Cloud Incident Response Blog | Cado Security

Exploring the Breadth and Depth of Data Collection with Cado Security

Written by Calum Hall | Oct 24, 2024 4:41:17 PM

Threat detection and response require more than just surface-level alerts, especially when facing increasingly sophisticated attacks. As organizations transition to multi-cloud, hybrid, and containerized environments, the challenges of incident response increase dramatically. This is where the Cado platform steps in, designed to go beyond traditional alerts and deliver comprehensive triage and contextual datasets that help security teams quickly and effectively respond to threats. Let’s dive into how Cado enhances data collection and why it’s essential for modern SOC operations.

Beyond the Alert: Comprehensive Triage and Contextual Data

After an alert is triggered, instead of simply flagging an issue and leaving it to analysts to piece together the incident, the Cado platform automates the triage process, capturing critical forensic data from various environments including cloud, containers, and on-premises systems. This automated collection ensures that even in fast-moving attack scenarios, important artifacts like process memory, cloud logs, and full disk images are captured and preserved. Not only this, the Cado platform contextualizes the alert by acquiring lower fidelity alerts that have triggered around the detected event, as well as telemetry recorded by the detection platform such as process execution events, network connections, registry events, file events and logon events. This dataset in its entirety provides the analyst with a comprehensive understanding of the attack for them to make confident and informed decisions. 

The automated triage capture is designed to eliminate delays in gathering evidence, a key advantage when time is of the essence during investigations. This automation significantly reduces the Mean-Time-to-Respond (MTTR), allowing security teams to begin their investigations almost immediately after an alert is received​.

Collecting from Diverse Environments

One of the most challenging aspects of modern incident response is dealing with diverse IT environments. Whether your organization operates in AWS, Azure, GCP, or a hybrid mix of cloud and on-prem, Cado seamlessly collects data from all these platforms. This breadth ensures that no matter where the alert originates, the platform has the ability to pull together forensic-level data for a more thorough investigation.

 

 

Cado leverages cloud-native APIs, meaning that the platform can collect data without the need for permanent agents, minimizing the impact on system performance. In environments where agents are necessary, such as containers, the Cado platform deploys Cado Host , which only exists temporarily during data collection and are removed after the process is completed​.

Forensic Insights

The Cado Platform dives deeper by not just collating alerts, but by also collecting numerous forensic artifacts. This includes not only logs and alerts but also full disk captures, live forensics, and other system-level data that provide a complete picture of what happened during an incident.

For instance, an alert triggered by an endpoint detection tool might point to suspicious activity, but the forensic-level data collected by the Cado Platform helps analysts identify the root cause and the full scope of the attack. Cado’s integration with popular security tools like XDR/EDR (e.g., CrowdStrike, SentinelOne) and SIEM solutions further enriches the dataset by pulling in lower fidelity alerts and telemetry that would otherwise be overlooked​.

This extensive collection allows SOC analysts to identify patterns and correlations that surface-level alerts might miss. With this extra data, analysts can better understand the behavior of an attack across different systems and environments, enabling them to make faster and more accurate decisions​.

Zero Impact and Scalability

Investigations shouldn’t come at the cost of system performance. The Cado platform ensures that data collection is as non-intrusive as possible. For most environments, data is collected via cloud-native APIs, which means no need for additional agents that can slow down systems. Even in cases where Cado’s agent Cado Host is used, the impact is minimal and short-lived, ensuring that your operations remain uninterrupted during critical investigations​.

Additionally, the platform’s ability to scale is crucial for organizations with large and complex environments. Whether dealing with hundreds of systems or just a few, Cado automates the collection process, enabling parallel processing of data to deliver insights rapidly, even in the most demanding scenarios​.

Cado’s platform is revolutionizing how security teams investigate and respond to threats. By automating data collection, providing deep forensic insights, and integrating with existing security tools, Cado empowers SOC teams to respond faster and more effectively. See how Cado can transform your incident response—request a demo today​.