Key Takeaways
Fidelis EDR uses behavioral analytics and 30-60-90-day telemetry to expose advanced threats with fewer false positives.
Automated playbooks, rich script libraries, and integrated forensics accelerate isolation, remediation, and evidence preservation.
First-seen executable capture, advanced threat hunting, and XDR integrations turn endpoints into a proactive defense layer while preserving existing AV investments.
The endpoint detection and response (EDR) market has become crowded with solutions claiming comprehensive threat protection. Yet many organizations struggle with EDR platforms that force difficult tradeoffs: prevention-focused tools with limited forensic depth, investigation-heavy solutions that overwhelm lean security teams, or vendor-locked architectures requiring wholesale replacement of existing security infrastructure.
Enterprise security leaders evaluating EDR platforms need clarity on what differentiates effective EDR solutions from conventional approaches. Fidelis Endpoint delivers five architectural capabilities that address critical gaps in how security teams detect threats, remediate threats, and maintain security posture across distributed infrastructure.
What sets Fidelis EDR technology apart:
Behavioral detection capturing complete endpoint activity for 30/60/90-day retrospective analysis
Anti-forensic resistance through automated executable preservation that defeats evidence deletion
EDR automation with 100+ pre-built response scripts enabling rapid threat remediation
On-and-off-grid protection maintaining endpoint security during network disconnections
AV-agnostic architecture preserving existing security tools investments
These differentiators enable security teams to proactively hunt threats, detect suspicious system behavior, and respond to advanced threats before they escalate into security breaches.
How Does EDR Work: Behavioral-Based Detection vs. Traditional Approaches
Traditional endpoint protection platforms rely on signature matching and discrete indicators—individual malicious files, IP addresses, or hash values. This approach generates high false-positive rates and fails against sophisticated threats using fileless techniques or living-off-the-land attacks.
Complete Endpoint Data Collection
Behavioral-based EDR operates differently through comprehensive behavioral analytics. The lightweight Fidelis Endpoint agent continuously monitors endpoint devices and captures:
Process execution chains tracking parent-child relationships
Registry modifications indicating persistence mechanisms
Network connections and authentication attempts
File system operations across Windows, macOS, and Linux
DNS queries and HTTP/HTTPS traffic patterns
This endpoint data streams to a central database—the Endpoint Collector—maintaining historical data (30/60/90-day retention windows) for real-time and retrospective threat detection.
Multi-Dimensional Threat Detection
Rather than triggering on single indicators, Fidelis correlates multiple behavioral signals to identify suspicious behavior:
Process trees combined with unusual network connections
Registry persistence paired with file creation sequences
Credential access correlated with lateral movement indicators
This temporal correlation (time-based relationship analysis between events) detects advanced threats including ransomware, insider threats, and previously undetected attacks that evade traditional antivirus software. Security analysts receive high-fidelity alerts focused on genuine threats rather than noise from over-sensitive signature matching.
Incident Response Automation: From Detection to Remediation
Detection without coordinated response allows cyber threats sufficient time to achieve mission objectives. Many EDR vendors provide alerting but limited EDR automation—a critical gap that extends dwell time and increases breach impact.
Response Capabilities at Scale
Fidelis delivers incident response automation through playbooks and an extensive script library covering investigative, forensic, and remediation functions:
Immediate threat containment:
Endpoint isolation preventing lateral movement
Process termination stopping malicious activity
Automated forensic data collection preserving volatile evidence
Enterprise remediation:
Scripts execute simultaneously across thousands of endpoint devices
Restore affected systems to known-good configurations
Deploy emergency patches when vulnerabilities emerge
Response playbooks trigger automatically based on detection rules, eliminating manual delays that allow threat actors to establish persistence. Organizations customize workflows to align with existing incident response procedures and compliance requirements.
When automated playbooks cannot address unique threat scenarios, security analysts access the Live Console for direct remote interaction with compromised endpoints—executing custom commands and implementing targeted remediation while systems remain network-isolated.
Behavioral analytics for 24/7 threat visibility
Automated forensics that defeat anti-evasion tactics
Real-time response playbooks reducing dwell time
Threat Intelligence Integration: Actionable Detection Rules
Single-source threat intelligence limits detection coverage against diverse attack methodologies. Effective EDR solutions require aggregation across commercial threat intelligence services, community feeds, and internally developed indicators.
