Bitdefender Named 'Strong Performer' in Forrester Wave XDR Platform Report

We’re pleased to announce that Bitdefender has been named a Strong Performer in the recently released report, The Forrester Wave™: Extended Detection And Response Platforms, Q2 2024.

The report is the result of a rigorous, 22-criterion evaluation of the current offering, strategy, and market presence of top XDR providers. In this article we build on the insights in the report to highlight how the XDR market is evolving and how we believe Bitdefender GravityZone XDR stands out to address organizations’ challenges.
A link to the full report is shared in the last part of the article.

XDR Market Evolution

In The Extended Detection And Response Platforms Landscape, Q4 2023, Forrester defines XDR as: “The evolution of endpoint detection and response, which unifies security-relevant detections from the endpoint and other detection surfaces such as email, identity, and cloud. It is a cloud-native platform built on big data infrastructure that prioritizes analyst experience for high-quality detection, complete investigation, and fast and effective response.”

By providing high-quality detections in a timely manner and minimizing required detection engineering efforts and expertise, XDR appeals first to organizations with smaller security teams challenged by alert fatigue, skills gaps, complexity, and slow or inefficient threat response.

While such organizations typically find Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solutions too complex to leverage efficiently, larger organizations have been understandably interested in areas of consolidation between XDR and SIEM.

This is where one of the important insights from the Forrester Wave™: Extended Detection And Response Platforms, Q2 2024, comes in: according to the report, as XDR integrations and capabilities have evolved, vendors are starting to realize a SIEM replacement vision, despite still not covering niche SIEM use cases.

XDR Selection Criteria and How Bitdefender Addresses Them

Considering the trend of XDR vendors evolving to provide a viable replacement for SIEM, Forrester recommends customers look for vendors that deliver three key attributes that are listed below. We’ve added a brief description of how Bitdefender addresses each point.

1. Prioritize Endpoint Expertise and Visualization

   Forrester recommends choosing vendors that “gained prominence because of their dedication to high-quality detections, which came from their presence and strength on the endpoint.” More accurate, timely detections and better investigative workflows deliver value to customers as data volumes increase.
   
   Bitdefender meets this criterion as a vendor that evolved XDR from its extensive experience and proven effectiveness and accuracy in endpoint prevention, protection, detection, and response.

2. Target Additional Detection Surfaces for More Effective Investigation

   Forrester notes that as XDR vendors bring in more telemetry, maintaining detection quality can be challenging and recommends vendors that prioritize attack surfaces that are most valuable such as endpoint, identity, and email.

   Bitdefender’s native approach to XDR integrates the relevant security information across key attack surfaces, focusing on enhancing detection and response, not on bringing in logs or telemetry that is not valuable in investigations. Bitdefender GravityZone XDR spans endpoints, identities, productivity apps such as Office 365, network, and clouds.

3. Treat Vision, Innovation, and Roadmap as Interwined and Symbiotic

   Forrester recommends that customers look for vendors that deliver not just a vision that sounds good, but a realistic roadmap and investment to achieve that vision.

   Bitdefender achieved the highest possible score for innovation and roadmap in the report. To us, this reconfirms Bitdefender’s reputation and track record as a technology innovator in the cybersecurity industry and it demonstrates that our roadmap is aligned to deliver on our vision for XDR.

Where Bitdefender GravityZone XDR Shines and What it Means for Customers

Besides Innovation and Roadmap, Bitdefender also achieved the maximum possible scores in the Forrester report in the criteria of Analyst Experience, AI and Machine Learning, Endpoint Protection, and Product Security.

AI and Machine Learning

We believe that achieving the maximum possible score for AI and machine learning demonstrates the value of Bitdefender’s approach, maturity and expertise in leveraging artificial intelligence to deliver better security outcomes for customers. These benefits include higher detection rates with low false positives or noise but also enhanced automation and operational efficiency.

Analyst Experience and Ease of Use

With many organizations missing the security talent and expertise to staff a Security Operations Center and efficiently use SOC tooling, and with budgets already tight, XDR ease of use, superior analyst experience, and immediate value with low overhead become crucial.

Bitdefender GravityZone XDR shines in delivering high-quality detections and a human readable incident overview and process tree as attacks happen. This streamlines workflows and empowers teams regardless of size or expertise to swiftly understand all facets of an incident and act across domains without leaving the GravityZone console.

Bitdefender achieved the maximum score possible in the Analyst Experience criterion in The Forrester XDR report, with Forrester noting that: “The offering prioritizes analyst experience with the cleanest and most visually exceptional process tree of the vendors in this evaluation.” and describing the product as “an easy-to-use, reliable XDR platform focused on detection and response".

Endpoint Protection and Product Security

Endpoint protection and Product security are traditionally areas where Bitdefender excels, with Bitdefender consistently displaying top protection or detection results in independent evaluations such as AV-TEST, AV-Comparatives, or MITRE.

Bitdefender has also been named a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Endpoint Security, Q4 2023 report with the report recognizing Bitdefender for its “...near-relentless focus on stopping threats before they can impact the endpoint....” We believe this translates to less overhead and reactive cleanup for security analysts as more threats are prevented before they execute.

Access the Forrester Wave Report Today

Reading the Forrester Wave™: Extended Detection And Response Platforms, Q2 2024, can significantly enhance the decision-making process for security practitioners. This comprehensive analysis provides the insights needed to make well-informed purchasing decisions, ensuring positive outcomes and enabling a more effective assessment of which platforms are truly worth considering.

To gain a full understanding of Bitdefender’s performance in Forrester’s evaluation and how it stacks up against other solution providers, we are providing complimentary access to the report. Equip yourself with the knowledge to choose the best cybersecurity solutions for your organization.