A Buyer’s Guide

to Network Security
Solutions
Going beyond NDR

© 2024 Darktrace Holdings Limited. All rights reserved. darktrace.com

Contents 02 Traditional NDR solutions fall short of modern network attacks

Step 1 Eliminate gaps in visibility

Step 2 Identify and respond to anomalies in real-time

Step 3 Move to a proactive state

07 Boosting operational performance in network security

Step 4 Simplify integration

Step 5 Reduce cost & complexity

Step 6 Streamline compliance and reporting

08 Choosing the right platform to elevate your network security

09 The journey starts here

01 | A Buyer’s Guide to Network Security Solutions darktrace.com

· Introduction

Traditional NDR
solutions fall short of
modern network attacks

Cybersecurity evolved in silos—but attacks do not.

Today’s network environments are more dynamic and
A complex cybersecurity
interconnected than ever before. Modern attackers stack obscures risk and
exploit this complexity, bypassing traditional NDR by
targeting endpoints, cloud environments, and lateral exhausts resources
movement across the network.
Aggregating multiple security solutions to meet
Traditional NDR solutions fall short because they were designed specific challenges creates diminishing returns.
for static networks with clear perimeters. In contrast, today’s
networks are fluid, with data and users moving across multiple Even if IT had the resources to maintain additional detection
environments and opening up new vulnerabilities. The complexity and response tools to bolster their existing NDR capabilities
and scale of these environments demands a new approach to – and most do not — monitoring data from too many siloed
network security tools creates complex, disjointed, and redundant workflows
that weaken instead of strengthen security.
While Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) solutions have
emerged to provide broader protection, they often lack seamless This creates numerous security deficiencies
integration with NDR tools. This fragmentation leaves critical and workload inefficiencies:
visibility gaps that attackers can exploit.
· Gaps between unintegrated tools create
To solve this challenge, eXtended Detection and Response dangerous blind spots in network visibility
(XDR) solutions were developed to aid security teams.
· Relying on too many tools leads to alert fatigue
Although XDR can correlate suspicious events from networks,
endpoints, and the cloud, it still lacks sufficient domain coverage
· Incident triage becomes a linear, tool-by-tool process rather
than a coordinated response across multiple attack vectors,
in critical areas like email, where most initial infections occur.
making it difficult to prioritize threats
Additionally, it requires human validation, prioritization, and triage.
However, all these solutions take a fundamentally reactive
· Slower “time to meaning” delays
threat response and containment
approach to security operations. For effective network security,
organizations need to look beyond real-time detection and · Inability to track cyber-attacks as they
response to proactive risk reduction, to prevent attacks before move across multiple network domains
they occur.
Costs rise as efficiency falls. Managing competing tools and
Organizations need to look beyond NDR to a solution that inte- services strains security teams, increases operational expenses,
grates the functions of NDR and EDR to provide comprehensive and drives up subscription and renewal costs. Security profes-
visibility and response capabilities across the entire network sionals also need to engage multiple vendors and hold multiple
landscape, while simultaneously prioritizing preparedness and calls to investigate events and coordinate incident response (IR).
cyber risk reduction. A fragmented approach undermines the very purpose of NDR,
which is to provide clear, actionable insights across the network
in real-time, ultimately leaving organizations vulnerable to
sophisticated attacks that can slip through the cracks.

darktrace.com A Buyer’s Guide to Network Security Solutions | 02

Platform-based network security
scales—and fully leverages AI
In today’s evolving threat landscape, consolidating your
network security stack is crucial to avoid risks and minimize As organizations grow, their network attack surface inevitably ex-
wasted investments. pands. Modern networks are expanding far beyond on-premises
into virtual environments, cloud and hybrid networks. More than
By unifying these functions into a single platform, organizations
50% of incidents will come from cloud network activity by 20291,
can streamline workflows for securing network access, manag-
meaning defenders need a solution that can level the playing field
ing privileges, accelerating threat detection and response, and
against complex attacks that traverse multiple areas of a digital
ensuring regulatory compliance. Platforms that push beyond the
estate.
reactive approach of NDR, EDR and XDR to incorporate prevention
techniques into one unified platform—that also has the capability With 63% of employees working remotely or on a hybrid basis2,
to inform detection and response—help mitigate cyber risk much the need to maintain network visibility over remote worker devices
more effectively. This guide explores best practices for integrating is increasingly important, however this is not something other
network security functionalities within a scalable, AI-driven NDR or EDR tools cover.
platform to:

· Improve performance with comprehensive visibility across your

network, enabling faster detection and more precise, automat-
ed responses to threats

· Modernize and streamline network operations, reducing

costs, complexity, and the burden of compliance

· Harden security posture and improve preparedness with

a proactive assessment of risk to prevent more attacks

1 Gartner Market Guide for Network Detection and Response, 2024

2 McKinsey Global Institute, 2023

03 | A Buyer’s Guide to Network Security Solutions darktrace.com

Not all AI is created equal do damage to the wider network. Rather than generate mass
quarantines that might lead to downtime, the platform neutralizes
threats in seconds by enforcing normal behavior for a user or de-
Most security solutions take broadly the same approach when it vice that gets compromised. The system also generates incident
comes to AI. They rely on a combination of supervised machine summaries that equip resource-constrained security analysts to
learning, deep learning, and transformers to train and inform take immediate action. The context provided includes insights
their systems. This entails shipping your company’s data out to on incidents involving novel attack techniques that cannot be
a large data lake housed somewhere in the cloud where it gets countered using pre-defined playbooks.
blended with attack data from thousands of other organizations.
The resulting homogenized data set gets used to train AI systems Beyond incident response, the Darktrace ActiveAI Security
— yours and everyone else’s — to recognize patterns of attack Platform was designed to transform security operations to a
based on previously encountered threats. proactive state, by identifying and closing gaps before they are
exploited. This reduces the impact and cost of attacks.
While using AI in this way reduces the workload of security teams
who would traditionally input this data by hand, it emanates the
same risk. Namely, that AI systems trained on known threats
cannot deal with the threats of tomorrow. Ultimately, it is the
unknown threats that bring down a network.
Enhancing network security
At its conception, this was a reasonably smart way of approach-
ing cyber security. For a long time, the assumption that today’s performance with AI
threats will resemble yesterday’s attacks was a valid one. But in
an age where the commoditization of cyber-crime has lowered By adopting modern best practices and leveraging advanced
the bar-to-entry for attackers, and where Generative AI and other AI, you can significantly boost the performance of your network
open-source tools are enabling sophisticated attacks at scale, security through:
this is no longer the case.
· Comprehensive visibility with a unified view of threats and
Darktrace brings AI to the data at your organization. Wherever risks across your entire network, eliminating blind spots across
information exists, Darktrace’s Self-Learning AI understands multiple domain
what constitutes ‘normal’ for any given device’s pattern of life at
an organization. The system then identifies subtle deviations in · AI-driven anomaly detection and behavioral analysis at machine
speed and scale, without relying on knowledge of past attacks
behavior that indicate a cyber-threat. This unique approach
to detect and autonomously respond to threats
equips the platform to identify novel as well as known threats on
the very first encounter – wherever threats arise in your network. · Rapid, precise autonomous response capabilities to block
threats at the earliest sign of lateral movement, minimizing
Better detection is only half the battle. Darktrace also delivered
potential damage and reducing response times
the world’s first proven autonomous response technology able
to intelligently fight back against in-progress attacks before they · A proactive assessment of risk to prevent more attacks

darktrace.com A Buyer’s Guide to Network Security Solutions | 04

· Step 01

Eliminate gaps in visibility · Use Case

Threat actors see more than siloed solutions.

Multi-vector attacks can combine and simultaneously launch Self-Learning AI for the network
techniques such as DDoS and ransomware to overwhelm Darktrace / NETWORK passively ingests network
responders and exploit weakness wherever they find it. Siloed traffic from on-premises, virtual, cloud, hybrid environ-
security solutions will detect certain attacks they are trained to ments and remote devices – extracting datapoints
identify. However, they struggle to bring together the multiple and analyzing both encrypted and decrypted packets
events that constitute an attack’s full lifecycle. from every connection to uncover unusual activity in
Without a unified view of threats across the network, defend- real-time. Unlike other NDR vendors that process your
ing against multi-vector attacks becomes a daunting task. data in the cloud as part of globally trained models, our
Modern cyber-attacks frequently traverse multiple environments, industry leading Self-Learning AI is deployed locally
starting in one area such as email, then moving laterally through and trained solely on your data without the need
the network, and finally spreading to cloud infrastructures or for a cloud connection - giving you tailored security
operational technology. By the time a traditional NDR system outcomes without compromising on privacy.
detects the threat, the damage may already be done—data
stolen, systems ransomed, or operations disrupted.

Figure 01: XDR and point solutions that rely on known attack data fail to keep pace with multi-vector attacks

A platform-based approach unifies End-to-end visibility across your entire environment equips defenders with a holistic
coverage across multiple domains understanding of their digital estate in order to prioritize sophisticated threats.
The Darktrace ActiveAI Security Platform deploys anywhere data resides within an
organization to give security professionals a unified view of data — and risk — across
corporate networks, cloud/SaaS applications, endpoints, email, and even operational
technology (OT) networks in a single-pane-of-glass.
The same UI consolidates email, Microsoft, Google, and other account activity into a
single, easily accessible view, something XDR solutions lack. This integrated perspec-
tive empowers faster, more accurate threat classification and response, ensuring that
no critical threat goes unnoticed across your network.

