future of Network Security with NDR
NDR provides organizations with greater visibility into their network traffic and the ability to automatically identify and remediate network threats. With the ability to automatically identify and respond to malicious network traffic, companies dramatically reduce the risk that attackers will gain access to their environment or be able to cause significant damage to the business.
NDR plays a crucial role in an organization’s cybersecurity strategy. Over time, deploying AI-enhanced security will become even more essential to protecting against advanced threats and maintaining compliance with regulatory requirements. NDR can dramatically enhance your organization’s network security. Evaluate your business’s need and readiness for NDR today.