Bitdefender EDR vs EPP — which tier do you need?

EPP (Endpoint Protection Platform) prevents known threats from executing. EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response) detects what evades prevention and gives you the tools to investigate and respond. EPP is necessary but not sufficient. EDR is the difference between knowing you have a problem and finding out from your customers.

• EPP catches ~95% of commodity malware (signatures, heuristics, ML)
• EDR catches the remaining 5% — which includes targeted attacks and ransomware operators
• EPP-only deployments have a median dwell time of 207 days
• EPP+EDR deployments have a median dwell time of 14 days

Bitdefender packages capability across four SME tiers. The pricing differential between tiers is small; the capability differential is enormous.

• Business Security — EPP only. Suitable for ≤25 endpoint businesses with no critical data.
• Business Security Premium — EPP + Advanced Threat Control + Network Attack Defense. SME baseline.
• Business Security Enterprise — adds full EDR with 90-day data retention. Required for NIS2 important entities.
• GravityZone XDR — extends sensors to M365, Azure AD, identity, network. Required for NIS2 essential entities and ISO 27001 control A.8.16.

Match your tier to your regulatory and contractual obligations, not to your budget. Underbuying creates audit findings; overbuying wastes money.

• No regulated data, <25 endpoints, no B2B contracts → Business Security
• GDPR processor with non-sensitive data → Business Security Premium
• NIS2 important entity, ISO 27001 in scope, B2B contracts requiring SOC 2 → Business Security Enterprise
• NIS2 essential entity, healthcare/finance, supply-chain attacks in your threat model → GravityZone XDR

IBM Cost of a Data Breach 2024: organisations with EDR detected breaches 100 days faster on average and saved €1.32M per breach versus EPP-only. The annual cost difference between Premium and Enterprise tiers for a 50-endpoint SME is ~€2,400. The break-even is one prevented incident per decade.

• Median ransomware downtime with EPP only: 22 days
• Median ransomware downtime with EPP+EDR: 4.5 days
• Average GDPR fine for inadequate technical measures (EU 2024): €420,000
• Average insurance premium reduction for EDR deployment: 18%

The licence is the cheap part. The expensive part is having someone who reads the alerts. EDR/XDR without 24/7 monitoring is shelfware. Three options.

• Internal SOC — viable above ~500 endpoints, requires 5+ analysts for 24/7 coverage
• Bitdefender MDR (Managed Detection and Response) — co-managed, $$ per endpoint per month
• MSP-managed (the Speaklogix model) — we monitor your tenant 24/7, you keep the licence
• Whichever you choose, document the SLA: time-to-detect, time-to-acknowledge, time-to-contain