05 | A Buyer’s Guide to Network Security Solutions darktrace.com

· Step 02 · Step 03

Identify and respond to Move to a proactive state

anomalies in real-time Effective network security goes beyond real-time detection and
response; it includes proactive risk reduction to prevent attacks
Most NDR tools use static machine learning technology to train before they happen. To achieve this, security solutions must help
the system to recognize risk. With this rearview-mirror approach, teams identify vulnerabilities, simulate potential attacks, and
each tool’s frame of reference consists only of known attacks prepare defenses accordingly. This proactive approach involves
that occurred in the past. This approach lacks the ability to anticipating threats by ‘thinking like an attacker’ to strengthen
recognize unusual activity for your unique organization, a critical defenses before they are tested.
advantage for identifying both known and unknown threats on
Security teams implementing preventative measures today must
the first encounter.
manage a combination of Attack Surface Management (ASM),
The reliance on historical data to identify threats means that attack path modeling, red teaming, penetration testing, security
these systems can only recognize patterns and anomalies based awareness training, vulnerability management, and more. These
on past incidents, which can result in slower detection of novel or tools and processes often do not interact with each other,
sophisticated attacks. At the same time, a tendency to process creating significant overhead. Solutions that consolidate multiple
and respond to threats in a linear fashion leads to delays that give prevention techniques into a single unified platform, which also
attackers more time to exploit vulnerabilities. supports detection and response, help mitigate cyber risks more
effectively. A more holistic approach to cyber risk reduction
begins with a cohesive view of both internal and external risks.
According to IBM:

“Organizations that used security AI and

automation extensively within their approach
experienced, on average, a 108-day shorter time
$1.76M
to identify and contain the breach. Security AI · Average cost savings
of a data breach for an organization
and automation were shown to be important that uses AI for security
investments for reducing costs and minimizing
(IBM)
time to identify and contain breaches.”

An end-to-end platform prevents more attacks

Darktrace’s Proactive Exposure Management product helps your
AI-led platforms facilitate autonomous response team get ahead of security gaps and potential process risk by
An advanced AI-led platform revolutionizes network security by understanding your internal and external threat surfaces and
analyzing anomalies in real time, synchronously, and acting to identifying where preparedness can be improved. How?
resolve risk on its own. The Darktrace ActiveAI Security Platform Combining an internal and external view of risk. Darktrace’s
learns the normal behavior patterns of individual users and devic- end-to-end approach combines both attack surface manage-
es to recognize and correlate anomalous activity. The Darktrace ment and attack path modeling to help anticipate and avoid
ActiveAI Security Platform learns the normal behavioral patterns attacks. This allows defenders to combine external insight (i.e.
of individual users and devices to detect and contextualize anom- “Which areas of my infrastructure are most exposed to the
alous activity. What may seem like benign events can in fact point outside world?”) with internal perspective (i.e. “What are the
to significant threats developing within your network. quickest and easiest paths within my organization to my crown
Darktrace’s dynamic understanding of your environment enables jewels?”) for a comprehensive, actionable view of risk.
a truly autonomous and precise cloud-native response. Its Combining preventative measures with detection and response.
understanding of ‘normal’ for every user and device allows it to This comprehensive view of risk can then be combined with
enforce ‘normal’ – cutting out only the malicious activity, while detection and response mechanisms for even greater efficien-
allowing normal business to continue functioning. In the network, cies. Darktrace / Attack Surface Management and Darktrace /
this could mean blocking specific, anomalous connections over a Proactive Exposure Management show analysts the most risky
certain port. and likely pathways of attack. This intelligence can be shared with
Response actions can be initiatives either by Darktrace directly detection and response systems so they can watch the assets
through native mechanisms, or via integrations with your along these paths closely and prioritize investigating unusual
organization’s existing security controls. activity involving those assets. Within the platform, information
from attack prevention techniques automatically feeds into
detection and response and vice versa. For instance, if the AI
engines alert on particularly vulnerable paths and high-profile
assets at risk within the network, the detection and response
systems can be on heightened alert for unusual activity.

darktrace.com A Buyer’s Guide to Network Security Solutions | 06

Boosting operational perfor-
mance in network security

Improving operational performance not only involves · Step 04

optimizing detection, response and prevention with

AI, but involves streamlining workflows and optimizing Simplify integration
tool management. By integrating network security
With an end-to-end platform approach to network security, one
functions into a single, cohesive platform, organi- tool integrates with all environments to eliminate redundant
zations can accelerate incident response times and configuration and translation efforts. Flexible integrations allow
simplify the monitoring and management of security the Darktrace ActiveAI Security Platform to reach every corner of
operations. Enhanced operational performance not your business, from cloud systems and endpoints to OT systems
only minimizes potential fines and liability but also and traditional corporate networks. The platform integrates with
your organization’s existing security controls, allowing CISOs and
strengthens overall brand reputation by ensuring
security leaders to leverage and maximize prior investments to
robust and efficient security practices. handle future attacks.

