Forescout XDR vs Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR comparison

Forescout XDR is an eXtended detection and response solution that converts telemetry and logs into high fidelity, SOC-actionable probable threats.

It automates the detection, investigation, hunt for and response to advanced threats across all connected assets – IT, OT/ICS, IoT and IoMT – from campus to cloud to data center to edge. Forescout XDR combines essential SOC technologies and functions into a unified, cloud-native platform, viewable and actionable from a single console.

Forescout XDR Business Value

• Reduces business risk: Reduce the risk and magnitude of a successful attack, business disruption or data breach by eliminating alert noise so you can quickly and accurately detect, investigate, and respond to the broadest range of advanced threats.
• Optimize security operations: Streamline the analyst function and speed complex investigation and threat-hunting processes with enriched, normalized, and contextualized data correlated to produce a small number of detections that warrant investigation – all in a unified console that integrates with case management systems and other security tools.​
• Support Compliance: Combine long-term log storage with automated threat detection and threat intelligence to close the potential gap between when a breach or disruption is noticed and when a response action is taken.​
• Lower costs: Consolidate point solutions (data lake, security analytics, SOAR, UEBA, threat intel platform) and reduce costs related to data onboarding, rules management and analyst turnover with a solution that simplifies and supports their workflow.​
• Leverage multi-vendor security investments: Derive more value from existing solutions and make better use of asset data and threat intel via automation across case management and incident response systems, sensors (network, endpoint, cloud) and enforcement points. ​

Improve SOC efficiency by 450x with better detection and response of true threats

Security operations center (SOC) teams face a daily barrage of incomplete and inaccurate alerts that lack vital contextual information, many of them false positives. As a result, analysts miss critical threats and take longer to investigate and respond to them, increasing the risk of a breach. In fact, the typical SOC receives an estimated 11,000 alerts per day, or 450 alerts per hour – most of them low fidelity, low confidence alerts, and false positives. 

With Forescout XDR, that number is reduced to one SOC-actionable detection an hour – or one probable threat that warrants human investigation.

Key Features

• Data ingestion: Natively supports Forescout eyeSight, eyeInspect and Medical Device Security data – and over 170 vendor- and EDR-agnostic sources including: security, infrastructure, enrichment, applications and cloud/SaaS.
• Data onboarding: Helps ensure that you extract maximum detection value to support your most important use cases. Forescout data engineers work alongside your team to plan and prioritize the data sources to be onboarded, then help configure the data pipeline and ensure your data is being properly parsed, cleansed, normalized, and enriched. ​
• Advanced data pipeline: Applies a rigorous data science-centric approach to manage data flowing from enterprise-wide sources into its advanced threat detection engine.
  

Palo Alto Networks delivers a complete solution that helps Tier-1 through Tier-3 analysts and SOC managers to optimize the entire incident life cycle while auto documenting and journaling all the evidence. More than 100+ integrations enable security orchestration workflows for incident management and other critical security operation tasks.

Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR is a piece of Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response software that redefines what it means for a program to orchestrate security in an automated manner. It is a next-generation solution that offers all of the features of dozens of siloed security operations center tools in one place. Cortex XSOAR combines case management, automation, real-time collaboration, and threat intelligence management to create a platform that can handle all aspects of system security. Teams that make use of Cortex XSOAR can expect to cut the number of issues that they will have to deal with by 75%. At the same time, the speed at which they resolve those issues that slip through will rise by 90%.

Cortex XSOAR ensures that all of the IT and security tools that you employ function as a unified system. It does this by employing hundreds of integrations that allow you to run a wide variety of programs at once without ever worrying about them interfering with each other. These integrations are limited only by your imagination. They can be used immediately as they are, if that is what you need. However, they can also be customized according to the requirements of your system. This approach provides you with the maximum levels of both flexibility and utility.

The model that this platform uses is based on a machine learning algorithm. The level of automation allows you to provide more than an unchanging and inflexible blanket of coverage. Cortex XSOAR takes all of the data that it gathers and uses it to expand its protective capabilities. This creates recommendations that you can use to create a threat playbook that can be deployed uniformly throughout your organization.

Benefits of Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR

Some of Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR’s benefits include:

• The ability to have all of your data collected in a single location. Valuable time can be saved now that everything that security analysts need to know in order to diagnose and react to threats has been centralized.
• Security operations center tasks can be automated. This allows you to assign management and analyst staff to the most essential tasks. The effectiveness of your organization will be increased, which will result in a rise in your company’s overall security and productivity.
• Many kinds of data can be stitched together by this platform. Network, endpoint, cloud, and identity data can be combined to offer a more complete picture of the threats that are discovered.
• Integrated threat intelligence management can notify you about threats in real time. Now you can diagnose and address issues as they arise. You can also assign values to the threats so that your resources are being used in the most effective manner possible.

Reviews from Real Users

Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR’s centralized monitoring interface and automation are two features that help it stand out. This might help explain why one quarter of the Fortune 500 companies choose Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR over the competition.

Peerspot users note the effectiveness of these features. One user wrote, “We were looking for a single pane of glass type of solution that would allow us to physically be in one appliance - be able to work in concert with other servers that we have within our environment. We wanted orchestration and automation. The single pane of glass was the most important part.” Another noted, "The automation part and the playbook creation part are awesome. The way it is responding to the customers and incidents is also very good. In the SOC environment, I guess it will carry out around 50% of the work."