We Replaced Our EDR Agent with a Kernel-Level eBPF Program
The alerts started as a trickle, then became a flood. High CPU usage on our production database servers, traced back to the monolithic agent we relied on for security. For years, we accepted this as the cost of doing business—the necessary performance tax for endpoint security. But as our infrastructure scaled, this tax became unsustainable. That’s when we made a bold decision: we replaced our EDR agent with a kernel-level eBPF program, and it has fundamentally changed how we approach runtime security.
This wasn't just a simple tool swap. It was a philosophical shift away from proprietary, black-box agents and towards a programmable, transparent, and incredibly performant security posture. If you’re tired of the resource drain and visibility gaps of traditional Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) solutions, this is the story of how we broke free.
The Cracks in Traditional EDR Armor
For all their promises, traditional EDR agents have a dirty secret: they are often invasive and inefficient. Most operate by loading a proprietary kernel module or by heavily instrumenting user-space libraries. This approach, while functional, comes with significant baggage.
The Performance Tax of Kernel Modules
Our previous EDR agent was a notorious resource hog. During routine operations, it consumed a consistent 5-10% of CPU on our compute nodes. During security scans or incident response activities, that number could spike to over 30%, causing application latency and threatening service-level objectives (SLOs). The culprit is the constant context switching and deep kernel hooks required for monitoring. Every file read, every network packet, every process execution had to pass through the agent's inspection logic, creating a bottleneck at the heart of the operating system.
The Visibility Gap in Containerized Environments
Modern cloud-native environments, built on containers and orchestration platforms like Kubernetes, create a unique challenge for legacy EDRs. These agents were designed for a world of static, long-running servers, not ephemeral containers. They often struggle to:
