In today’s evolving threat landscape, criminals are employing new techniques on a daily basis to steal data from companies of all sizes. Small businesses are not immune. In fact, small businesses are three times more likely than large companies to be the target of cyberattacks, and cybercrimes cost small businesses $2.1 billion in 2021.
So, even if you run a small business, you need extended detection and response (XDR) security. XDR security is a fully integrated solution that unifies information from across your organization to provide a single, consolidated view of your security picture that you can use to protect your organization. It’s especially useful if you have a complicated network running many different endpoints of different kinds, and handling lots of emails and other traffic. XDR security tools use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technologies to identify familiar threats and develop new responses to new threats. It’s the gold standard in threat detection and response for companies of all sizes.
XDR Security Is Comprehensive
One of the biggest advantages of using XDR security for your small business is that it’s comprehensive, even for complex networks. Have you got several computers, tablets, and maybe smartphones operating on your small business network? What about cameras and robot vacuums? XDR security solutions are comprehensive – they don’t limit their protection to endpoints but instead they cover everything on your network, including email traffic, firewalls, applications, and general network traffic.
You Can Unify Your Whole Network Into a Single Dashboard
That means you’ll be getting data from every possible source on your network, and it will all be unified into a single dashboard where you can see it all at once. That makes managing cybersecurity for your small business a lot easier. You (or your security team) can monitor your endpoints, network traffic, and more for threats and act quickly when they appear.
Many of those threats will be ones that wouldn’t have been detected by traditional endpoint protection, because cyberattackers may not seek to gain access to your network through an endpoint. The most common type of cyberattack small businesses face is actually the phishing attack, which is typically launched over email, but can also be launched over phone or text.
XDR Is Cheaper Than Endpoint Security
If you choose managed XDR security over traditional endpoint security, you’ll actually probably save some money. That’s because the single source view and machine-learning-driven analysis capabilities reduce the total cost of ownership of an XDR security solution. However, process automation also plays a role. You can use XDR to automate simple, routine, repetitive processes to save some time and free up security staff to deal with stuff that only human beings can address.
Threat Responses Are Streamlined and Automated
With XDR security, you don’t even need to be watching the dashboard all the time to identify threats and act on them. XDR doesn’t rely on a human to tell it when to act. It acts automatically when it detects a threat, so you can focus on running your business instead of monitoring a dashboard. It also means threat response happens quickly so threats are addressed immediately.
XDR security can also reduce the overall complexity of your security processes, streamlining them to make them faster and easier. If you’re getting a lot of alerts and it’s getting difficult to handle, you can use XDR security to correlate that information and eliminate false positives to make the data easier to manage and the legitimate threats easier to address.
XDR Security Tools Are Capable of Learning to Respond to Emerging Threats
New managed XDR security tools use AI and machine learning to develop new threat responses as they encounter new threats. They do not rely on threat definitions like more traditional endpoint solutions or antivirus programs do. XDR tools collect data on the threats they encounter, and when they encounter a new threat, they can use that data to learn how to better respond to similar kinds of threats in the future. That means your threat detection and response will evolve to match the pace of malicious actors who are constantly developing new malware and viruses to target small businesses.
Does your company have the cybersecurity infrastructure it needs to protect itself from cyber criminals? If you’re not using XDR security, then it probably doesn’t. XDR harnesses the power of machine learning and AI to provide a threat response system that’s capable of learning to recognize and deal with new threats. It’s the best possible option for protecting your small business data and network.
