Fortinet XDR (FortiXDR): Solution Overview, Features and Limitations

What Is Fortinet XDR (FortiXDR)?

Fortinet XDR (FortiXDR) is an Extended Detection and Response (XDR) solution that aims to unify and automate security incident detection, investigation, and response across an organization’s security ecosystem. It integrates with the Fortinet Security Fabric and third-party products with the intention to analyze telemetry data and reduce alert fatigue.

Using artificial intelligence and analytics, FortiXDR tries to correlate low-fidelity alerts from diverse security platforms into high-fidelity incidents. These incidents are investigated to help organizations pre-define and automate response actions across multiple security layers. FortiXDR mainly aims to reduce the time to detect and respond to threats.

This is part of a series of articles about FortiSIEM.

Key Features of FortiXDR 

FortiXDR offers a set of features that aim to improve security operations. Here are some of its core capabilities: 

1. Extended detection: FortiXDR applies analytics gathered by Fortinet to help correlate security telemetry from across the Fortinet Security Fabric. This process intends to consolidate alerts, supporting identification of high-risk incidents such as lateral movement, brute force attacks, phishing attempts, and data exfiltration.

2. AI-powered investigation: FortiXDR uses an engine with microservices that replicate the actions of expert analysts. It analyzes incidents by pulling telemetry, conducting static and dynamic file analysis, comparing baseline behaviors, and leveraging threat intelligence. This automated investigation hopefully reduces incident triage time.

3. Automatable response framework: The solution includes a framework designed to enable predefined response actions based on user roles, incident severity, and impacted assets. Actions include isolating devices, revoking credentials, and sharing updated threat intelligence. These responses are coordinated across Fortinet and third-party security tools.

4. Security fabric integration: FortiXDR integrates with Fortinet Security Fabric components such as FortiGate, FortiSIEM, and FortiMail to enable detection and response. For example, it might block malicious emails via FortiMail or isolate compromised devices through FortiNAC.

5. Third-party support: FortiXDR aims to support third-party security solutions through API integrations, including firewalls, identity services, ticketing platforms, and cloud access security brokers (CASBs). This interoperability hopefully helps organizations protect hybrid environments. They claim to support over 300 integrations but that can only be achieved if it is integrated with FortiSOAR to leverage its integrations.

6. Pre- and post-execution protection: Built on FortiEDR, FortiXDR intends to offer protection against pre- and post-execution threats. It defends potentially against ransomware and other attacks without disrupting operations, providing protection across endpoints, servers, and IoT devices.

7. Managed services: For organizations seeking additional support, Fortinet offers Managed eXtended Detection and Response (MxDR) services. These services include 24/7 monitoring and assistance with deployment, configuration, and ongoing tuning.

8. Multi-data lake support: FortiXDR does not maintain its own data lake so it requires a connection to FortiAnalyzer or FortiSIEM. 

Integrating FortiEDR and FortiXDR with the Fortinet Security Fabric 

Integrating FortiEDR and FortiXDR with the Fortinet Security Fabric potentially provides a unified approach to securing enterprise environments. This integration might help address challenges like limited threat visibility, inconsistent policy enforcement, and inefficiencies caused by disparate security solutions. 

FortiEDR intends to protect endpoints and servers by detecting threats and providing kernel-level prevention. When integrated with other Fortinet security tools, it supports an interconnected cybersecurity ecosystem. FortiXDR hopefully extends these capabilities across the attack surface, correlating data from endpoints, networks, cloud environments, and third-party products.

Benefits of this integration include:

• Threat visibility: FortiEDR and FortiXDR integrate with tools like FortiAnalyzer and FortiSIEM, potentially enabling continuous monitoring and AI-driven analysis across the infrastructure. Security teams can detect and correlate threats in the hope of reducing detection and response times for both endpoint-specific incidents and broader attack campaigns.
• Automated security orchestration: By leveraging integrations with FortiSOAR and FortiNAC, FortiXDR enables the enforcement of dynamic, automated security policies. For example, FortiNAC can be used to isolate non-compliant or compromised endpoints on the network, while FortiSOAR helps automate the investigation and response process using prebuilt playbooks and connectors.
• Rapid threat containment: The integration improves the ability to contain confirmed threats. While FortiXDR and FortiEDR might help isolate compromised endpoints, block malicious IP addresses, or prevent the execution of suspicious files, FortiGate firewalls and FortiMail email gateways can enforce policies to block malicious traffic or addresses identified during investigations.
• Eliminating security gaps: The interoperability of the Fortinet Security Fabric enables communication between tools, intending to eliminate the complexity and security gaps often introduced by a collection of point solutions from multiple vendors. FortiXDR and FortiEDR share threat intelligence across the ecosystem.
• Integration options: FortiEDR and FortiXDR support integrations with both Fortinet products and third-party solutions. Organizations can connect to tools like SIEMs, CASBs, and identity providers through APIs, enabling a scalable security infrastructure. For example, FortiSandbox analyzes suspicious files, helping prevent zero-day threats, while integrations with FortiClient aim to extend zero trust network access (ZTNA) enforcement to endpoints.

