Of course, to be objective, we need to address the issue of cost. EDR does cost more per license than traditional MAV—but not prohibitively so. Many customers will balk at the additional expense, but they may be in a position where they can’t afford not to use EDR. If you’d like to read an example of the potential business costs to a customer who chooses to go without EDR, take a look at a recent case study.
If your customer doesn’t have endpoint protection in place at all, we highly recommend counseling them to take advantage of the EDR value proposition. Your customer won’t incur upgrade costs moving from MAV to EDR down the line, and the added peace of mind more than justifies the choice. And for your servers, treat them the same as the high-value assets they host—EDR is your best choice.
If you encounter resistance to EDR based on cost, consider focusing not on what the customer is losing by moving to EDR, but instead on what they are gaining—time. It takes less than a minute to do a rollback versus four to six hours to reimage each device—and you gain insight into what happened. Finally, if a breach does occur, there’s a very real possibility you’ll lose that customer.
The last word
To answer our original question, given the steady innovation EDR offers, there’s room for bot but don’t be surprised to see EDR replace MAV soon. There’s just too much on offer for it not to, given the small differences in per seat license costs.
There is one final point to note: EDR is not a substitute for backup. It goes without saying that backing up your data and storing it off-site remains a cyberhygiene best practice. But together, they’re an incredibly effective one-two punch.
You have options—not just what to deploy, but also who you choose as your vendor. Consider strengths, limitations, and keep an eye toward the future. Today’s costs may very well be tomorrow’s savings.
I hope you’ve found this comparison helpful. Next month we’ll delve deeper into EDR’s rollback function. It’s a game changer, to say the least.
Michael Tschirret, Sr. Product Marketing Manager, EDR
