More than nine in 10 organizations are either working on an extended detection and response (XDR) project or planning an XDR investment in the next 12 months, according to a new survey sponsored by security provider Hunters and executed by ESG Research.
Hunters’ cloud-based XDR platform leverages machine learning to automate threat hunting and buttress enterprises' defenses against malicious attackers and missed intruders, proactively locating and responding to threats across endpoint, cloud, network and identity. The idea is to help organizations pare threat detection time and spending by picking up on weak signals concealed in network noise. Its platform enables customers to deploy existing security solutions and data sources to detect more threats.
The Israeli company recently landed $15 million in a Series A funding round, bringing its total financing to $20.4 million. Hunters intends to use the new money to further develop its XDR technology, tighten its go-to-market strategy in the U.S. and flesh out its research and development efforts in Israel.
Final data from the survey will be released on December 1 through an eBook entitled The Impact of XDR in the Modern SOC. Until then, we have some preliminary findings:
- 38% of respondents using or considering XDR expect XDR to provide a centralized hub for security operations.
- 58% of respondents using or considering XDR see enhancing, aggregating and improving security analytics capabilities as an important role of XDR.
- 40% of respondents believe they can be more effective if they can better ingest real-time security data and analyze complex attacks across multiple security controls.
- 45% of respondents using or considering XDR see advanced threat detection as their highest priority for XDR.
Neither ESG nor Hunters offered any details about the survey’s methodology but did say that its results support “opportunities to automate and enhance SOC decision making as organizations grapple with inadequate tools and processes to effectively manage threat detection and response.”
Uri May, Hunters co-founder and chief executive, said the survey's findings "demonstrate what we’ve been seeing at Hunters all along: security analysts are expecting more out of SOC technology today, and rightfully so. That the majority of enterprises are planning to invest in XDR in the coming year is especially telling and gratifying as it underscores that Hunters is in a sector poised for rapid growth.”
