Microsoft Defender for Endpoint: What It Is, What It Does, Who Needs It

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a security solution designed to protect endpoints from cyber threats. In this blog, we explore what it is, who needs it, and how you can use it to protect your company.

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (MDE) is a comprehensive, cloud-powered endpoint security solution that now integrates with the advanced capabilities of Microsoft Security Copilot. Designed to detect and defend against a wide range of cyber threats – including ransomware – across multiple platforms, MDE offers a robust and versatile security response for modern enterprises.

At the core of MDE is a suite of complementary features that work together to provide end-to-end protection for MacOS, iOS, Windows, Android, Linux, and IoT devices. This holistic approach enables security and IT teams to collaborate seamlessly, unify endpoint management, and implement granular security policies while also using powerful threat detection, investigation and remediation capabilities.

In today’s rapidly evolving threat landscape, where hybrid work models, bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies, and cloud-first environments have become the norm, endpoint security has become a crucial concern for organizations of all sizes. The widespread adoption of remote and distributed workforces has expanded the attack surface, making endpoints the weakest link in the cybersecurity chain.

This is where Microsoft Defender for Endpoint shines. By providing comprehensive protection across multiple platforms, advanced threat intelligence, and streamlined incident response, MDE empowers organizations to proactively safeguard their critical assets and data, even as the nature of work continues to evolve. As businesses navigate the complexities of modern security challenges, MDE offers a robust and versatile solution to effectively mitigate risks and enhance their overall security posture.

Let’s take a closer look at what Endpoint is, what it does, and why you (might) need it.

Wide-ranging Proficiencies for Effective, Complete Security Coverage

The list of MDE features is comprehensive. You get:

• Tandem operation of security and IT teams. This collaboration, through unified endpoint management, lets you create and oversee endpoint security policies for antivirus, disk encryption, firewall, endpoint detection and response, and attack surface reduction devices.
• Detection coverage for all devices. The device discovery capability can find unmanaged devices connected to the corporate network. It deploys onboarded endpoints to probe or scan the network to find enterprise endpoints that haven’t been onboarded yet to MDE (workstations, servers, mobile devices); network devices, such as routers and switches; and IoT devices, such as cameras and printers.
• Flexible controls configuration. You can harmonize security and productivity by building granular controls for policies, settings, web and network access, automated workflows, and cyber hazard detection.
• Security stance enhancement. Microsoft Secure Score provides a repository of advice and offerings to analyze and improve network security. These include security assessments across the enterprise – covering devices, apps, information, identity and infrastructure, threat vector-prioritized insights and intelligent, embedded guidance, and a comprehensive set of controls.
• Unobstructed visibility of all threat actors. A global threat intelligence community of more than 10,000 experts in 72 countries is dedicated to presenting a full view of all cyber threat adversaries and infrastructures through more than 65 trillion signals it receives from the biggest clouds, security organizations, internet graphs, and 1.5 billion devices.
• Auto-deployed deception. By automatically generating and dispersing detection techniques at scale, MDE can use early-stage, high-fidelity signals to thwart cyber invaders before they can mount a full-scale attack.
• Ransomware preemption. Decentralized blocking of lateral movement and remote encryption across all devices makes it possible to automatically disrupt ransomware assaults – such as business email compromise and nation-state attacks – and, accordingly, prevent them from hitting critical assets.
• Machine speed response time. The advanced, automation-propelled machine speed of a security-oriented generative AI tool, Microsoft Security Copilot, empowers MDE to rapidly investigate and defuse incidents, give top priority to alerts, and develop new skills. Security teams can receive the direction and contextual information they need to respond to disturbances in minutes instead of hours or even days.

Arguably, its extensive list of features is one of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint’s major strengths, along with its compatibility with other operating systems and its ability to create a graphical attack timeline by using data associated with a particular attack.

Unique Value that Accrues to the Microsoft Defender for Endpoint User

The features above allow Microsoft Defender for Endpoint to claim distinctive advantages intended to make optimal cybersecurity an ongoing reality.

Users, seemingly, can save time and resources because they don’t need to deploy any agents or additional infrastructure. Expansive optics, signal and human intelligence are built into the product so that it can address the newest and most advanced cyberthreats.

Since MDE is based on cloud technologies, it has single-tenant scaling capability of more than 1 million endpoints, which allows customers to subdivide that tenant among hundreds of sub-tenants. Moreover, it can make use of cloud- and client-based machine learning and behavioral algorithms to identify and frustrate threats.

Security teams can look for anomalies over six months of historical data and build customized threat hunting queries and detections. To keep current on emerging threats, organizations can get threat analytics reports that can help them assess how they’re exposed to, or impacted by, such dangers and what to do about them.

To provide threat management, MDE monitors Microsoft and third-party software vulnerabilities and security configuration issues, then examines six months of historical data for anomalies and builds customized threat-hunting queries and detections. To stay current on emerging threats, organizations can obtain threat analytics reports that help them assess how they’re exposed to or impacted by taking steps designed to lessen the risk and exposure arising from these problems.

