If you have heard the term “EDR” from your IT provider or in a conversation about cybersecurity, you may have nodded along without being entirely sure what it means. That is reasonable. Endpoint detection and response is a genuinely important technology, but it gets buried in technical language that makes it harder to evaluate than it should be. This post explains what EDR actually is in plain English, why traditional antivirus is no longer sufficient on its own, who needs it, and how Otto IT deploys it as part of a managed security service for Australian businesses.

What EDR Is in Plain English

An endpoint is any device that connects to your network: laptops, desktops, servers, and increasingly mobile devices. Each of those devices is a potential entry point for an attacker. Endpoint Detection and Response is a security technology that monitors activity on those devices continuously, looking for behaviour that indicates a threat rather than just checking files against a list of known bad signatures.

Traditional antivirus works by maintaining a database of known malware signatures and checking files against that database. When a file matches a known signature, it is blocked or quarantined. This approach has worked reasonably well for decades, but it has a fundamental limitation: it only catches threats it already knows about. A new piece of malware that has never been seen before will walk straight past a signature-based antivirus tool without triggering any alarm.

EDR takes a different approach. Instead of only checking whether a file is known to be bad, it monitors what is actually happening on the device. It looks at process behaviour, network connections, file system changes, registry modifications, and a wide range of other activity signals. When something behaves in a way that looks like an attack, even if it has never been seen before, the EDR tool detects it, generates an alert, and can take automated containment actions to stop the threat from spreading.

Think of antivirus as a bouncer checking a guest list at the door. EDR is a camera system that watches what everyone does once they are inside and raises an alarm when someone starts acting suspiciously. Both are useful, but only one of them is equipped to catch a threat that was not anticipated in advance.

Why Traditional Antivirus Is No Longer Sufficient

The threat landscape faced by Australian businesses in 2025 is categorically different from what it looked like ten years ago. Attackers have evolved, and the tools they use have evolved with them. Relying on signature-based antivirus as your primary endpoint defence is like locking your front door but leaving all the windows open.

Modern attacks frequently use techniques that antivirus tools are not designed to detect. Fileless malware executes directly in memory without ever writing a file to disk, which means there is no file for antivirus to scan. Living-off-the-land attacks use legitimate built-in Windows or macOS tools like PowerShell, WMI, and Task Scheduler to carry out malicious activity, so the tools themselves are not flagged as threats even as they are being misused. Supply chain attacks compromise legitimate software that antivirus trusts by definition.

Ransomware, which is the threat most likely to cause serious business disruption, is specifically designed to evade traditional antivirus detection long enough to encrypt your files. By the time a signature-based tool recognises the threat, the damage is already done. EDR tools with behavioural analysis can detect ransomware activity, such as rapid mass file encryption, early in the process and take automated action to stop it before the attack completes.

The Australian Cyber Security Centre’s Essential Eight framework explicitly recommends endpoint detection and response capabilities as part of a mature security posture. For businesses that need to demonstrate compliance with the Essential Eight, or that operate in regulated industries, EDR is not optional; it is expected.

What EDR Detects and Responds To

Modern EDR platforms for Australian businesses are capable of detecting a wide range of threat types, including:

Malware and ransomware. Including variants that evade signature-based detection through obfuscation or polymorphism. Behavioural analysis identifies malicious activity regardless of whether the specific malware has been seen before.

Credential theft attempts. Attacks that attempt to extract passwords, hashes, or tokens from memory or from credential stores. This includes tools like Mimikatz that are commonly used in post-breach lateral movement.

Lateral movement. Once an attacker has compromised one device, they typically attempt to move through the network to access higher-value systems. EDR tools detect the behavioural patterns associated with lateral movement and can contain the affected device before the attack spreads.

Command and control communications. Compromised devices often communicate with attacker-controlled infrastructure to receive instructions. EDR tools monitor network connections from endpoints and flag unusual outbound communications to suspicious destinations.

Insider threats. Unusual access patterns, large data transfers, or access to systems outside normal working hours can indicate either a compromised account or an insider threat. EDR monitoring provides visibility into these patterns that would otherwise go unnoticed.

The “response” part of EDR is equally important. When a threat is detected, a well-configured EDR platform can automatically isolate the affected device from the network, terminate malicious processes, and roll back changes made by malware. These automated responses can stop an attack in seconds, which is the difference between a contained incident and a catastrophic breach.

