XDR vs. SOAR: Key Differences and Benefits

XDR and SOAR are powerful security technologies that deliver hidden insights about your organization's threat defense and incident response strategy. Learn how you can leverage them and use.

SOAR helps organizations automate their security workflows and provides comprehensive threat intelligence. XDR combines endpoint and network data to improve threat detection, investigation, and response; it provides triage capabilities and its goal is to mitigate potential threats as early as possible.

XDR delivers multi-layered protection by correlating and contextualizing threat detections. It brings together threat detection and response actions to coordinate security efforts and reduces the complexity of managing multiple, independent security tools by consolidating them. SOAR provides playbooks for security orchestration and is considered an extension of modern SIEM solutions.

So what is XDR vs SOAR? Are there any key benefits of using them separately or should you combine both? We’ll answer all your questions below, let’s dive right into it.

What is XDR (Extended Detection and Response)?

XDR accelerates security operations and provides enhanced visibility to enterprises regarding their security posture. The strength of XDR tools lie in their advanced data collection and analysis capabilities. From telemetry consolidation, robust APIs, multi-vector threat response, and rapid incident response, XDR technology is useful across several industry domains. It can be further enhanced by combining low-code automation to streamline actionability at the point of inception and compliance.

XDR Key Features

• XDR offers organizations enhanced data protection and effortlessly uncovers hidden and advanced security threats.
• It delivers data-driven insights through a single console and consolidates siloed security tools.
• It reduces TCO and staff workloads in organizations by automating security processes.
• XDR unifies threat intelligence, analysis, and provides cutting-edge threat-hunting capabilities to enterprises.

What is SOAR (Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response)?

The goal of SOAR is to increase team efficiency, productivity, and performance. SOAR achieves this by automating threat responses and coordinating their efforts. However, it is important to keep in mind that SOAR does not protect data or systems on its own.

SOAR Key Features

• SOAR enhances an organization’s security posture by monitoring threat data from a variety of sources. It collects threat information, automates routine responses, and triages more complex threats.
• SOAR unifies vulnerability management, incident response, and security operations automation.
• It leverages machine learning technology to analyze incoming security data and prioritizes different threats.

Difference Between XDR vs. SOAR

XDR discovers threats across multiple layers of security including endpoints, networks, and cloud environments. It makes it easier to respond through automation. SOAR is where security workflows can be automated and the response coordinated using various tools. That way, the differences between either of them can help organizations make a correct choice.

XDR

With its centralized dashboard, XDR equips a security team to monitor all activities happening in endpoint, network, and cloud services in one place. This would thus allow teams real-time visibility and quickly spot any suspicious activity without having to switch between various tools.

Unlike SOAR, XDR also uses automated tools for hunting active hidden threats. It automatically identifies security measures you may otherwise ignore using machine learning and analytics. It is forward-looking in the respect that issues are caught when they are still minor problems that teams can address.

SOAR

SOAR easily integrates with many different security tools and technologies, including firewalls or antivirus programs. This integration allows security teams to better use the existing tools. So in this sense, all systems will work in harmony with one another.

Unlike SOAR, XDR does not improve team collaboration. XDR does not provide real-time communication between teams during an incident, but SOAR allows for easy information sharing and decision-making among team members in real-time. These can be accelerated response times and successful teamwork.

XDR vs SOAR: Key Differences

Below are some key differences between XDR and SOAR.

Feature	XDR	SOAR
Focus	Brings threat detection and response together in one place	Focuses on automation and organizing security tasks for smoother operations
Data Sources	Integrates data from various layers like endpoints and networks	Pulls data from many different security tools to coordinate responses
Response Mechanism	Responds automatically to threats based on real-time analysis	Uses preset workflows and sometimes manual inputs to manage incidents
Visibility	Offers a broad view across your whole security environment	Focuses on making operations more efficient and coordinated
Threat Management	Quickly detects and prioritizes threats	Focuses on handling and resolving incidents once they’ve been identified
Implementation	Takes more time to integrate into your systems since it connects with many data sources	Is easier to set up due to its modular nature
Scalability	Grows as your data does, handling larger amounts of information as your business expands	Scales up with additional tools and integrations, making it adaptable as you add more layers to your security setup
Customizability	Has fewer options for customization	Offers more room for tailoring workflows and processes to fit your team’s specific needs
User Interaction	Operates with minimal human involvement since it automates most responses	Involves more human decision-making as it often requires manual inputs to handle incidents
Operational Efficiency	Helps improve detection and response times by automating and streamlining threat management	Focuses on speeding up workflows and making security operations more effective

How do They work?

