Open XDR vs. Native XDR Solutions: Which Solution is Right for You?

According to ESG Research, XDR momentum continues to build despite there being confusion about what XDR is.

Extended Detection & Response (XDR) is one of those solutions that everyone knows about, but few understand. XDR solutions provide increased visibility into security threats by collecting data across all security telemetry, including networks, clouds, endpoints, and applications, to detect, analyze, hunt, and mitigate threats in real-time.

There are two types of XDR solutions: Open XDR and Native XDR. But what are the differences between these two options, and which is right for your organization? This blog post will take a closer look at both Open XDR and Native XDR solutions and compare their pros and cons. By the end of this post, you'll be able to make an informed decision about which option is best for your business.

Comparing Open XDR vs. Native XDR Solutions

What is Open XDR?

Open XDR is designed to ingest security data from all available telemetry sources in a security environment, using machine learning and artificial intelligence to collect and correlate data and drive detection and response.

An Open XDR solution utilizes an organization’s existing security infrastructure, aggregating data across on-prem, cloud, and hybrid sources. Instead of ripping and replacing current security tools, Open XDR solutions connect with existing infrastructure to provide a unified extended detection and response platform.

OpenXDR security solutions are designed to collect, streamline, and consolidate data for Security Operations Centers so they can save money and improve their security insights by using them.

Key Benefits of Open XDR:

Unified Security Stack: Artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automation help consolidate disparate security technologies to surface relevant threats and accelerate detection and incident response for security teams.

Playing the Field: Open XDR solutions allow you to work with multiple vendors as they offer third-party integrations with tools into which organizations have already invested capital and effort. This enables security teams to continue to leverage those technologies going forward without needing to replace them.

Increased efficiencies: Open XDR can leverage multiple tools from different sources, including internal and external ones, and integrate them into one unified solution for a security analyst to use for faster detecting and responding to potential threats.

What is Native XDR?

A Native XDR solution integrates security tools from a single vendor to collect data and perform threat detection and response activities.

Since some organizations have already invested significantly in their tech stack with products from a single vendor, it might make sense to use that vendor’s XDR platform.

Key Benefits of Native XDR

• Familiarity: Security teams might be more comfortable using a particular vendor for certain things, including event management and response capabilities.
• Time to Value: Because of the familiarity mentioned above, it might take less time to deploy security processes and experience the benefits of a security platform with a standard UI
• Economies of Scale: Bundling might be an option, with tight integration and potential discounts or perks from using the same vendor.

Open XDR vs. Native XDR: which solution is best?

Both offerings have pros and cons. As you conduct your due diligence, map out your high-level requirements to meet your identified problem or any specific needs or use cases needed to enhance your security posture.

Look for architectural differences and advantages of integrations with security controls.

To decide which XDR product is the best fit for your business, first determine whether your existing cybersecurity tools are adequate and if your current staff has the skills needed to manage an XDR system.

The bottom line: an intelligence-driven XDR solution can help organizations:

• Quickly understand and respond to advanced threats
• Improve operational efficiency and security efficacy
• Reduce the number of false positives and negatives
• Simplify your security program and operations
• Utilize automation to offset the cybersecurity skills shortage

Which solution is right for you?

If you want to be able to understand the threat landscape to detect complex threats and increase response fidelity quickly, then open XDR is an excellent choice. In addition, it will allow for future flexibility when installing new solutions on top of what's already there or replacing outdated equipment with updated versions from various vendors. If you want the ability to implement an effective threat detection solution from any provider, open XDR will provide that flexibility.

On the other hand, if you have already made significant investments within your tech stack with one vendor, utilizing their solution and native integrations might make sense if you have a great relationship. They might offer pre-built integration with their other security products and possible economies of scale.

Attack surfaces are growing. Today's sophisticated threats and attack patterns are constantly changing. It all boils down to which solution can help increase your analyst's productivity and allow them to focus on threat detection and response efforts to do more with less.

Most See XDR Supplementing or Consolidating SOC Technologies

According to recent ESG Research, at this point, XDR is not seen as a potential replacement for SOC technologies like SIEM, SOAR, and TIP. Instead, more than half (52%) of security professionals believe XDR will supplement existing security operations technologies, while 44% see XDR as consolidating current security operations technologies into a common platform.

Each environment is unique. Selecting the best security tools for your business is vital for increased detection and faster response. Whether you utilize an Open or Native XDR platform, ensuring that those tools work together quickly to identify and respond to cyber-attacks is even more critical.

How Anomali Sees XDR

We think of XDR as an architecture for enterprise security. It helps organizations maximize the effectiveness of their overall security investments by taking appropriate actions against threats at the fastest speed possible. As leaders in the threat intelligence market and with deference to the essential role that global threat intelligence plays in accelerating detection and response, we offer up the following working definition:

Organizations running on top of XDR can manage their security infrastructure as one unified platform. With XDR, SOCs can now combine all their different types of intelligence into one place so they can better understand their entire attack surface to protect against cyberattacks. With this information, organizations can generate strategic intelligence that enables them to detect threats quickly, streamline investigations, and provide high-performing. These automatic response capabilities help them identify and mitigate threats before they become costly and disruptive incidents.

With increasingly sophisticated attacks, security analysts need a better approach to detection that provides visibility and insight into their networks and systems to detect them sooner. An intelligence-driven XDR solution like The Anomali Platform can help.