What is Application Detection and Response (ADR)?
Application Detection & Response (ADR) is a security solution that uses application-layer insights to identify indicators of compromise and mitigate malicious activity in real time. ADR focuses on the application layer itself at runtime, rather than what happens at the perimeter of the application on the infrastructure layers or the network.
ADR solutions detect when application components behave in anomalous ways that indicate the very beginning of an attack, allowing security teams to stop attacks immediately before they escalate. ADR uses moder, non-intrusive observability method that is designed to be lightweight so that it does not impact application performance or stability, making it distinct from older runtime approaches, such as Runtime Application Self Protection (RASP). In addition, ADR provides application-level analysis to security teams without needing to be "built into" the application beforehand by developers.
Because ADR operates just below the operating system layer, it can provide deep insights into attacks regardless of the runtime infrastructure–cloud, virtual machine, or bare-metal server.
What challenges does ADR solve?
Application blindspots
Application attacks are on the rise, and attackers know if they can exploit vulnerabilities at the application level they can remain undetected for a long time, covering their tracks as they go. "Shift-left" solutions like Software Composition Analysis (SCA) and Static Application Security Testing (SAST) are not enough—they can help developers make applications more secure before they deploy, but many vulnerabilities will still slip through the cracks.
Most cyberattacks target applications, but most detection and response solutions, including Web Application Firewalls (WAF) and Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) , can only see and protect an application from the outside. With this blindspot, organizations can only detect and block attacks once they reach the infrastructure perimeter around the application–meaning they have little insight as to what part of the application needs to be repaired.
Detection delays
The average time it took organizations to identify a breach in 2024 was 204 days according to IBM. Breaches are costly, each one costing on average over $4 million, and the longer they take to detect, the more that dollar amount rises. For critical applications, even one day is too long. Security practitioners need tools that help them identify application attacks within seconds, not days.
Response precision
If a detection tool sees an application as a black box, what is the next step when an attack is detected? More often than not, all that can be done is to take the application down while the vulnerability is located and patched. This sledgehammer approach leads to unnecessary downtime. For many organizations, significant downtime of a critical application could rival the cost of a breach.
How Application Detection and Response Works?
ADR operates by combining comprehensive application insights with real-time monitoring and automation.
Application Monitoring
Application monitoring involves the continuous observation of an application’s performance and behavior to ensure security and reliability. ADR solutions achieve this through software instrumentation, embedding lightweight monitoring mechanisms within the application or using external tools to track real-time data flows, code execution, and user activity.
This granular monitoring helps identify unusual application behaviors, such as unexpected crashes or excessive resource usage, that might indicate a potential security threat. By gathering detailed runtime context, ADR tools pinpoint vulnerabilities and detect attack patterns that traditional monitoring systems miss.
Profiling of Open-Source Libraries
Many modern applications rely heavily on open-source libraries. ADR solutions mitigate risks associated with these dependencies by profiling the normal behavior of these libraries during routine operations. By establishing a baseline, any deviation—such as unauthorized changes or abnormal function calls—can signal a potential compromise, such as a supply chain attack.
This capability is especially important given the prevalence of attacks that exploit vulnerabilities in third-party components. By identifying irregularities early, ADR can prevent attackers from injecting malicious code into application environments.
Anomaly Detection
ADR utilizes advanced behavioral analysis and machine learning (ML) to detect anomalies. By analyzing runtime data, ADR tools recognize deviations from normal user actions, API usage patterns, and other interactions. For instance, an unusually high number of failed login attempts or unexpected API requests might indicate an active attack.
These anomalies are flagged for further evaluation, ensuring that potential threats are identified promptly without overwhelming security teams with false positives.
Threat Analysis and Alerting
Once a potential threat is identified, ADR systems conduct in-depth analysis to assess its severity and impact. This process involves correlating anomalies with known attack signatures and vulnerabilities, providing context to understand the scope of the attack.
The results are distilled into actionable alerts that prioritize critical threats, enabling security teams to respond quickly. By presenting clear insights into attacks, ADR reduces the time and effort required for investigation and remediation.
Automated Response
Advanced ADR solutions go a step further by implementing automated response mechanisms. These systems can block malicious actors, isolate compromised components, and enforce stricter security policies without waiting for manual intervention. Automated responses reduce response times significantly, helping to mitigate the impact of an attack before it spreads.
For instance, if a malicious request is detected, the ADR tool can immediately reject it or quarantine affected systems, ensuring that the application remains operational while the issue is resolved. These capabilities make ADR a valuable asset for securing critical applications in real time.
Key benefits and capabilities of ADR
- Immediate detection - ADR enables security teams to be alerted the instant a library is used in an unusual way, indicating compromise. This brings the dwell time (the amount of time between an attacker gaining access and the attacker being detected) of application-layer attacks down to mere seconds.
- Context and visibility - ADR is able to provide key insights, including the specific library function involved in an attack, to help security teams and developers focus their patching efforts.
- Precision - Knowing exactly which vulnerable library is an active target helps security practitioners address the real problem without bringing down the entire application.
- Guardrails - With visibility into every components' behavior in runtime, guardrails and rules can be created to make exploiting those components impossible.
- Attack vector agnostic - An ADR solution doesn't care if the attack comes via a known CVE, zero-day vulnerability, or misconfiguration.
- Simple deployment - A tool that takes an entire team to set up and maintain has limited value. An ADR solution uses lightweight agents, is easy to deploy, and starts defending applications immediately.
Common Use Cases of Application Detection and Response
Detecting and Responding to Anomalous Behavior
ADR solutions can identify and address unusual activity at the application layer. By embedding advanced monitoring capabilities, ADR can detect anomalies such as unauthorized access attempts, unusual spikes in database queries, and irregular API request patterns. For example, in an eCommerce platform, ADR might recognize a sudden burst of checkout requests, a behavior often associated with card-testing attacks.
