Traditional antivirus vs EDR: differences for SMEs

Many SMEs still pay for “business” antivirus and assume that covers the endpoint. In 2026 that layer no longer describes the incident: it does not say which process ran, which user was used, or whether the laptop must be isolated now. What antivirus does — and where it stops Classic antivirus compares files and known behaviors with signatures or reputation. It helps against commodity malware. It is not built for an attacker using living-off-the-land tools, stealing a Microsoft 365 session, or moving laterally with credentials. Good against known threats and everyday junk. Weak when there is no “bad file” to sign. Little narrative for leadership, insurers, or customers. What EDR adds EDR watches processes, persistence, and unusual use. It can isolate the device and leaves a timeline. If it is also managed, someone triages alerts: that is what an SME without an internal SOC is actually buying. When to make the jump If a one-day outage in billing, support, or logistics is unacceptable, antivirus alone is not enough. The natural next step is operated EDR, not a portal nobody opens. At Ciberseguridad720 that layer lives in Securiza720.