Multi-Format Intelligence Normalization
Fidelis consumes threat intelligence through multiple industry standards:
Atomic indicators: Malicious IPs, DNS hostnames, URLs, file hashes
Behavioral indicators: OpenIOC rules, YARA signatures, custom behavior rules
Intelligence formats: STIX, XML, JSON, delimited files
The platform normalizes disparate formats into unified detection rules. Security professionals customize behavior monitoring to identify organization-specific threat patterns—processes executing from abnormal directories, unauthorized credential access, or anomalous network activity.
Automated Correlation Against Endpoint Activity
Threat intelligence becomes operationally actionable without manual analyst correlation. The system continuously compares ingested intelligence against real-time monitoring endpoints:
Process hashes against known malware indicators
Network connections against threat actor infrastructure
Registry modifications against persistence technique signatures
When indicators appear or when endpoint events match suspicious patterns, the EDR platform generates alerts and can automatically isolate compromised systems.
Fidelis Insight-delivered rules map to MITRE ATT&CK techniques, providing investigation context on attack progression and adversary tactics. Independent MITRE evaluation demonstrated Fidelis detected indicators 282 times across 20 discrete attack steps spanning the complete adversary lifecycle.
Preserving Attack Evidence: Defeating Anti-Forensic Techniques
Advanced persistent threats employ anti-forensic methods, deleting executable files and scripts post-execution to eliminate investigation evidence. When security analysts investigate alerts days after initial compromise, critical forensic data has been destroyed—a key vulnerability in conventional EDR solutions.
First-Time-Seen Executable Collection
Fidelis Endpoint automatically captures any first-time-seen executable or script the moment it runs—even if attackers delete it later—maintaining a centralized evidence repository for forensic investigation. This capability addresses a fundamental weakness where other security tools lose evidence once malicious files are removed.
Security analysts access preserved samples for:
Static and dynamic malware analysis
Enterprise-wide threat hunting campaigns
Incident scope determination identifying all affected systems
Threat Lookup integration delivers cloud-based detection ratings, while Fidelis Sandbox provides automated behavioral analysis generating malware confidence scores (0-100 scale) based on observed activity.
When investigations confirm malicious indicators, security teams immediately pivot to automated process blocking across the enterprise or deploy custom YARA rules targeting entire malware families.
Proactive Threat Hunting: Advanced Endpoint Protection
Effective proactive threat hunting requires sophisticated query capabilities beyond basic faceted search. Security professionals need to construct complex queries identifying threats embedded within normal operational activity.
Boolean Logic Query Builder
Fidelis provides an advanced query builder supporting Boolean logic for multi-dimensional searches across endpoint metadata. Security teams construct queries combining:
Process execution patterns and file paths
Network connection characteristics
Registry persistence mechanisms
Temporal correlation
Saved queries enable continuous monitoring for ongoing campaigns or policy violations. This supports both reactive investigations following detections and proactive hunting to discover potential threats before they trigger automated alerts.
Enterprise-Wide Scanning
Scanning indicator libraries containing OpenIOC and YARA signatures enable on-demand memory and filesystem scans. Analysts execute scans across multiple endpoints simultaneously, hunting for:
Compromise indicators that evaded real-time detection
Threats existing before security tool deployment
Persistence mechanisms attackers established
This proactive approach identifies unknown threats and emerging threats that haven’t yet triggered behavioral detections.
Forensic Investigation: Integrated Evidence Collection
Traditional digital forensics requires dedicated tools and significant processing time before analysis begins. Fidelis integrates forensic acquisition directly into detection and response workflows, accelerating incident response without disrupting business operations.
Remote Forensic Data Collection
Security analysts remotely collect forensic data without endpoint disruption:
Full disk imaging: E01 or S01 formats (industry-standard forensic container formats) preserving complete filesystem structure
Memory acquisition: RAW or AFF4 formats (memory dump formats compatible with analysis tools like Volatility) supporting malware analysis
Targeted file collection: Criteria-based gathering with metadata preservation
Live memory analysis accelerates triage by identifying process injection, DLL hijacking, and memory-resident malicious activity before committing resources to comprehensive acquisition.
Forensic data collection integrates with automated playbooks. Alert responses automatically preserve volatile evidence within seconds of threat detection, creating searchable repositories that inform future investigations and reveal connections between incidents.
Continuous Vulnerability Management
Security gaps frequently originate from unpatched software exploited during initial access. Agent-based assessment provides continuous visibility superior to periodic external scanning.
Software Inventory Correlation
Fidelis automatically maintains comprehensive software inventory, correlating installed applications against the MITRE CVE database and Microsoft KB articles. When new vulnerabilities affect deployed software, the EDR solution generates prioritized alerts enabling remediation before threat actors weaponize exploits.