In addition to transactional anomalies, ADR tools flag unexpected user behavior, like attempts to access unauthorized features or restricted data. These anomalies are logged and shared with security teams via detailed notifications, enabling swift investigation and remediation before significant damage occurs.
Preventing Exploitation of Zero-Day Vulnerabilities
ADR excels at protecting applications from zero-day vulnerabilities in both custom and third-party code. These vulnerabilities, unknown to the public and without available patches, pose a significant risk because traditional security tools are ineffective against them.
Using behavioral profiling, ADR establishes baselines for normal application activity, including that of open-source components. Deviations from these baselines can indicate a supply chain attack or a newly exploited zero-day vulnerability. This proactive monitoring enables security teams to detect, report, and mitigate such threats before they can cause widespread harm.
Securing Application Supply Chains
Applications often rely on third-party libraries, APIs, and other external dependencies, which can introduce vulnerabilities. ADR ensures the integrity of these components by monitoring their behavior in real time. For instance, ADR can flag unauthorized updates to a library or detect unexpected data flows between an API and the application. These insights allow security teams to intervene quickly, preventing potential compromises within the supply chain.
By continuously profiling third-party components, ADR detects deviations from expected behavior, signaling possible supply chain attacks. This proactive monitoring helps mitigate risks posed by compromised dependencies, ensuring a secure foundation for application functionality.
Collecting Threat Intelligence
Another critical use case of ADR is aggregating and analyzing threat intelligence. By collecting data from various sources, such as application logs, performance metrics, and external threat feeds, ADR builds a detailed picture of potential risks. This intelligence helps organizations understand attackers' tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), enabling them to address vulnerabilities proactively.
The insights derived from ADR's threat intelligence capabilities guide security teams in improving incident response processes. Whether responding to active threats or preparing for potential attacks, ADR strengthens defenses by providing actionable data for both manual and automated systems.
Enhancing Compliance and Audit Processes
ADR simplifies compliance by maintaining detailed logs of application activity, vulnerabilities, and security responses. These records provide a transparent view of how security measures are applied, making it easier to meet regulatory requirements and pass audits. For example, ADR tools can show a clear history of detected threats and remedial actions, ensuring accountability.
In addition to compliance, these logs support continuous improvement by highlighting trends in vulnerabilities and attack patterns. This allows organizations to refine security practices, align with industry standards, and avoid penalties related to non-compliance.
Application Detection and Response vs. Other Security Measures
ADR exists to solve the "last mile problem" of application security: what is happening within the applications themselves at runtime. ADR is not meant to replace other cloud and application tools, but rather to cover a gap in security that can't be covered with other technologies.
What is the difference between ADR and RASP?
Runtime Application Self Protection (RASP) was an early attempt at gaining security insights from applications but has largely been ignored by security practitioners. RASP requires developers to build it into each application and set rules for application logic, which makes utilizing RASP costly and difficult to scale. In contrast, ADR does not need to be deployed prior to the development of an application and can detect signs of compromise in third party applications as well.
What is the difference between ADR and WAF?
A Web Application Firewall (WAF) protects applications from obvious malicious traffic. Like ADR, WAF can protect applications regardless of where they are hosted, but unlike ADR, WAF can often be bypassed by clever attackers and is limited in insights about attacks as it has no visibility into applications.
What is the difference between ADR and CSPM?
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) solutions are deployed at the infrastructure layer and concerned with managing configurations and compliance settings. CSPM can detect certain kinds of vulnerabilities that can lead to attacks but does not detect active application attacks.
What is the difference between ADR and CNAPP/CWPP?
A Cloud Workload Protection Platform (CWPP) is focused on misconfigurations and malware detection. Cloud Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP) combines CWPP and features with posture management and detection and response capabilities. CNAPP and CWPP both protect at the perimeter, leaving them without the application-level visibility that ADR offers.
Oligo ADR
Oligo ADR is the only fully featured ADR on the market today. Our approach to ADR puts customer needs first:
- Low overhead - The Oligo Sensor is lightweight with a technical overhead of less than 1%.
- Easy deployment - Oligo ADR takes minutes to deploy and begins protecting immediately.
- Fast-acting detection - Oligo ADR can bring the time for detecting an application breach down from six months to under 1 second.
- First and third-party applications - Oligo ADR works on all the applications you build, buy, or use—and can tie findings back to specific software components, even without access to source code.
- Portability - On-prem or off, VMs or containers, private or public cloud – Oligo ADR protects applications however they're hosted.
- Non-intrusive instrumentation - Oligo ADR sits at the operating system layer and uses patented eBPF technology to gain application insights without getting in the way of development.
See Oligo ADR in Action
Book a live demo to see how Oligo ADR identifies exploitation in all your applications, using library-level behavioral profiles to identify anomalous behavior and unmask application-layer attacks in real-time.
Read more:
ADR - The Future of Runtime - James Berthoty from Latio Tech highlights the shift from EDR to ADR, emphasizing the limitations of traditional EDR in containerized environments and ADR's comprehensive visibility across cloud, container, and application contexts.
How ADRs solve the the last mile problem of application security - Mouad Kondah from Deep Kondah explains how ADRs address application security challenges by providing real-time monitoring and response, surpassing the limitations of traditional EDR and RASP solutions.
Oligo ADR Prevents LLM Prompt Injection - Prompt injection can lead LLMs to produce harmful outputs or execute malicious code. Oligo ADR detects and stops these threats instantly.
Oligo ADR Mitigates PaddlePaddle Shadow Vulnerability - PaddlePaddle, a popular deep learning platform, has a critical shadow vulnerability in its Paddle Serving component. Oligo ADR detects and neutralizes this threat.
