What Is Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)?

EDR works by continuously monitoring endpoints for suspicious activity, collecting and analyzing data, and providing real-time notifications of potential threats.

To accomplish this, EDR tools rely heavily on sensors—lightweight software agents deployed directly on endpoints. Once installed, these sensors continuously gather granular telemetry, including what programs are running, what processes programs interact with, registry changes, system calls, and network connections.

Using behavioral analysis, machine learning, and integrated threat intelligence feeds, EDR establishes a baseline of normal activity. From there, it identifies anomalies in endpoint behavior to detect malicious activity and emerging threats—including attacks that basic antivirus will miss, such as fileless malware—so defenders can prioritize critical alerts and carry out proactive defense.

Key Functions and Capabilities of EDR

While capabilities vary from one solution to another, the essential building blocks of EDR include:

• Real-time endpoint monitoring, visibility, and activity logging: EDR continuously collects and analyzes endpoint sensor data to enable organizations to quickly detect and respond to potential threats.
• Advanced threat detection with integrated threat intelligence: Fueled by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, EDR correlates events with threat intelligence feeds to identify previously unknown threats and raise contextualized alerts.
• Faster investigation and incident response: EDR tools simplify management and automate alerts and response actions—including quarantining and remediating infected endpoints—to help security teams act decisively during security incidents.
• Managed detection and response (MDR): Some providers offer EDR as a managed service, combining the advantages of EDR with a team of on-call security experts. MDR—such as the capabilities offered through Zscaler and Red Canary—is a potent option for organizations looking to augment their internal SOC team or achieve 24/7 coverage without added staffing overhead.

The rise of the hybrid workforce has afforded today’s workers greater flexibility, but it has also exposed organizations to a wider attack surface. Endpoints tend to be the most vulnerable parts of an organization, making them natural targets for threat actors looking to install malware, gain unauthorized access, and exfiltrate data.

Having a quality EDR product in place is essential for organizations looking for better visibility, intelligence, and response capabilities to defend against evolving threats:

• Visibility beyond legacy tools: EDR provides remediation insight beyond basic security like firewalls and traditional antivirus software, enabling teams to understand the nature of incidents, their root causes, and how to effectively address them.
• Proactive defense against evasive threats: By correlating events and behavioral patterns in real time, EDR helps root out evasive attackers, ransomware, and zero-day vulnerabilities before they escalate—reducing the risk of downtime, data loss, and follow-up breaches.
• Actionable threat intelligence: EDR uses AI and machine learning to parse threat intelligence feeds, producing insight into attackers’ latest methods and behaviors so organizations can stay a step ahead in safeguarding their data.
• Operational efficiency: EDR saves time and money while reducing the risk of human error through centralized management, machine learning-driven threat insights, and automated response workflows.

The essence of effective EDR security is improved endpoint protection that eases your team's operational burdens while helping reduce costs. When evaluating an EDR solution, look for these critical features:

• Comprehensive, real-time visibility: The best EDR tools go beyond basic signature and indicator of compromise (IOC) monitoring by providing deep, real-time behavioral analytics across endpoint workstations. They should collect rich telemetry from operating systems and data sources (as outlined by frameworks like MITRE ATT&CK®), including processes, commands, files, network traffic, logon sessions, and registry changes.
• Effective alerting and threat intel context: An EDR tool should enrich endpoint telemetry with integrated threat intelligence and generate alerts with clear context explaining the logic and specific telemetry that triggered the alert. Look for alert severity classification mapped to frameworks like MITRE ATT&CK and the ability to aggregate related alerts into single incidents.
• Fast, robust response and remediation: Look for an EDR solution that enables security teams to actively respond to incidents in real time directly from the platform. Key response abilities should include banning/unbanning binaries, killing processes, isolating/de-isolating endpoints, quarantining/deleting/capturing files, blocking network communications (IPs, domains, ports), and blocking compromised users/accounts. Intelligent automation of these actions and strong API access are also essential.
• Preventive controls: Modern EDR tools must incorporate preventive capabilities to stop threats before they become breaches. Look for the ability to block known malicious malware, dual-use tools, potentially unwanted programs (PUPs), and suspicious behaviors, along with clear criteria for tuning these controls.
• Cloud scale, data access, and search functionality: A cloud-native architecture eliminates downtime with automatic updates, secures endpoints regardless of location, and lowers total cost of ownership compared to on-premises hardware. Additionally, the platform should offer a user-friendly interface with robust query language search (or plain-language search powered by GenAI), data export capabilities, and strong API integration with security information and event management systems (SIEMs) and SOAR solutions.

