NDR Solutions: Key Features and 7 Tools to Know in 2025

What Are Network Detection and Response (NDR) Solutions? 

Network detection and response (NDR) solutions are cybersecurity technologies that focus on identifying and mitigating threats within a network. They provide visibility into network traffic and use analytics to detect suspicious activities. 

NDR tools help identify anomalies and potential security breaches, providing security teams with actionable insights to respond swiftly to threats. By continuously monitoring network activities, these solutions help ensure defense mechanisms are in place.

NDR solutions use a range of techniques, including machine learning and behavioral analytics, to detect threats in encrypted and unencrypted traffic. They complement other security measures by focusing on lateral movement, insider threats, and advanced persistent threats. 

What Are the Benefits of NDR Software? 

Using an NDR solution offers organizations the following benefits.

Strengthening Security Defense

NDR solutions enhance security defenses by continuously monitoring network activities to identify potential threats. They use analytics to scrutinize large volumes of network data, flagging any irregularities that could indicate a security issue. This helps prevent network-related data breaches by identifying malicious activities early.

Deep Visibility

By capturing and analyzing granular network data, these tools offer an extensive view of network activities. This visibility enables security teams to understand normal network patterns and spot deviations that may indicate security issues. Data analytics provided by NDR tools ensure that even subtle threats are detected and addressed promptly.

Faster Threat Hunting and Response

NDR solutions speed up threat hunting by providing security teams with precise and actionable data. They reduce the noise by filtering out benign activities, allowing analysts to focus on genuine threats. This capability simplifies the identification and mitigation of threats, reducing the potential for damage from cyber incidents. 

Key Features of NDR Tools

Real-Time Alerting and Incident Response

With continuous monitoring and rapid detection capabilities, these tools generate alerts as soon as suspicious activities are noted. This immediate notification allows teams to prioritize and address threats before they can cause significant harm.

Incident response is also accelerated via automated response mechanisms in NDR solutions. These systems can take predefined actions when threats are detected, such as quarantining affected devices or blocking malicious traffic. 

Deep Packet Inspection (DPI)

Deep packet inspection enhances NDR tools by enabling detailed analysis of the data packets traversing a network. DPI inspects both the header and payload of packets, offering a granular view of the traffic and enabling the identification of malicious patterns that simpler inspection methods might miss. 

This scrutiny provides an additional layer of security by identifying evasive threats, including those hidden within encrypted traffic. The use of DPI allows NDR solutions to identify and block threats that traditional security tools might overlook. By analyzing packet content, DPI can detect and respond to threats such as malware, intrusion attempts, and data exfiltration.

Encrypted Traffic Analysis (ETA)

Encrypted traffic analysis allows the analysis of encrypted data flows without needing to decrypt the traffic, maintaining data confidentiality while still detecting malicious activities. ETA identifies anomalies like unusual session lengths or connection patterns, which might indicate threat presence.

With ETA, NDR solutions ensure that the use of encryption does not become a blind spot in threat detection. By providing insights into encrypted traffic, NDR tools maintain security measures without compromising the privacy and confidentiality of the traffic they analyze. 

Network Forensics

Network forensics aids in understanding the full scope and impact of security incidents. By maintaining logs of network activities, NDR tools support post-incident investigations. Analysts can trace attack vectors, identify compromised systems, and understand adversary tactics, improving future defenses and aiding in the prosecution of malicious actors.

NDR solutions equipped with network forensics capabilities provide a deep dive into how breaches occurred, helping to identify vulnerabilities or weaknesses in the network. The ability to audit activities with precision ensures that any lessons learned can be integrated into cybersecurity strategies, reinforcing an organization against potential future threats.

Cloud and Hybrid Environment Support

As organizations migrate to cloud and hybrid environments, NDR solutions have evolved to support these architectures. They provide visibility across on-premises, cloud, and hybrid networks, ensuring consistent security policy enforcement. This helps maintain a unified security posture, regardless of where the infrastructure resides.

With support for cloud and hybrid environments, NDR tools address the separate challenges these setups present, such as dynamic scaling and elastic workloads. NDR solutions enable organizations to detect threats across diverse environments, ensuring that security measures keep pace with technological advances and infrastructural changes.

Tips from the expert

Steve Moore is Vice President and Chief Security Strategist at Exabeam, helping drive solutions for threat detection and advising customers on security programs and breach response. He is the host of the “The New CISO Podcast,” a Forbes Tech Council member, and Co-founder of TEN18 at Exabeam.

