Antivirus, EDR, and XDR Platforms

Endpoint security has evolved dramatically over the past 30 years. Traditional antivirus used signature databases to detect known malware, but as attackers developed obfuscation and polymorphism, static signatures became insufficient. This drove the development of Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR), which focuses on behavioral analysis of running processes. More recently, Extended Detection and Response (XDR) correlates telemetry across endpoints, networks, cloud workloads, and email to provide a unified threat detection platform.

Traditional antivirus (AV) operates by comparing files against a database of known malicious signatures — patterns of bytes unique to specific malware samples. When a file matches a signature, it is quarantined or deleted. AV also uses heuristic analysis (scanning for suspicious code patterns) and sandboxing (executing suspicious files in an isolated environment). The fundamental weakness: AV is reactive. New malware — particularly fileless, polymorphic, or living-off-the-land attacks — can evade signature matching entirely until the vendor adds a new signature.