SE Labs Names CrowdStrike Falcon Best EDR Product for a Second Year

SE Labs has named CrowdStrike Falcon the Best Endpoint Detection and Response Product in its 2021 Annual Report, the second year running that the platform has taken the award. CrowdStrike, which sells cloud-delivered endpoint protection, describes Falcon as the most tested next-generation endpoint protection product in the world and as the only fully cloud-native, single-agent endpoint security platform available, and presents the award as further independent confirmation of its strength.

SE Labs says it "tests like hackers", building real-world scenarios and reporting its results against the MITRE ATT&CK framework so organisations can more easily see which products suit them. Days before the annual award, CrowdStrike again received the top AAA rating in the SE Labs Enterprise Endpoint Protection report for Q3 2021. According to the company, that was its 12th AAA rating since March 2018, and it regards the EDR award as a mark of leadership in innovative EDR technology.

What the two companies said

Mike Sentonas, chief technology officer at CrowdStrike, said thorough testing by independent groups such as SE Labs is vital because it helps customers tell the difference between what vendors claim and how their technology performs in real situations. Such tests, he said, give a useful comparison of the products available and also show up the vendors who will not submit to independent analysis. He called the repeated recognition from SE Labs another key sign that CrowdStrike is strengthening its lead in endpoint and workload security.

Simon Edwards, chief executive of SE Labs, said that as the digital world becomes more complex and more remote-first, regular testing and validation matter to IT decision makers looking for guidance in a crowded security market. "Not all solutions are created equal," he said, adding that CrowdStrike continues to stand out in EDR. SE Labs has tested CrowdStrike since 2018, and Edwards described Falcon as a best-in-class EDR product.

How Falcon is built

CrowdStrike says it designed Falcon from the start as a cloud-native platform intended to set a new security standard. Its approach centres on a lightweight, intelligent agent that allows the platform to be rolled out at scale without friction, and the company claims Falcon is the only technology that lets customers adopt it quickly across any workload on multiple endpoints.

The platform has 21 cloud modules that bring together next-generation antivirus (NGAV), endpoint detection and response (EDR) and round-the-clock managed threat hunting and intelligence, all through one cloud-native agent.

Analyst recognition cited by the company

CrowdStrike also points to its standing with the main industry analyst firms. According to the company, it was:

• named a worldwide leader in Modern Endpoint Security for Enterprise in the 2021 IDC MarketScape report;
• ranked first by 2020 revenue market share for modern endpoint security in IDC's Worldwide Corporate Endpoint Security Market Shares, 2020 report;
• named a Leader in the 2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms, placed furthest right for Completeness of Vision;
• given the highest score for "Lean Forward" organisations in the 2021 Gartner Critical Capabilities for Endpoint Protection Platforms report;
• named a Leader in Endpoint Security Software as a Service in The Forrester Wave for Q2 2021, with the highest possible scores in 17 of the report's criteria.

The full SE Labs Annual Report 2021 is available from SE Labs.