SentinelOne vs. Generic Antivirus: Why We Deploy Military-Grade EDR

If you are still relying on Norton, McAfee, or free Windows Defender to protect your business, you are bringing a knife to a gunfight.

The threat landscape has evolved. Traditional "Antivirus" (AV) is obsolete. At Digital Sanctum, we exclusively deploy EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response) powered by SentinelOne.

Here is the technical difference and why it matters for your survival.

The Old Way: Signatures (Mugshots)

Traditional Antivirus works on a database of "Signatures." It is like a security guard holding a book of mugshots of known criminals.

1. A file enters your computer.
2. The AV compares the file to its database.
3. If it matches a known virus, it blocks it.

The Failure: Hackers are smart. They change the code slightly (polymorphic malware). The "face" changes. The AV doesn't recognise the new mugshot, so it lets the criminal in. This is called a Zero-Day Attack.

The New Way: Behaviour (AI Analysis)

SentinelOne does not rely on mugshots. It relies on Behavioural AI. It watches what programs do, not just what they look like.

• Scenario: You open an Excel spreadsheet.
• The Behaviour: That Excel spreadsheet suddenly tries to encrypt your entire hard drive at 1,000 files per second.
• The Response: SentinelOne realises "Excel shouldn't do that." It instantly freezes the process, disconnects the computer from the network to prevent spread, and alerts our Security Operations Centre (SOC).

It does not matter if the virus was created 5 minutes ago. The behaviour was malicious, so it was stopped.

The Kill Switch: Rollback

The "Killer Feature" of SentinelOne is the Rollback capability. In the unlikely event that a piece of ransomware does execute and encrypts a few files, SentinelOne keeps a shadow copy of the disk state. With one click, we can reverse time on that machine, undoing the encryption and restoring the files without needing to restore from a backup server.

This fits into our broader Sovereign Infrastructure Strategy—we build systems that are resilient by design, not just hopeful.

Conclusion

Cybersecurity is an arms race. The attackers are using AI. If your defence is a static list of signatures from 2010, you will lose. We enforce EDR on every endpoint because your business cannot afford a fair fight.