Who Needs EDR vs Who Can Get By Without It

The honest answer is that any business handling sensitive data, operating in a regulated industry, or carrying a meaningful financial cybersecurity risk should have EDR deployed across its endpoints. That description covers the majority of Australian SMBs.

If your business handles personal data about clients or staff (which is almost all businesses), customer financial information, health records, legal documents, or proprietary business information, then a breach event is both a compliance issue and a reputational one. The cost of that breach will almost always exceed the cost of the EDR solution that could have prevented it.

Businesses that might reasonably operate without dedicated EDR are typically very small, handle minimal sensitive data, have no online presence, and operate in environments where the cost of a breach is genuinely low. For most businesses with 10 or more staff operating in professional services, healthcare, financial services, legal, or technology, EDR is a prudent and proportionate control.

It is also worth noting that endpoint detection and response in Australia has become more accessible in recent years. Managed EDR services, where the technology is deployed and monitored by your IT provider rather than requiring in-house security expertise, have brought enterprise-grade capabilities within reach of businesses that would previously have considered them unaffordable.

How Otto IT Deploys EDR as Part of Managed Security

Otto IT deploys EDR as a core component of our managed cybersecurity service for Australian businesses. We use enterprise-grade EDR platforms across our client base, which means every endpoint in your environment is monitored continuously and any detected threat triggers an immediate response from our security team.

For most SMBs, the challenge with EDR is not the technology itself; it is having the expertise to interpret the alerts it generates and respond appropriately. An EDR tool deployed without someone who knows how to tune it and act on its outputs generates noise rather than insight. Our managed security service removes that problem by providing the human layer alongside the technology.

Our approach to endpoint detection and response in Australia includes initial deployment and configuration, ongoing tuning to reduce false positives, 24-hour monitoring and alerting, and a defined incident response process that activates when a genuine threat is detected. We also provide regular reporting so your leadership team has visibility into the threat landscape your business is facing and how it is being managed.

EDR sits alongside other endpoint security controls in our managed security stack, including email filtering, multi-factor authentication, vulnerability management, and backup and recovery. Business continuity and disaster recovery planning complements EDR by ensuring that even in a worst-case scenario, your data can be restored and your operations can resume.

The Bottom Line

Endpoint detection and response is not a luxury for large enterprises. It is a necessary component of any security programme that is honest about the threats that Australian businesses face today. Traditional antivirus provides a foundation, but it is a foundation that modern attacks are specifically designed to bypass.

The question for most businesses is not whether they need EDR; it is whether they have the right deployment and the right support structure around it. A technology tool without the expertise to manage it is just overhead. A managed EDR service delivers the detection capability alongside the human expertise to act on it, which is what actually changes outcomes when an attack occurs.

Talk to us about endpoint security. Get in touch with Otto IT to find out how we can deploy and manage endpoint detection and response for your business.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is EDR the same as traditional antivirus software?

No. Traditional antivirus uses signature-based detection to identify known malware — it compares files against a database of known threats. EDR goes significantly further: it monitors endpoint behaviour continuously, uses analytics to detect unusual patterns that may indicate an attack, records detailed telemetry for forensic investigation, and can respond automatically to contain threats. Signature-based antivirus misses novel threats and fileless attacks; EDR is designed to detect threats that have no known signature.

How much does EDR typically cost for an Australian small business?

EDR solutions for SMBs are typically priced per endpoint per month, ranging from approximately $5 to $25 per device depending on the platform and the level of managed service included. A basic EDR licence with self-managed alerting sits at the lower end; a fully managed EDR service where a security team monitors alerts and responds on your behalf sits at the higher end. For most small businesses, a managed EDR service is more cost-effective than buying the tool and trying to operate it without dedicated security staff.

Does EDR software slow down computers or affect performance?

Modern EDR solutions are designed to have minimal performance impact in normal operation. Early-generation endpoint security products were notorious for degrading performance, but current platforms are significantly more efficient. The monitoring and telemetry collection happens in the background and should not be noticeable to users in day-to-day work. Performance impact is more likely to be felt during active threat investigation or remediation, which is an acceptable trade-off given the security benefit.

What is the difference between EDR and XDR?

EDR focuses specifically on endpoint devices — laptops, desktops, and servers. XDR (Extended Detection and Response) extends this visibility across multiple security layers: endpoints, email, network traffic, cloud workloads, and identity. XDR correlates signals across all these sources to detect attacks that span multiple vectors, which is increasingly important given how modern attacks are designed to move laterally across environments. XDR is typically more appropriate for mid-sized and larger organisations; EDR remains the right starting point for most SMBs.