Looking for more guidance when evaluating products? Our EDR evaluation guide breaks down detailed criteria to consider as well as key questions to ask vendors.

While early EDR tools lacked the context, fidelity, and response capabilities needed to properly defend modern environments, today’s leading solutions allow security teams to respond to threats in real time. To help buyers understand the market—including solutions within Zscaler’s portfolio and technology partner ecosystem—here is a breakdown of the top-rated EDR tools organizations use today.

Red Canary Linux EDR (A Zscaler Company)

Red Canary Linux EDR is specifically designed to provide enhanced visibility and protection for Linux environments, extending managed detection and response (MDR) to organizations’ on-premises and cloud Linux infrastructure. It focuses on detecting runtime threats with a lightweight agent and offers deeper insights into endpoint activity, user behavior, and system changes.

Top tool features

• Linux-first design: Built from the ground up to address the unique threats and characteristics of Linux systems
• Lightweight agent: Minimizes performance impact on critical Linux servers and workloads
• File modification (filemod) telemetry: Tracks file creation, deletion, renaming, and editing to gain crucial insights into potential malicious activities; sensors also collect Scriptload telemetry to identify and analyze potentially malicious scripts and detect script-based attacks
• Comprehensive visibility: Monitors processes, network connections, DNS queries, and user activity across various Linux distributions and containerized applications
• MDR integration: Offered alongside expert managed detection and response for continuous analysis and remediation

Pricing

Pricing around Red Canary Linux EDR and MDR varies depending on the number of Linux servers and workstations organizations need coverage for.

Links

• Website: https://redcanary.com/products/linux-edr/
• G2 reviews: https://www.g2.com/products/red-canary/reviews

CrowdStrike Falcon Insight

CrowdStrike Falcon Insight, part of the broader Falcon platform and a Zscaler technology partner, is an EDR solution designed to give organizations complete visibility across their environment. CrowdStrike leverages indicators of attack (IOAs)—indicators that demonstrate the intentions behind a cyberattack—behavioral analytics, and machine learning to identify malware, ransomware, and advanced attacks. Security teams can use the tool to capture details needed to investigate incidents, respond to alerts, and hunt for new threats.

Top tool features

• Real-time visibility: Provides comprehensive visibility into endpoint activity, including process creation, network connections, file modifications, and more
• MITRE ATT&CK framework mapping: Maps alerts and detections to the MITRE ATT&CK framework, helping analysts understand attacker tactics and techniques to aid triage, prioritization, and remediation
• Indicators of attack (IOA): Focuses on detecting malicious behavior and techniques rather than just known signatures
• Threat intelligence integration: Incorporates CrowdStrike’s threat intelligence to identify and contextualize threats

Pricing

Pricing around Falcon Insight isn’t fixed. The company offers different pricing tiers around its Falcon platform, including Falcon Go, Falcon Pro, and Falcon Enterprise, each with varying features and pricing.

Links

• Website: https://www.crowdstrike.com/platform/endpoint-security/falcon-insight-xdr/
• G2 reviews: https://www.g2.com/products/crowdstrike-falcon-endpoint-protection-platform/reviews

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is an enterprise endpoint security solution designed to help organizations prevent, detect, investigate, and respond to advanced threats. It integrates with other Microsoft security services, including Microsoft Defender Antivirus and Microsoft Defender for Business, and covers Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS devices.

Top tool features

• Antimalware and antivirus: Powered by behavior-based, heuristic, and real-time analysis
• Automated investigation and response (AIR): Automatically investigates alerts and takes remediation actions—like isolating devices, quarantining files, or blocking malicious IPs—to reduce workload on security teams
• Advanced hunting: Enables security analysts to proactively search for threats using a query language over a rich dataset
• Vulnerability management: Helps identify, prioritize, and remediate endpoint vulnerabilities

Pricing

There are two versions of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint; for both, cost depends on the plan, licensing model, and whether it is purchased standalone or as part of a Microsoft 365 bundle. Plan 1 provides foundational endpoint security emphasizing preventative protection and basic response actions. Plan 2 provides comprehensive EDR capabilities, including automated investigation and incident response.

Links

• Website: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/business/endpoint-security/microsoft-defender-endpoint
• G2 reviews: https://www.g2.com/products/microsoft-defender-for-endpoint/reviews

SentinelOne EDR

SentinelOne EDR, part of the broader Singularity security platform and a Zscaler technology partner, uses AI and machine learning to provide autonomous endpoint security. It focuses on detecting and responding to threats in real time, offering behavioral analysis, automated response, and rollback capabilities to assist in recovery from ransomware attacks.

