Antivirus vs EDR – Why Australian Businesses needs both
In today’s cybersecurity landscape protecting your business from ever evolving threats is no longer a set and forget situation. It requires constant monitoring and management. With threat actors always on the offensive, finding new ways to target Australian businesses. Traditional tools such as Antivirus, while still a necessity, are no longer sufficient on their own to keep up with the constant evolution of threats and attacks. That’s where Managed Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) comes into its own. These solutions work together to provide an overall better, layered approach.
What is Antivirus (AV)?
Antivirus software has been around for as long as threats have existed. They are the traditional approach, designed to detect and block known threats such as viruses, trojans and worms. Fundamentally they work by comparing files and activity on your device against a known database of threats (called “signatures”). Essentially if something matches, it is quarantined.
AVs are effective at catching common, known threats and malware. AV’s limitations are that it relies on known signatures, meaning that it can’t detect zero day or unknown threats. It is also imperative that these databases are kept up to date, centrally monitored and deployed, and that’s what we do.
What is Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)?
While AV is designed to stop threats before they happen, EDR focuses on detecting and responding to threats and /or behaviours that have already passed the frontline AV defences. The EDR is designed to continuously monitor endpoint behaviour, using heuristics, collecting and analysing data to identify suspicious or abnormal behaviour. It can collate a number of different seemingly harmless actions, but scrutinised together they may be malicious. This is the type of threat EDR aims to stop.
EDR will detect previously unknown or advanced threats using behaviour analysis, it will then provide instant alerts to your IT or Security teams. The system will also keep monitoring even after a threat is detected, ensuring threats cannot quietly persist in the background. In essence adding an intelligent layer to bolster the AV.
Key differences
| Feature | Antivirus (AV) | Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) |
| Detection Method | Signature-based | Behaviour-based |
| Protection Focus | Known threats | Unknown and advanced threats |
| Updates Required | Yes, frequent updates | Continuously adapts |
| Response Capability | Limited | Advanced, automated responses |
| Monitoring | Reactive | Continuous, real-time monitoring |
Why you need both?
Layers, layers, layers. Just like an onion, best practice security policies have layers. Each layer is designed to create a barrier and make it more difficult for threat actors to get onto your device and access your cloud services. AV is excellent at stopping known common threats. Today’s threat actors however are becoming more skilled and use techniques to get around AV. The monitoring and behavioural analysis that EDR provides gives the protection for more skilled and persistent threats. They can even detect malicious remote takeover applications. They assist in avoiding undetected threats sitting in your environment.
Beyond EDR: Application Control and Allowlisting
While AV and EDR work to stop threats based on signatures or behaviour, application control takes a much stricter approach.
Long considered the gold standard for security and protecting businesses from known and unknown threats; Allowlisting adopts a “Deny by Default” approach. Unlike Antivirus software, allowlisting controls what software, scripts, executables, and libraries can run on your devices. This means that only items on the “allowlist” are permitted and everything else is blocked. This not only stops malicious threats but also stops unwanted or unapproved software installations.
Enhance Your Security: Empower Your Defenses with Application Control and Allowlisting – Fordham IT
Allowlisting and Application control locks down your endpoints to block anything except what is on the allow list. In combination with AV and EDR, this gives you a winning combination for security.
Our MSP Advantage
As your Managed Service Provider, your IT and security are out top priority. We deliver both AV and ERD as standard for all our clients, no exceptions. We want our clients to have a great base level of security, regardless of their size. We centrally monitor and manage the AV and EDR, responding to alerts and managing the updates and status of the security on each and every computer.
Our goal is to help small and medium Australian business up their security game. We focus on and work with businesses like yours day in and day out. Our collaborative approach means we give you peace of mind knowing your business is protected from both common and more advanced threats.
Wrap Up
Layers are a business’s best friend. With a combination of AV and EDR you can protect your business from not only common threats, but also more advanced threats. Together they form a defense line, detecting, blocking and allowing us to respond to threats before they can do real harm to your business. Further we can employ Application Control to “Deny by Default” adding a powerful layer in front of AV and EDR to further block threats before they happen. Get in touch today to see how we can protect your business and Team.