In my experience, here are tips that can help you better leverage NDR solutions:

Leverage threat intelligence feeds: Augment NDR capabilities with external threat intelligence feeds to identify advanced persistent threats (APTs) and zero-day attacks that are difficult to detect with network data alone.

Tune machine learning models regularly: NDR solutions relying on AI and machine learning can generate noise if not properly tuned. Regularly refine models with environment-specific data and feedback to reduce false positives and improve detection accuracy.

Implement network segmentation: Use NDR in combination with network segmentation to isolate sensitive areas. By reducing the attack surface, any detected anomalies are easier to contain, and response times are significantly improved.

Correlate NDR with endpoint data and SIEM: Cross-reference NDR detections with endpoint detection and response (EDR) or SIEM tools. This correlation enhances visibility and can help pinpoint root causes more effectively across attack surfaces.

Encrypt east-west traffic monitoring: While many NDRs focus on north-south traffic, don’t neglect internal east-west traffic within your network. Ensure your NDR can handle encrypted internal communications or deploy solutions that analyze encrypted traffic effectively.

Notable NDR Solutions 

1. Arista NDR

Arista Network Detection and Response is a cybersecurity platform providing visibility and rapid threat response across enterprise networks. It processes vast amounts of network data, identifying anomalies and potential threats with diagnostics and artificial intelligence. 

Key features of Arista NDR include:

• Zero trust architecture: Built around the NIST 800-207 framework, focusing on visibility, continuous diagnostics, and real-time enforcement to secure network activities.
• AI-driven threat detection: Uses AI and machine learning to autonomously detect threats, investigate incidents, and reduce false positives.
• Deep network visibility: Monitors all enterprise devices, users, and applications, ensuring traffic analysis across the network, cloud, and IoT environments.
• Automated incident response: Provides automated threat hunts and real-time responses to reduce reaction times and mitigate damage effectively.
• Seamless integration: Deploys across various environments without complex configurations or the need for endpoint agents, simplifying the setup and reducing operational overhead.

2. Cisco Secure Network Analytics

Cisco Secure Network Analytics is a solution to detect and respond to threats across dynamic, hybrid network environments. By leveraging machine learning and behavioral modeling, this tool offers continuous, real-time visibility into network traffic, helping organizations identify threats that may bypass traditional security controls. 

Key features of Cisco Secure Network Analytics include:

• Advanced threat detection: Uses machine learning and behavioral analytics to detect sophisticated attacks, such as unknown malware and insider threats.
• Context-rich alerts: Provides real-time alerts with context, including user, device, location, and application details, allowing security teams to respond swiftly and accurately.
• Encrypted traffic analysis: Identifies potential threats within encrypted traffic without needing to decrypt it, ensuring data privacy and integrity remain intact.
• Policy violation management: Helps validate and streamline network policies while reducing policy violations by providing insights into their efficacy and automatically detecting unauthorized access.
• Seamless cloud integration: Offers unified threat detection across both on-premises networks and major public cloud platforms, without the need for software agents, ensuring consistent security coverage.

3. Corelight Open NDR

Corelight Open Network Detection & Response is a security platform to enhance network visibility, improve detection capabilities, and simplify incident response. Powered by open-source technologies such as Zeek^® and Suricata^®, Corelight’s solution integrates network security monitoring, intrusion detection (IDS), packet capture (PCAP), and AI-driven analytics.

Key features of Corelight Open NDR include:

• Open-source powered detection: Built on Zeek and Suricata, the platform leverages open-source technologies for threat detection and network monitoring.
• AI-driven analytics: Uses machine learning and behavioral analytics to reduce false positives and detect a range of threats, accelerating incident response times.
• Intrusion detection and network security monitoring: Combines IDS and NSM to offer real-time insights into network activity, enabling detection of sophisticated attacks.
• Smart packet capture (PCAP): Provides intelligent packet capture, offering context and evidence to support investigations without overwhelming storage capacities.
• Encrypted traffic monitoring: Captures and analyzes encrypted traffic to detect command-and-control (C2) activities and other threats without compromising data confidentiality.

4. Lumu NDR

Lumu Network Detection and Response is a cloud-based security platform that provides real-time detection, analysis, and response to network threats. With visibility across an organization’s network, Lumu supports SecOps by prioritizing critical incidents and automating response actions. 