SOAR and XDR have mutual benefits. XDR gathers and ties together data from various sources of security, thus providing a whole view of all actual threats or potential threats to the organization. It then automatically responds to quickly and efficiently mitigate the threat. Then SOAR takes charge of automating the response. It applies predefined workflows for managing incidents and coordinates with integrated security tools to have a fluid and organized response to threats.

Limitations

The most critical drawback of XDR is the integrating factor that requires integration with a large amount of time and effort if integration is to be made with the existing system. It is also very troublesome to manage environments with a wide range of security tools.

Similarly, SOAR relies upon the toolkit being soundly integrated and how well its set workflows are executed. This means that if a situation does not fit the workflows created, the system may fail to react in a relevant manner.

Benefits of XDR

• XDR reduces the number of false positives, which can be a major issue in traditional security tools. This reduces the workload of security teams and minimizes the risk of missing real threats.
• XDR allows security teams to identify and address security gaps and weaknesses. This reduces the risk of security breaches and minimizes the impact of a breach.
• XDR provides a centralized platform for collaboration between security teams, allowing them to share information and coordinate efforts more effectively.
• XDR reduces the cost of security operations by providing a centralized platform for security tools and technologies. This reduces the need for multiple-point solutions.
• XDR automates and orchestrates security processes, such as threat detection, incident response, and remediation. It makes security workloads much more manageable and enables teams to focus on more strategic activities.

Benefits of SOAR

• SOAR enables security teams to respond to incidents more quickly and effectively, reducing the mean time to detect (MTTD) and mean time to respond (MTTR). It automates repetitive and mundane tasks, freeing up security analysts to focus on more strategic and high-value activities.
• SOAR provides a centralized platform for collaboration between security teams, allowing them to share information and coordinate efforts more effectively. SOAR tools provide real-time visibility into security operations, allowing security teams to track the status of incidents and respond more effectively.
• SOAR streamlines compliance and regulatory requirements, such as GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI-DSS. It helps organizations prevent potential lawsuits and other legal repercussions. Security teams can secure their communications, reduce costs of running business operations with SOAR, and ensure customer data security.

• SOAR provides advanced threat intelligence capabilities, such as machine learning and artificial intelligence, to help security teams identify and respond to unknown threats. It also provides advanced reporting and dashboard capabilities, allowing security teams to track and analyze security operations more effectively.

XDR Vs SOAR Use Cases

Here are the following use cases for XDR vs SOAR:

XDR	SOAR
XDR is great for detecting and mitigating zero-day attacks, ransomware, and advanced persistent threats (APTs)	SOAR automates incident response, reporting, threat containment, and remediation.
XDR can integrate with cloud security tools and provide real-time visibility into cloud-based threats.	It integrates with multiple security tools, workflows, and procedures. SOAR provides threat-hunting abilities and centralizes security data across all platforms.
XDR is excellent for endpoint security analysis and tackles various network-based threats	SOAR is best suited for ensuring data governance and compliance. It provides real-time visibility into an organization’s security posture.
It can be used for automating incident response and multiple security processes.	SOAR can be used for monitoring security operations, tools, technologies, and overall, enhances the team’s efficiency.

Enter SentinelOne XDR

SentinelOne Singularity™ Platform offers unfettered visibility and industry-leading threat protection with autonomous response. With AI-powered, enterprise-wide cyber security, it enables organizations to detect, prevent, and respond to security threats at machine speed. Business owners can maximize visibility, get extensive coverage, and leverage AI to respond across the entire connected security ecosystem.

Singularity™ Data Lake can ingest data from any source – identity, email, CASB, SASE, web, threat intel, sandbox, firewall, case mgmt, and log. Singularity™ Platform is supercharged by PurpleAI who serves as your personal cyber security analyst. Enterprise owners can get real-time insights about their infrastructure and protect every surface. Singularity™ for Cloud simplifies container and VM security, irrespective of location.

Singularity™ for Identity secures identity-based surfaces such as Active Directory and Azure AD.

Singularity Network Discovery uses built-in agent technology to actively and passively map networks, delivering instant asset inventories and information about rogue devices. Users can investigate how managed and unmanaged devices interact with critical assets; they can utilize device control from a unified interface to control IoT and suspicious or unmanaged devices.

SentinelOne Singularity XDR offers organizations the following features:

• It unifies and extends detection and response capability across multiple security layers, providing security teams with centralized end-to-end enterprise visibility, powerful analytics, and automated response across the complete technology stack.

• Singularity XDR enables enterprises to seamlessly ingest structured, unstructured, and semi-structured data in real-time from any technology product or platform, breaking down data silos and eliminating critical blind spots.