Figure 02: Darktrace is designed with an open architecture that complements your existing infrastructure and products for an end-to-end approach

07 | A Buyer’s Guide to Network Security Solutions darktrace.com

· Step 05 · Step 06

Reduce cost & complexity Streamline compliance

While purchasing individual point solutions to address specific and reporting
network security challenges might seem more cost-effective ini-
tially, the long-term benefits of a unified platform are significant. Darktrace introduces customizable compliance features that
allow mapping of security controls to relevant best-practice
An integrated platform like Darktrace consolidates multiple
frameworks from CISA, NIST, CIS-20, FERC, and NIS2. Events
security functions and resources into a single solution, reducing
and anomalies occurring on critical attack paths automatically
complexity and simplifying vendor management. This approach
get tagged and mapped to MITRE ATT&CK to help with auditing
not only streamlines support but also provides clearer billing and
and compliance reporting.
budgetary transparency, enhancing cost control and resource
allocation. An AI-driven platform adapts dynamically to evolving Darktrace’s Cyber AI Analyst generates detailed reports in plain
security needs. New capabilities can be activated as required language that non-technical professionals can reference to docu-
without the need to source, test, and integrate additional vendors. ment governance. Summaries generated at machine speed break
This flexibility minimizes administrative overhead and ensures down events step-by-step and help meet requirements to report
that your security infrastructure scales efficiently with your cyber security incidents to authorities within a tight window of
business. time (e.g. NIS2 specifies reporting within 24 hours).

Choosing the right

platform to elevate
your network security
When a CISO opts for a platform-centric approach to network
security, the challenge is to identify a solution that integrates and AI that’s not
enhances security across all domains. An ideal platform should
offer: stuck in the past
· Comprehensive coverage: Provide visibility, detection, response, Darktrace offers the industry’s only Self-Learning AI
and prevention across your entire digital environment, including
networks, cloud applications, and operational technology (OT)
that develops a cross-platform understanding of user
systems behavior across network, email, cloud applications,
and OT environments.
· Accelerated analysis: Deliver faster, more accurate analysis
of network behaviors and security events, improving threat
By learning about your business from your business in real time,
detection and response times
it identifies and addresses subtle threats that other platforms
· Precision response: Utilize targeted, autonomous responses might overlook. This enables it to identify and address subtle
to threats, reducing the impact of attacks and minimizing threats that other tools might miss, providing a clear, comprehen-
disruption sive view of each attack stage for effective response.

· AI-driven prevention: Enable your team to address security The right platform prepares defenders for whatever comes
gaps and potential risks by analyzing your internal and next. Such a solution not only meets current network security
external threat surfaces and pinpointing areas for improved needs but also scales and adapts to emerging threats, optimizing
preparedness both automation and human expertise. By going beyond tra-

· Efficient compliance: Streamline regulatory compliance and ditional NDR, or a mix of tools, and choosing a versatile, AI-driven
platform, you ensure a robust, dynamic and proactive security
reporting processes, simplifying adherence to data privacy and
posture that evolves with your organization.
security regulations

darktrace.com A Buyer’s Guide to Network Security Solutions | 08

Figure 03: The Darktrace ActiveAI Security Platform is designed for your Security Operations Center to eliminate alert triage, perform investigations, and rapidly de-
tect and respond to known and unknown threats, whilst exposing risk gaps across your technologies and processes so your team can shift to a proactive cyber approach.

See what Darktrace can do for your business today.

The journey
Get your free demo of

Darktrace / NETWORK

starts here or check out the

Darktrace ActiveAI Security Platform

09 | A Buyer’s Guide to Network Security Solutions darktrace.com

· About Darktrace Darktrace is a global leader in AI cybersecurity that keeps organizations ahead of the changing threat landscape every day. Founded in 2013
in Cambridge, UK, Darktrace provides the essential cybersecurity platform to protect organizations from unknown threats using AI that
learns from each business in real-time. Darktrace’s platform and services are supported by 2,400+ employees who protect nearly 10,000
customers globally. To learn more, visit http://www.darktrace.com.

North America: +1 (415) 229 9100 Europe: +44 (0) 1223 394 100 Asia-Pacific: +65 6804 5010 Latin America: +55 11 4949 7696

darktrace.com | [email protected] © 2024 Darktrace Holdings Limited. All rights reserved.