What is the difference between EDR and antivirus?

AV looks for known malware signatures, EDR watches behaviour on an endpoint and correlates events. EDR catches what AV misses and can roll back. In 2026 AV-only in an SMB with customer data is no longer enough.

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1. 1Antivirus: identifies file X as malware Y because the hash is on a list. Fine against mass-malware, fails on targeted or polymorphic attacks.
2. 2EDR: watches what happens on the endpoint. PowerShell launched by Office that downloads a script? Suspicious. Encrypts a thousand files in two minutes? Killed.
3. 3In practice: Microsoft Defender for Business is EDR. SentinelOne, CrowdStrike, Sophos Intercept X are EDR. Windows Defender on consumer Windows is mostly AV.
4. 4Insurers and NIS2 increasingly require EDR with central management and logging, not just AV. For most SMBs that is the upgrade trigger.

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