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Product Overview
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (formerly known as Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection or Microsoft ATP) is an enterprise endpoint solution for Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems.
Detection Strategy for Endpoint Integrations
Our endpoint detection strategy focuses on two common signal types: process and network events. By integrating directly with EDR vendors, we can process security alerts to extract evidence and normalize event details. These normalized signals are then processed through our detection engine to look for signs of post-exploitation activity.
In addition to categorical handling of vendors' security alerts, Expel maintains a large library of behavioral detections to augment vendor detections. When a threat is detected, our automated response bot, Ruxie, takes action by enriching evidence fields with first- and third-party threat intelligence. Additional Ruxie actions query a wide span of technologies directly to arm analysts with key pieces of investigative information and related events.
Response
Endpoints provide rich context for processes and also support other types of Expel Alerts. For example, we use source device identification across a number of alert types when a source IP or hostname is available, because it provides rich context about the actor behind the activity.
Additionally, endpoints provide valuable information for network alerts to help identify what process triggered a connection.
To learn more about our overall approach to detection strategy, see About Detection Strategy in the Help Center.
What We Support for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
To see a comprehensive list of the most up-to-date Expel detection rules, vendor detection rules, opt-in detections, and available DUETs that we support for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, you can visit the Detections page in Workbench or ask your Sales or Support rep for the most recent download.
| Supported platforms |
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| Microsoft Defender for Endpoint detection rules support | Yes. |
| Detection rules written by Expel | Yes. |
| Auto remediations |
Yes. Expel supports automatic execution of some remediation actions for this integration when you follow our setup guide to update the permissions in your vendor device, and then enable the auto remediation in Workbench. The available auto remediations for this integration include:
To enable auto remediations for your environment, see Enable an Auto Remediation in Workbench in the Help Center. |
| Investigative support through Workbench | Yes. We are able to take the following investigative actions to gather data for triage and investigation of events.
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| Hunting support | Yes. Hunting is available for this integration to customers who purchase this option. Contact your Sales or Support rep for help understanding the hypotheses and objectives for each hunting technique. For a full list of techniques by integration, see Hunting Techniques in the Help Center. |
Additional Details and Common Questions
Console Access
A vendor alert does not typically include all of the contextual timeline activity surrounding the event of interest. Because this integration does not allow us to get all necessary data via the API, we will ask you for a certain level of console access during onboarding.
The level of access that we require is meant to support essential triage and research activities, and to help us determine the vector and extent of attacker activity for an identified threat. At minimum, we will ask for visibility into alert data, timeline events recorded, and live response/real time response shell (if applicable).
DUET
A DUET rule flags certain events as needing an immediate verification or notification, and bypasses the normal internal event triage process. The events subject to DUET rules contain behaviors that are not typically indicative of true security incidents, as they are related to policy violations or potential risk.
There are a number of workflows that a DUET may follow. When enabled, the activity will be flagged for investigation and will be routed to you (rather than to us) to take a specified first action. To see the specific DUET rules currently supported for this integration, visit the Detections page in Workbench.