• Uncover stealthy attacks with cross-stack correlation and use patented Storyline™ technology to get automated machine-built context and correlation across your entire security stack. The storyline automatically links all related events and activities together in a storyline with a unique identifier.
• Users can auto-enrich threats with integrated threat intelligence; security teams can get additional contextual risk scores on Indicators of compromise (IoCs) such as IPs, hashes, vulnerabilities, and domains

• It detects techniques and tactics that are indicators of malicious behavior to monitor stealth behavior, effectively identify fileless attacks, lateral movement, and actively execute rootkits.

• Singularity XDR automatically correlates related activity into unified alerts that provide campaign-level insight and allow enterprises to correlate events across different vectors to facilitate the triage of alerts as a single incident.

• Singularity XDR enables analysts to take all the required actions to automatically resolve threats with one click, without scripting, on one, several, or all devices across the estate. With one click, the analyst can execute remediation actions such as network quarantine, auto-deploy an agent on a rogue workstation, or automate policy enforcement across cloud environments.

• Singularity XDR lets customers create custom automated detection rules specific to their environment with Storyline Active-Response (STAR). STAR lets enterprises incorporate their business context and customize the EDR solution to their needs.

• With Storyline Active-Response (STAR) custom detection rules, you can turn queries into automated hunting rules that trigger alerts and responses when rules detect matches. STAR gives you the flexibility to create custom alerts and responses specific to your environment.

• Singularity Apps are hosted on our scalable serverless Function-as-a-Service cloud platform and joined together with API-enabled IT and Security controls. SentinelOne provides frictionless integration with leading SOAR tools and helps teams easily navigate high-velocity threats across different domains by driving unified, orchestrated security responses among different tools.

There are many more benefits to using SentinelOne XDR to meet your XDR and SOAR feature requirements. You can learn more by scheduling a free live demo with us.

Choosing the Right Solution for Your Business

Here is when you might prefer XDR over SOAR:

If your primary concern is detecting and responding to advanced threats, XDR might be the better choice. If you need real-time visibility into your security operations, XDR is great. And if you want to automate more complex security processes, XDR also provides more advanced automation capabilities.

SOAR is ideal for your organization in the following scenario:

SOAR is excellent for incident response and streamlines security processes. If you want to automate repetitive and mundane security tasks, SOAR provides more advanced automation capabilities, such as workflow automation and playbook execution.

If you need to improve collaboration between security teams, SOAR provides a centralized platform for communication and coordination.

Conclusion

When we compare XDR vs SOAR use cases, we can safely say that XDR is the future of cyber security. The blend of XDR and SOAR will play a critical role in identifying and combating threats. XDR provides a formidable line of defense against threat actors and promises to keep pace with the ever-changing threat landscape.

XDR and SOAR combined can resolve multi-dimensional security challenges and together help enterprises adopt a proactive approach to cloud and cyber security.

FAQs

Does XDR replace SOAR?

XDR does not replace SOAR but it can include SOAR capabilities.

Is SOAR part of XDR?

In an XDR architecture, SOAR is often one of the key components that play a critical role in the incident response process. SOAR platforms can integrate with various security tools and systems, including SIEM, EDR, and other XDR components.

What is the relationship between SOAR Vs XDR?

XDR is a security approach that combines multiple security information and event management (SIEM) systems, endpoint detection and response (EDR) tools, and other security tools to provide a more comprehensive and integrated view of an organization’s security posture. XDR aims to detect and respond to advanced threats by analyzing data from multiple sources, including network traffic, endpoint activity, and cloud-based services.

SOAR, on the other hand, is a platform that automates and orchestrates the security incident response process. It integrates with various security tools and systems to collect data, analyze it, and trigger automated responses to detected threats. SOAR platforms provide a centralized hub for incident response, allowing security teams to streamline their workflow, reduce manual effort, and improve response times.

How does XDR handle false positives in threat detection?

XDR uses machine learning and advanced analytics to reduce false positives by learning from past incidents, improving accuracy over time.

Can SOAR integrate with legacy security systems?

SOAR platforms are designed to integrate with a wide variety of security tools, including legacy systems. This allows organizations to automate and streamline their security operations without needing to overhaul their existing infrastructure.

What are the deployment options for XDR?

XDR solutions can be deployed in the cloud, on-premises, or as a hybrid model.

How does SOAR improve compliance management?

SOAR boosts compliance by automating the documentation of incidents, creating audit trails, and making sure that security workflows meet industry standards and regulatory requirements.

XDR, SOAR, or Both Which to Use?

Using XDR vs SOAR, or a combination depends on your security needs and deployment.

XDR is perfect for bringing advanced threat detection and response to various layers, endpoints, networks, and cloud environments. The sense is that your organization would automatically want real-time threat response but with effortless security operations.

SOAR focuses on streamlining and automating security purposes. It helps to bring together many tools while coordinating responses to complex incidents. Therefore, SOAR is well suited to teams that manage many different security tools.