Dr. Erdal Ozkaya
The seduction of the all-in-one platform
Security teams are under pressure. Tool fatigue, budget scrutiny, hiring gaps. So the promise of platformization is appealing: consolidate vendors, reduce complexity, close gaps. One contract. One UI. One answer to everything.
Or so the pitch goes.
It’s no surprise then that Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) platforms are starting to stretch. Some now claim to support investigations, offering timelines, system snapshots, and lightweight artifact collection. But let’s be honest—these additions look like forensics, not behave like it.
What detection does well—and where it falls short
EDRs are built for detection at scale. Fast telemetry. Real-time alerting. First-line containment. They’re critical in the stack. But when it comes to investigation, we’re talking about a different job entirely.
And that’s where EDRs and detection-led tooling starts to show their limits:
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They filter data up front. You get what the system thinks is interesting. Not necessarily what’s actually important.
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They demand reactive collection. If there’s no alert, there’s often no data. Even if there is an alert,
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They’re blind beyond the endpoint. Cloud assets, legacy systems, unmanaged devices? Good luck.
As one IR leader put it:
“EDR tells us something’s wrong.
But we use other tools to figure out why.”
Platform consolidation: efficient, but at what cost?
There are significant benefits to platformization. But there are also tradeoffs. Because when you trade specialisation for simplicity, something always gets lost.
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Detection Tools |
What Investigation Demands |
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Telemetry filtered by |
Comprehensive forensic visibility - |
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Alert-led workflows |
Evidence-first exploration, unconstrained |
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Endpoint-centric scope |
Coverage across cloud, hybrid, legacy, |
|
Short retention |
Long-range historical visibility, |
|
Containment-oriented |
Depth and raw evidence that explain |
This isn’t about feature gaps. It’s about the wrong tool for the wrong job.
The Real Value of Investigation
Investigation isn’t a feature. It’s a function — one with its own requirements, workflows, and consequences.
And while detection tools are essential, they’re not built to answer the questions that investigations demand. Stretching them to fit only creates blind spots, brittle assumptions, and slow decisions.
Because the value of proper investigation isn’t just knowing something happened. It’s knowing what, how, and why — with enough clarity to act decisively and learn effectively.
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You reduce dwell time and business disruption by getting to resolution faster.
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You preserve integrity — of evidence, of reporting, of stakeholder confidence.
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You close the loop, turning real-world findings into better detection, stronger models, and smarter playbooks.
Consolidated platforms can reduce complexity — but they can’t replace specialization. When you trade depth for convenience, you lose clarity. And in investigation, clarity is everything.
What should you do?
If your team is relying on detection tools to drive investigation, it’s time to raise the bar. Precision matters. Learn how you can strengthen your incident response workflow depth, cross-environment visibility and automation.
