8 Reasons NDR Is Essential in Hybrid Environments

By Hemant Pandya · January 13, 2026

The modern enterprise isn’t cloud. It isn’t on-premises. It’s both—and that changes everything. It’s the operating reality.

Hybrid environments have become the default architecture for most organizations. Applications run across cloud and on-premises data centers, users connect from anywhere, and workloads span containers, virtual machines, and SaaS services. This flexibility drives speed and innovation, but it also creates a fragmented, fast-moving attack surface that traditional security tools struggle to protect. Traditional security controls were never designed for this level of distribution, and that’s exactly where Trellix Network Detection and Response (NDR) becomes indispensable.

1. The hybrid reality: Visibility isn’t what it used to be

Security teams once had a clear perimeter, predictable traffic patterns, and a manageable number of endpoints. Not anymore. Hybrid environments introduce challenges such as:

• Multiple cloud providers (no single perimeter)
• Unmanaged devices
• Agentless workloads
• Microservices and containers
• An explosion of east–west traffic 
• Identities spread across on-premises and cloud IAM

Endpoint detection and response (EDR), SIEM, and cloud logs still matter—but none of them provide continuous, network-level visibility across all environments. Visibility to threats within east-west traffic on critical assets hosted on-premises or in the cloud or both (hybrid) is crucial. Without that visibility, detection becomes reactive—and attackers exploit the gaps. This is where Trellix NDR delivers unmatched value.

2. EDR alone can’t protect a hybrid environment

While powerful, EDR has several limitations:

• It necessitates an agent, which is not supported by all systems
• It is unable to analyze network behaviors
• It fails to detect lateral movement that occurs using valid credentials
• It cannot observe traffic between workloads that never reach the endpoint

Attackers thrive in blind spots, which are common in hybrid environments that include devices and workloads such as IoT and OT systems, legacy servers, containers and microservices, contractor or unmanaged devices, and cloud-native services without endpoint access. Trellix NDR eliminates these gaps by monitoring the network—the one element shared by all systems—across on-premises, cloud, hybrid, and encrypted traffic, all without requiring agents.

3. Hybrid means east–west traffic dominates—and attackers love it

In today's modern hybrid environments, the nature of suspicious activity has dramatically shifted. A decade ago, the majority of threats were external, moving from north to south. Now, however, over 70% of network traffic—and thus the lateral movement of threats—is internal, or east-west, between systems. This internal activity is often missed because:

• Perimeter firewalls lack visibility
• EDR solutions cannot see it
• Cloud logs provide only fragmented pieces of the overall picture

Trellix NDR provides crucial visibility into internal environment behavior, going beyond perimeter-only security. It is the essential layer in hybrid infrastructure that reveals the actual activity taking place behind the scenes.

Trellix NDR helps detect a wide range of threats, including:

• Lateral movement
• Command-and-control (C2) activity
• Exploits and phishing attempts
• Anomalous identity behaviors
• Data exfiltration (covert data transfer) attempts
• Suspicious connections between workloads
• Unknown or unauthorized communications
• Advanced persistent threats (APTs) hidden in the network

4. Decrypting and detecting threats in encrypted traffic

Attackers are well aware that the majority of today's network traffic is encrypted. Trellix NDR addresses this by offering:

• Encrypted traffic analysis that preserves privacy
• Behavioral detection independent of exclusive payload inspection
• The option for SSL/TLS decryption when permitted by policy

This enables threat detection even when attackers attempt to hide inside encrypted sessions—a growing challenge in hybrid and cloud environments. To learn more about this capability, check out our article, “Why Is Encrypted Traffic Analysis Key to NDR?”

5. Identity-focused attacks require behavioral detection

Trellix NDR is essential for detecting identity misuse because it tracks how identities behave and move across the network—information that often bypasses logs and endpoint data. While logs capture events like authentication, they lack the crucial behavioral context.

Threat actors commonly exploit this gap through actions such as:

• Lateral movement originating from a compromised identity
• Abnormal or unauthorized access to sensitive workloads
• Unusual communication patterns between services
• Behaviors indicative of privilege escalation

These critical signals are often invisible in standard cloud logs or endpoint data, but Trellix NDR brings them clearly into view.

6. Cloud logs are not a replacement for network visibility

Cloud-native logs, while valuable, capture only expressed events after they occur, failing to provide real-time behavioral insights.

Specifically, logs indicate only:

• What the cloud provider decided to record
• Activity that has already taken place
• Information that often lacks network flow context

In stark contrast, Trellix NDR delivers:

• What is genuinely occurring on the network wire
• Analysis in real time
• Contextual understanding spanning both on-premises and cloud environments

This immediate, behavioral analysis is vital for interrupting threats before they can fully escalate.

7. NDR creates a unified, continuous detection fabric

NDR is crucial for securing modern hybrid environments where security tools often operate in isolation. Trellix NDR acts as the connective tissue, unifying detection across a diverse infrastructure that includes physical networks, virtual networks (private cloud), remote users, public cloud networks, container overlays, and SaaS apps. By correlating behaviors across these multiple layers, Trellix NDR delivers a comprehensive security picture. This comprehensive visibility provides:

• A full understanding of the attack path
• Contextual insights for a faster, more confident response
• Reduced false positives, leading to better focus
• Early detection of stealthy and sophisticated threats
• Visibility into both managed and unmanaged systems

What truly differentiates Trellix NDR is its powerful combination of integration and intelligence. Rather than operating as a standalone tool, Trellix NDR strengthens the entire security lifecycle by:

• Seamlessly integrating with EDR, SIEM, SOAR, and other Trellix security controls
• Feeding high-fidelity detections into the unified security ecosystem
• Reducing alert fatigue through advanced analytics and machine learning
• Accelerating investigation and response efforts with deep contextual insights

8. The bottom line: Hybrid is here to stay

Hybrid environments offer flexibility—but also complexity. Attackers know this, and they exploit the gaps between endpoint, cloud, and identity. NDR closes those gaps with visibility that no other tool can replicate. This is why leading organizations now consider NDR essential—not optional—for securing hybrid infrastructure.

If your environment is hybrid (and most are), NDR isn’t just helpful. It’s fundamental. Organizations using Trellix NDR in hybrid environments benefit from:

• Reduced blind spots
• Faster detection of lateral movement
• Improved visibility across cloud and on-premises
• Better prioritization of real threats
• Stronger security posture without added complexity

In a world where hybrid environments are here to stay, security teams need controls that adapt—not tools that assume yesterday’s architectures.

Conclusion: Hybrid security requires network intelligence

Hybrid environments have erased the perimeter; endpoints alone are not enough, and logs alone are not enough. Network intelligence is the missing layer—and Trellix NDR provides it.

With Trellix NDR, organizations gain continuous visibility, intelligent detection, and actionable context across their entire hybrid ecosystem.

Hybrid is here to stay. Trellix NDR is how you secure it with clarity, confidence, and control.

To learn more about Trellix NDR, contact your account executive to request a demo, or contact us to speak to an expert.