Future of Cybersecurity: Will XDR Reshape SIEM & SOAR?
The cybersecurity realm is known as a constantly evolving paradigm with a future so vast it can be hard to predict where it will go. One of the most common apparatuses that companies use to interact with this this realm is the Security Operations Center (SOC). SOCs often times acts as the gatekeepers between the lawlessness of cyberspace and a companies sensitive data. SOCs traditionally employ Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) and Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) tools when detecting, preventing, and responding to cyber threats, however, there is a new tool stands to redefine cybersecurity threat response. extended detection and response (XDR) integrates the capabilities of SOAR and SIEM into a unified platform with the possibility to reshape the cybersecurity industry.
SIEM and SOAR has both played integral roles in developing our current understanding of centralizing security event data and automating response workflows despite their limitations. SIEM platforms often face significant data overflow which generates excessive alerts. Where as SOAR favors security over function and relies on integration of various tools that become excessive and complex. Both tools require excessive manual effort to correlate data, and craft responses which creates inefficiencies in incident response. While both tools offered invaluable aspects of defense, they remain fragmented to their approach to detection and response which has led to the development of XDR.
XDR provides unified data correlation through aggregation of data across endpoints, networks, email, cloud environments, and thus eliminating the need for separate SIEM solutions. XDR also comes with built in automation capabilities which renders SOAR tools obsolete. This provides a seamless operation system allowing greater efficiency of SOC teams. Consolidation provides additional economic and operational benefits such as cost efficiency, vendor consolidation, and faster readiness than traditional methods.
The transition to XDR has already been under way with SOC teams using XDR platforms reporting significant reductions in mean time to detect (MTTD) and mean time to respond (MTTR). Proactive threat hunting is also reported due to unified data correlation which is often limited by the siloed nature of SIEM and SOAR. Additionally XDR adopting organizations see streamlined workflow thus enabling analysts to focus on high-priority treats.