Key features of Lumu NDR include:

• Real-time threat detection: Continuously monitors network traffic to detect and respond to threats as they emerge.
• Comprehensive incident management: Offers tools to sort, filter, and take group actions on incidents, enhancing operational efficiency by focusing on high-priority threats.
• Automated response: Supports automated incident response actions through over 125 pre-built integrations, allowing security tools to work together for a faster, more coordinated defense.
• SecOps enablement: Improves the analyst experience by streamlining incident handling, collaboration, and visualization, with insights into how incidents affect the organization.
• Threat-informed defense: Leverages the MITRE ATT\&CK framework to provide context on how attackers are targeting the organization, enabling precise, targeted responses.

5. Darktrace DETECT

Darktrace DETECT is an AI-driven platform to provide real-time threat detection across diverse environments, from networks to email and cloud systems. Using self-learning AI, it continuously works to understand the unique patterns of an organization’s operations, allowing it to identify subtle deviations that may indicate emerging threats. 

Key features of Darktrace DETECT include:

• Self-learning AI: Continuously adapts to an organization’s unique behavior, monitoring every user, device, and system to establish a baseline for normal activity and detect anomalies.
• Comprehensive coverage: Detects threats across a range of environments, including networks, email, cloud, operational technology (OT), identity systems, and endpoints.
• Advanced threat detection: Analyzes thousands of metrics to identify subtle deviations and uncover threats that often bypass traditional detection methods, including novel malware and unknown attack techniques.
• Integration with Darktrace RESPOND: Feeds detected threats into Darktrace RESPOND for instant, autonomous response.
• Easy deployment: Installs quickly and adapts to different environments.

6. Verizon Network Detection and Response

Verizon NDR is a cloud-delivered security platform that unifies network threat detection, full-packet forensics, and integrated response into a managed service. By offering near real-time and retrospective detection, it helps organizations identify and respond to threats across modern network environments, including cloud, IoT, industrial, and 5G. 

Key features of Verizon NDR include:

• Cloud-delivered security: Provides a scalable solution without the need for specialized hardware, making it easy to deploy across different network segments.
• Comprehensive network visibility: Offers visibility into all network activities, capturing full packets and enabling traffic analysis for faster threat discovery.
• Advanced detection techniques: Utilizes machine learning, behavioral analysis, statistical modeling, and heuristics to detect threats, supported by actionable threat intelligence.
• Full-packet forensics: Enables forensics with near-limitless cloud storage and rapid searches of stored data.
• Real-time and retrospective detection: Delivers immediate and historical insights into network activity, helping to uncover hidden or evolving threats.

7. ExtraHop RevealX

ExtraHop RevealX is an agentless NDR platform to provide visibility and rapid response to cyber threats. By using cloud-scale machine learning and real-time analytics, it helps security teams to detect and investigate threats faster across the entire attack surface, including encrypted traffic and cloud workloads. 

Key features of ExtraHop RevealX include:

• Network visibility: Provides real-time visibility across the entire network, revealing risks that other tools, like endpoint agents and SIEMs, may miss.
• Cloud-scale machine learning: Analyzes network behavior to detect anomalies, automate investigations, and reduce response time without impacting performance.
• Real-time threat detection: Uses machine learning and rule-based detection to identify threats, including encrypted traffic, lateral movement, and advanced persistent threats.
• Streamlined investigation: Offers AI-powered workflows that enable rapid investigation, from detection to root cause, with as few as three clicks.
• Intelligent response: Delivers fast threat mitigation through turnkey integrations that support both automated responses and analyst-led actions.

Exabeam Platform Capabilities: SIEM, UEBA, SOAR, Insider Threats, Compliance, TDIR

The Exabeam Security Operations Platform applies AI and automation to security operations workflows for a holistic approach to combating cyberthreats, delivering the most effective threat detection, investigation, and response (TDIR): 

• AI-driven detections pinpoint high-risk threats by learning normal behavior of users and entities, and prioritizing threats with context-aware risk scoring. 
• Automated investigations simplify security operations, correlating disparate data to create threat timelines. 
• Playbooks document workflows and standardize activity to speed investigation and response. 
• Visualizations map coverage against the most strategic outcomes and frameworks to close data and detection gaps. 

With these capabilities, Exabeam empowers security operations teams to achieve faster, more accurate, and consistent TDIR.