How can eXtended Detection and Response help your organization?
Here’s what to look for and expect.
“Think of XDR as a modern SOC-in-a-box designed to integrate controls, normalize telemetry, provide advanced analytics, and automate responses.”
–Jon Oltsik, Principal Analyst, ESG
What is XDR?
Like many other security leaders, you might be wondering what exactly XDR means and why your team needs it. For starters, XDR stands for extended or cross-platform detection and response. According to early research from Gartner and Enterprise Strategy Group, XDR is an integrated suite of security products that automatically collects and correlates data unifying security controls, telemetry, analytics, and operations into one platform. The ultimate goal of XDR is to improve threat detection and response through unifying data, automation and measurement.
Does my security team need XDR?
The security landscape changes at a rapid pace and sometimes it’s hard to keep up. Not to mention, security leaders are challenged with a growing suite of tools, new products on the market and understanding if the products in their security program are working as effectively as they can to protect the business. According to the 2019 ReliaQuest Technology Sprawl Report, 70% of security teams invested in more than five new technologies in 2019. That’s five new technologies to learn, configure, integrate, get visibility into and build processes around. No wonder that a similar percentage report they are not able to productively use these new technologies.
XDR addresses these common pain points that security teams face on a daily basis:
- Too many security tools with a lack of integration across them, hindering environmental visibility
- Time wasted pivoting between those tools to get the information needed to quickly detect and respond to threats
- Complex integrations and configurations leading to an ineffective use of tools
- Mixed ROI on existing security investments


How Does XDR Work?
XDR isn’t intended to replace your SIEM, EDR or other security platforms, but it will integrate with and provide higher fidelity alerts and automation to these products, making the analysts’ job easier and giving security leaders higher ROI on their investments and confidence in their security program.
Primary Requirements of XDR:
- Connects to and augments your existing technology investments and provides centralized, normalized data
- Validated, optimized detection content and automation plays providing analysts everything they need to detect and respond in one place
- Continuous improvement of the efficacy and efficiency of tools, teams, and processes
What is Open XDR?
ReliaQuest GreyMatter delivers XDR outcomes and more, but without changing your existing technology investments. We help you avoid vendor lock in via Open XDR which consists of:
Integration of your best-of-breed products for unified detection, investigation and response
Cross technology visibility in weeks, powered by a patented “universal translator”
Aggregation of relevant data on demand, without the need to build and maintain a costly and cumbersome data lake
Continuous optimization of your security technologies and processes
A guided reporting framework to drive security program measurement and continuously increase maturity
Automation across the security lifecycle, beyond just response
ReliaQuest GreyMatter was built from our experience operating SOCs for the Fortune 1000 for over 12 years. Security teams get access to a customer-validated library of content, playbooks and processes, and integration of data on demand to detect and respond faster. GreyMatter takes a proactive approach and gets your team one step ahead with automated threat hunting and attack simulations to identify risk in the environment and validate what you put in place is working. Security leaders will have the answers to two key questions:
Am I reducing risk to the business?
Am I investing in the right areas to mature my security program?
If you want to gain more confidence in your security program, learn more about ReliaQuest GreyMatter.