Key Research Findings of the ESG Report: SOC Modernization and the Role of XDR

If you attended the  RSA conference, you were sure to notice that the conversation around Extended Detection and Response (XDR) continues to gain momentum. Security teams are still struggling with multiple challenges and overcoming obstacles threatening their security posture. 

As IT environments become increasingly dispersed, Security Operations Centers (SOC) are dealing with an ever-increasing barrage of advanced threats and malicious activity. This creates multiple challenges that security analysts deal with daily, including:

• Securing a Remote Work Force
• An expanding attack surface due to digital transformation
• Cybersecurity skills shortage 
• New Security Vulnerabilities
• Securing Cloud Applications
• Multiple Tools Increasing Security Complexity

Anomali sponsored new research from ESG to understand the role XDR solutions play in modern SOC. The study found that enterprise organizations increasingly turn to extended detection and response (XDR) solutions to help defend their growing attack surface against today’s modern threats. 

What is Extended Detection and Response?

Extended detection and response (XDR) helps provide increased visibility and actionable insights across networks, clouds, endpoints, and applications to help Security Operation Center (SOC) teams to detect, investigate, and remediate threats. 

XDR solutions offer advanced threat detection capabilities by ingesting security telemetry from all security products installed in an environment to create a unified detection and response platform. This enables security operations teams to automate routine tasks, prioritize their investigations and response capabilities, and focus on what’s most critical.

What Were the Key Findings?

The ESG report dove into multiple areas around XDR to uncover its role and how it can help SOC operations. Here are some of the key findings: 

1. Security Operations Remains Challenging: Security operations have become increasingly difficult due to the growing attack surface, dangerous threat landscape, and increasing use of cloud computing. 

2, Security Professionals Want More Data and Better Detection Rules: Security teams struggle with surfacing relevant threats from the massive amount of security data they collect, requiring better detection rules.

3. SecOps Process Automation Investments Are Proving Valuable to Organizations: Investments in automation are paying off, helping to increase efficiencies and productivity.

4. MITRE ATT&CK Framework is Proving Valuable for Most Organizations: The MITRE ATT&CK Framework is used by most security operations teams for multiple use cases, including understanding the tactics, techniques, and procedures of threat actors.

5. XDR Momentum Continues to Build: While everyone is still trying to understand what XDR is, the investment in support of advanced threat detection is significant.

6. Managed Detection and Response (MDR) is Mainstream and Expanding: Organizations are increasingly turning to managed service providers to deal with the lack of skilled security resources that organizations face today.

There’s no denying the momentum and traction XDR solutions are making, as organizations are looking for a big data solution that helps them better detect and respond to threats. Anomali provides an intelligence-driven extended detection and response solution fueled by big data management, machine learning, and the world’s largest intelligence repository to stop breaches and attackers.

Download the ESG research to learn how XDR is modernizing security operations. 

Or contact us to see how an intelligence-driven XDR solution can help your organization.

Learn more about XDR.