Top tool features

• Behavioral AI: Employs static and dynamic behavioral analysis to detect known and unknown threats, including fileless malware and exploits
• Real-time monitoring and visibility: Provides continuous monitoring of all endpoint activities with detailed forensic data for post-attack analysis
• Automated response and remediation: Automatically initiates incident response workflows, like isolating infected endpoints and terminating malicious processes
• Endpoint data collection and correlation: Continuously collects and analyzes endpoint data, network traffic, and user behavior to identify anomalies
• Granular visibility: Offers insight into each endpoint to pinpoint the origin and progression of threats

Pricing

SentinelOne’s EDR is available in different packages with varying features, including a basic endpoint protection (Core) subscription for $69.99 per endpoint, an advanced endpoint protection (Control) subscription for $79.99 per endpoint, and a version including EDR and XDR (Complete) for 179.99perendpoint.Commercial(229.99 per endpoint) and Enterprise (custom quote) subscriptions are also available.

Links

• Website: https://www.sentinelone.com/platform/endpoint-security/
• G2 reviews: https://www.g2.com/products/sentinelone-singularity/reviews (Singularity)

VMware Carbon Black EDR and Cloud

VMware Carbon Black EDR, part of the Zscaler partner ecosystem, is a scalable incident response (IR) and threat hunting solution designed for SOC and IR teams. It continuously records and stores comprehensive endpoint activity data, allowing threat hunters to look for threats in real time and visualize the complete attack kill chain. VMware Carbon Black Cloud is a cloud-native platform that lets administrators manage endpoints with the Carbon Black Cloud Endpoint sensor.

Carbon Black’s EDR integrates with network security providers, existing security technologies, and SIEMs. The EDR console, accessible through a browser-based user interface, allows defenders to monitor threats categorized by feed, score, and severity.

Top tool features

• Continuous and centralized recording: Provides easy access to continuously recorded endpoint data for real-time threat hunting and in-depth investigations
• Attack chain visualization and search: Offers a visual representation of attack progression and root cause analysis for a better understanding of attacker behavior
• Customizable behavioral detection: Allows for the creation of tailored detection rules based on observed behaviors
• Threat intelligence integration: Incorporates out-of-the-box and customizable threat intelligence feeds to enhance detection
• Watchlists dashboard: Provides details on watchlists, trends, and comparisons over time while automatically flagging suspicious activities based on defined criteria
• Process and binary search: Allows security teams to search through centralized data for specific processes and binaries

Pricing

Pricing around VMware Carbon Black EDR varies depending on the needs and size of an organization, typically structured as a per-endpoint, per-year subscription that fluctuates based on contract length.

Links

• Website: https://www.vmware.com/docs/vmwcb-datasheet-edr
• G2 reviews: https://www.g2.com/products/carbon-black-edr/reviews

While EDR addresses a critical gap in security by providing deep visibility into managed workstations and servers, relying on standalone EDR leaves security gaps:

• EDR focuses on managed endpoints only: Conventional EDR is blind to attacks on unmanaged endpoints (e.g., IoT and BYOD), SaaS and cloud applications, network traffic, and supply chains.
• EDR may not be fast enough for rapid attacks: Passthrough sandboxes and “detection-first” approaches can allow malicious files and threat actors to access resources before threats are detected. This limits their effectiveness against ultra-fast threats like LockBit ransomware, which can encrypt 100,000 files in under six minutes.
• EDR lacks visibility into lateral movement across networks and apps: Because standalone EDR collects data only from endpoints, it lacks broader network and identity context, which can lead to alert fatigue and false positives.

For true defense-in-depth, endpoint threat detection must be paired with a zero trust strategy that includes a zero trust architecture, inline inspection, identity-based access controls, and cross-platform analytics.

You can think of XDR as an evolution of EDR that pairs broad-scope data collection as well as threat detection and response solutions with security orchestration. By collecting telemetry from your entire ecosystem—endpoints, clouds, networks, threat intelligence feeds, and more—XDR enables security analysts to conduct faster and more accurate detection, correlation, threat hunting, and incident response than EDR alone.

Learn more in our full article: What Is XDR?

Zscaler combines the power of the Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange™ platform, Red Canary’s industry-leading MDR and threat detection expertise, and deep integrations with leading endpoint security innovators—including CrowdStrike, Microsoft, SentinelOne, and VMware Carbon Black.

Together, Zscaler and our technology partner ecosystem provide end-to-end threat prevention, high-fidelity detection, bidirectional intelligence sharing, automated remediation, and device posture-driven access control across all on-premises and cloud applications.