Integrated patch deployment uses custom scripts to address identified vulnerabilities across the enterprise without requiring separate management infrastructure. Additional monitoring includes host firewall status, antivirus engine health, and USB device insertion—closing security gaps before they become breach vectors.
On-and-Off-Grid Protection: Distributed Infrastructure Security
Modern enterprise infrastructure extends beyond traditional network perimeters. Remote workers, cloud workloads, and mobile devices frequently operate where conventional security controls cannot reach them.
Intelligent Local Processing
Fidelis maintains consistent endpoint security whether devices connect to corporate infrastructure or operate independently. Intelligence and detections execute locally rather than requiring continuous cloud connectivity:
Online operation: Receives threat intelligence updates, synchronizes collected data, executes response jobs
Offline operation: Continues behavioral detection, caches data, queues response actions
Data collected during disconnection synchronizes automatically when network access restores. This architecture proves essential for distributed operations requiring consistent security posture across heterogeneous infrastructure.
Integration with Existing Security Tools
Endpoint threat detection delivers maximum value when correlated with network traffic analysis, email security events, and authentication logs. Siloed tools create alert fatigue and slow investigations.
SIEM and SOAR Integration
Fidelis extends detection through native integration with security information and event management systems, security orchestration platforms, and network security tools:
Bi-directional workflows enabling SIEM systems to trigger endpoint response templates
Automated forensic data pushing to SIEM interfaces for centralized analysis
REST API support for custom security stack integrations
Role-based access controls provide granular permissions for endpoints, playbooks, and system configurations.
Active XDR Platform Architecture
Fidelis Elevate—our integrated security platform—unifies visibility across network sensors, endpoint agents, cloud applications, and deception technologies. This validates network detections against endpoint evidence automatically, answering whether suspicious network activity resulted in actual compromise.
Detection mapping to MITRE ATT&CK framework provides context on adversary tactics and techniques, informing defensive control effectiveness.
AV-Agnostic Architecture: Investment Protection
Organizations invest significantly in endpoint protection platforms before considering advanced EDR capabilities. Tightly coupled architectures force abandoning existing investments.
Fidelis provides process blocking independent of antivirus choice.
Hash-based blocking and YARA rule scanning operate separately from whatever antivirus protects Windows systems, extending prevention without wholesale replacement. Threat intelligence feeds become hash sources for automatic blocking, preventing malware execution before processes launch.
For endpoints selecting optional Fidelis AV powered by Bitdefender, additional capabilities include signature detection, heuristic analysis, and Advanced Malware Detection monitoring process behavior in real time. The behavioral engine terminates processes crossing malicious behavior thresholds before damage occurs.
Key Features: Why Security Teams Choose Fidelis
Security leaders evaluating EDR solutions discover that platforms emphasizing ease of use sacrifice visibility, while solutions targeting sophisticated analysts present adoption barriers.
Fidelis eliminates these tradeoffs through architecture serving varied operational maturity:
For experienced security operations: Advanced Boolean queries supporting complex threat hunting Comprehensive threat intelligence integration across formats Sophisticated forensic tools for deep investigations
For developing programs: Automated playbook execution reducing manual workload Intuitive search for efficient alert triage Pre-built script library covering common scenarios
High-fidelity detections based on behavioral correlation reduce alert fatigue. Security analysts focus on genuine suspected threats rather than investigating false positives from signature matching.
Rich metadata stores extending 30/60/90-days combined with preserved executable collections, enable proactive threat hunting, revealing previously undetected attacks and long-running campaigns.
Strategic Value: Measurable Security Outcomes
Fidelis Endpoint delivers the greatest operational value when deployed within the Fidelis Elevate Active XDR platform, extending visibility across network traffic analysis, cloud environments, and deception technologies.
This unified architecture ensures security teams see complete attack pictures, correlating endpoint behaviors with network indicators and global threat intelligence to confidently validate alerts and execute decisive responses before threats impact business operations.
Evaluation criteria for decision-makers:
Organizations seeking EDR solutions that unify prevention with comprehensive detection and response—without architectural compromises—should evaluate how Fidelis addresses:
Behavioral detection providing forensic-grade evidence
Anti-forensic resistance through automated executable preservation
Incident response automation reducing mean time to remediation
Proactive threat hunting supporting mature security operations
Investment protection through AV-agnostic architecture
These capabilities distinguish Fidelis EDR solution from conventional approaches that force organizations to sacrifice either ease of use or investigative depth.
The post Inside Fidelis’ EDR Technology: What Sets Us Apart from Others appeared first on Fidelis Security.
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