Related content: Read our guide to security analytics

The Limitations of FortiXDR

While FortiXDR offers useful threat detection and response capabilities, it has some limitations that organizations should consider before deployment. A primary concern is that FortiXDR is primarily designed to integrate with a limited set of Fortinet products and requires organizations to provision a data lake source, as it does not have its own. Beyond this, the following limitations were reported by users on Gartner Peer Insights:

• Complex setup process: Initial configuration of FortiXDR can be challenging, particularly for teams unfamiliar with the Fortinet ecosystem. This requires considerable time and effort to implement and optimize.
• Steep learning curve: Due to its AI-driven automated responses, security teams may require additional time to fully understand and adapt to the platform’s functionalities.
• Limited third-party integration: While FortiXDR supports third-party tools, its integration capabilities are not as smooth as some competitors. Enhancing interoperability with non-Fortinet solutions is an area for improvement.
• Resource intensive: FortiXDR can place significant demands on system resources, which may impact performance during updates or while processing large volumes of telemetry data.
• Playbook and workflow limitations: Compared to competitors, FortiXDR’s response playbooks and workflows offer less flexibility, limiting customization options for some organizations.
• Vendor lock-in: FortiXDR works best within the Fortinet Security Fabric, which can create a dependency on Fortinet products. This vendor lock-in may pose risks if the ecosystem encounters issues.
• Risk of blue screen of death: Due to its kernel-based design, the potential to cause outages like the CrowdStrike global outage of July 2024 is a possibility. 
• Reporting customization: The reporting dashboard has room for improvement, with users suggesting more customizable reporting options to meet organizational needs.
• High maintenance costs: Customization and ongoing maintenance of FortiXDR can be expensive, especially for organizations requiring tailored configurations.
• Integration impact during updates: Updates aimed at improving protection can temporarily halt operations due to system load, causing potential workflow disruptions.

Exabeam: Ultimate Fortinet XDR Alternative

While FortiXDR offers an integrated approach to detection and response within the Fortinet Security Fabric, its reliance on predefined automation and vendor-specific telemetry can limit flexibility and visibility across diverse security environments. 

Exabeam takes a different approach by leveraging SIEM with UEBA to provide deeper insights into user and entity behavior across hybrid and multi-vendor infrastructures. Instead of solely relying on endpoint and network data, Exabeam collects and analyzes security logs from thousands of sources, applying behavioral analytics to detect lateral movement, insider threats, and advanced persistent attacks that traditional XDR solutions may miss. 

With a more open and scalable platform, Exabeam empowers security teams to correlate threat signals beyond endpoint detection, automate investigations, and accelerate threat resolution—offering a more adaptable and comprehensive alternative to vendor-locked XDR solutions.

Exabeam is a leading provider of security information and event management (SIEM) solutions, combining UEBA, SIEM, SOAR, and TDIR to accelerate security operations. Its Security Operations platforms enable security teams to quickly detect, investigate, and respond to threats while enhancing operational efficiency.

Key Features:

• Scalable log collection and management: The open platform accelerates log onboarding by 70%, eliminating the need for advanced engineering skills while ensuring seamless log aggregation across hybrid environments.
• Behavioral analytics: Uses advanced analytics to baseline normal vs. abnormal behavior, detecting insider threats, lateral movement, and advanced attacks missed by signature-based systems. Customers report that Exabeam helps detect and respond to 90% of attacks before other vendors can catch them.
• Automated threat response: Simplifies security operations by automating incident timelines, reducing manual effort by 30%, and accelerating investigation times by 80%.
• Contextual incident investigation: Since Exabeam automates timeline creation and reduces time spent on menial tasks, it cuts the time to detect and respond to threats by over 50%. Pre-built correlation rules, anomaly detection models, and vendor integrations reduce alerts by 60%, minimizing false positives.
• SaaS and cloud-native options: Flexible deployment options provide scalability for cloud-first and hybrid environments, ensuring rapid time to value for customers. For organizations who can’t, or won’t move their SIEM to the cloud, Exabeam provides a market-leading, full featured, and self-hosted SIEM.
• Network visibility with NetMon: Delivers deep insight beyond firewalls and IDS/IPS, detecting threats like data theft and botnet activity while making investigation easier with flexible searching. Deep Packet Analytics (DPA) also builds on the NetMon Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) engine to interpret key indicators of compromise (IOCs).

Exabeam customers consistently highlight how its real-time visibility, automation, and productivity tools powered by AI, uplevel security talent, transforming overwhelmed analysts into proactive defenders while reducing costs and maintaining industry-leading support. For more information visit Exabeam.com