Another value add is that Microsoft Defender for Endpoint can now integrate with the generative AI capabilities of Microsoft Copilot for Security to detect and defend against ransomware and other cyber threats across multiple platforms. Specifically, Copilot for Security is embedded in the Defender for Endpoint portal to empower security teams to seamlessly summarize incidents and device information; analyze scripts, codes, and files; apply guided responses to resolve incidents; create incident reports; and generate KQL queries.

Primary Customers and Why Endpoint Security Is Crucial

According to a new survey from 6Sense, more than 2,000 companies around the world have begun using Microsoft Defender for Endpoint as an endpoint security tool, with US-based firms accounting for the majority (55 percent). The top industry customers for the software are managed services, cloud and consulting businesses, and they are followed, in order, by cybersecurity, information security, and recruitment firms.

Essentially, MDE is suited for any larger-size business (more than 300 users) that needs to secure its endpoints. Microsoft Defender for Business, which is designed for small-to-medium-sized companies, doesn’t have a number of the features included with Defender for Endpoint, including:

• The query-based threat-hunting tool.
• The timeline view for examining all endpoint activities.
• The incident-investigation features.

Microsoft Threat Experts, the managed threat-hunting service (which offers targeted attack notifications and experts available on demand).

Endpoints frequently are seen as the weakest link in the cybersecurity chain. In the wake of the pandemic, the widespread adoption of hybrid work models, bring-your-own data policies, and cloud-first environments has made endpoint security a particularly daunting task. Under the circumstances, if companies give their employees tremendous flexibility in where and when they work – and permission to connect their personal devices with the organization’s network – then they must have a comprehensive endpoint security management tool such as Microsoft Defender for Endpoint.

Part of the Rebranded Defender Family

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint had previously been called Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection (a.k.a. Windows Defender ATP) but was renamed in September 2020, along with other Microsoft security portfolio products, under the Defender umbrella brand. Microsoft did this to provide clarity – which previously had been missing – about which of its offerings was the best fit for a particular customer’s security needs.

More specifically, the Defender line was divided into two sections: One, called Azure Defender, covered cloud and hybrid infrastructure, while the other, called Microsoft 365 Defender, covered end-user environments and included MDE. Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection became Microsoft Defender for Endpoint for the same reason Microsoft renamed its other cybersecurity solutions – to simplify and describe the product more precisely. ATP automatically detected and defeated attacks on endpoint devices – i.e., it defended endpoints, so Defender for Endpoints became the logical successor name.

Taking the theme of division further, MDE also is split up into parts: Plan 1 (P1), which is the base version of the solution, and Plan 2 (P2), which has everything from Plan 1 and some additional features.

The Plan 1 components are a security information and event management connector, controlled folder and device-based conditional access, web control and categorized URL blocking, device control, network protection, endpoint firewall, next-generation antimalware, and unified security tools with centralized management.

To all of these, Plan 2 adds automated investigation and remediation, endpoint detection and response, defender vulnerability management capabilities, analytics-based threat intelligence and sandbox.

Large organizations or organizations getting too many alerts from Defender XDR can use Plan 2 to automate the response to those alerts. The main difference between the two is the automation.

Simulating Threat Detection and Response with Microsoft Defender

It’s all well and good to have such far-reaching, effective endpoint security at your disposal, but it won’t do you much good unless you fully understand how to manage MDE and develop the threat detection skills necessary for that purpose.

Before you onboard a lot of devices to MDE, it would be wise to run controlled attack simulations on a few test devices and then see how well MDE identifies and responds to any cyber assaults.

One way to do this, after you select the onboarded device for the simulation, is to choose which one of three available attack scenarios you want to simulate:

1. Document drops backdoor. A socially engineered lure document that is delivered launches a specially built backdoor that gives control to the assailants.
2. PowerShell script in fileless attack. A PowerShell-based fileless attack highlights attack surface reduction and device learning detection of hostile memory activity.
3. Automated incident response. This triggers an automated investigation that automatically tracks down and rectifies breach artifacts in order to scale your incident response capacity.

From here, you download and read your chosen scenario’s walkthrough document, download the simulation file or copy the simulation script, and then run the simulation file or script on the test device according to the instructions in the walkthrough document.

Final Thoughts

Learning to manage MDE takes time, but you can expedite the process using sample exploits in the evaluation lab before introducing the service to your environment.

The lab gives you a look at all levels of information in MDE – from general details about threats and machines all the way down to a single process on a single machine – without needing to involve any users or computers in your organization. It is a core component of MDE, which Microsoft has developed as an all-encompassing, multiplatform endpoint security solution to protect all of the data your clients share with you.

Do you want to fully tap into all Microsoft 365 has to offer? Our Modern Workplace experts can guide you through best practices to make your collaboration efforts seamless. Talk to an expert