Why CISOs Should Consider NDR

The CISO is perhaps the most unlike any other in the c-suite position. Their chief responsibility, network security, requires deep technical prowess and a keen refinement of social influence. While most everyone knows cyberattacks pose a real threat and can cost an organization millions of dollars, those outside of IT are more likely to comfortably minimize the network risks that face their enterprise. As such, the CISO needs to communicate the threat landscape in a way that feels compelling and urgent. 

Because of this unique position, there is extra pressure on a CISO to get the right talent, the right tools, and the right workflows in place without sacrificing innovation or requiring too much budget. Doing so keeps the CISO a trusted advisor for both technical matters and business strategy. 

A robust network detection and response (NDR) solution is designed to help alleviate many of the CISO’s pressures. Here’s why CISOs should consider NDR:

Gives pervasive network visibility

An enterprise’s network is a critical business asset. A compromise to the network can dramatically alter day-to-day operations. It puts an enterprise at risk of data loss, financial loss, and reputation loss. Unfortunately, most SecOps teams have limited visibility into the network. Or they may have theoretical visibility, but too much manual analysis is required to connect the dots. 

An NDR solution, especially one that uses network flow data, gives teams a complete 360 view of IT and network environments. The pervasive network visibility allows teams to see anomalous traffic that has bypassed other security tools or sensors, investigate those incidents, and respond quickly to threats before they have a chance to cause business disruption. Additionally, NDR solutions analyzing network flow data from existing network infrastructure allow enterprises to increase value on an existing investment. This also means you don’t need to invest time or resources to add sensors or agents to track network behavior, offering teams network security on an easy-to-deploy monitoring platform. 

Enables intelligent threat detection

It’s critical to know when the wrong people gain access to the network as soon as it happens. This could be the presence of malware, insider threats, or any variety of network compromises—when something is amiss, security teams need to know.  

The machine learning engines of an NDR solution provide high-fidelity correlation across network security and monitoring tools. As mentioned above, when an NDR solution ingests network flow data, it visualizes a pattern for normal network behavior. But it doesn’t just look at certain datasets to create that pattern. It processes all conversation data across the network and continues to ingest that data to refine the pattern of normal activity. As soon as traffic breaks that pattern breaks, though, security teams are alerted of the anomalous behavior. 

Flow-based NRD solutions detect a variety of network threats. The most sophisticated NDR solutions detect lateral movement, command and control communication, data movement, abnormal activity, and data exfiltration. NDR solutions that use network flow data can also support a zero-trust model and provide cloud visibility. While not a feature of all NDR solutions, some also offer device classification, profiling, and risk scoring—helping organizations cover some aspects of endpoint detection and response (EDR) with an NDR solution. 

Enhances productivity with incident response

All this network activity analysis is then lined up against the MITRE ATT&CK® framework to help support threat investigation and response. Long-term data storage also supports historic forensics for root-cause determination. NDR solutions also leverage existing security and workflow tools through integrations, so enterprises can further harness their existing investments for threat detection and response. In this way, an NDR solution helps shorten mean time to remediation (MTTR). 

Pervasive network visibility gives teams a clear picture of normal network traffic behavior. Intelligent threat detection through machine learning reduces false positives and aids teams in prioritizing which incidents to investigate and respond to first. In turn, through native capabilities and integrations, an NDR solution helps boost analyst production and reduces dwell time. 

While NDR solutions share some common traits, there are distinct differences between them. The Plixer NDR platform taps into your existing infrastructure to provide SecOps teams with the comprehensive intelligence and pervasive network visibility needed to detect, investigate, and respond to threats quickly. To learn more, book a demo today.