Enhancing Sandboxing with Everfox CDR

As digital ecosystems become increasingly complex, organizations are more interconnected than ever. However, this heightened connectivity also broadens the attack surface, creating more entry points for cyber threats to infiltrate and spread.

Attacks are not only becoming more frequent but also more sophisticated, making them harder to detect and stop with traditional cybersecurity methods. Relying solely on detection-based defense is no longer enough. Prevention must take priority.

“Over three-quarters of IT security directors believe security teams in regulated industries must shift their mindset from detecting threats to preventing them.”
- The CYBER360 Report, 2025 [1]

By leveraging advanced security measures such as sandboxing combined with Content Disarm and Reconstruction (CDR), governments and industries can proactively combat threats before they infiltrate your system.

In this blog, we’ll explore how Everfox CDR enhances sandboxing to deliver a stronger, prevention-first approach to cybersecurity.

Traditional Cyber Defenses

Traditionally, Antivirus (AV) was used to inspect data detecting any malware and defend against the threat. This type of defense works well when the attack is a known threat and not embedded within other types of data. To combat this, Sandboxing technology was developed.

Sandboxing allows a piece of data to be executed within a ‘sandbox’ environment, stopping any potential threat from infecting the target machine.

This was the next evolution of a detection-based defense, allowing inspection and execution of potential malicious content.

However, attackers were soon able to bypass sandboxing defenses and were able to distinguish between a sandbox environment and the desired target. Allowing the malicious content to mascaraed as a piece of benign safe data, only revealing itself when the malware when outside the sandbox environment. Another technique to ensure the malicious content runs when outside the environment is to delay the malware execution, increasing the chance the malware is executed outside the sandbox. This is a simpler technique but allows less sophisticated attackers to incorporate this evasion technique.  

Sandboxing also had the added disadvantage that processing and executing the data was resource heavy and time-consuming. Reducing the quality of the user experience and increased frustration when used for the data being ingested. To improve the user experience, administrators can combine technologies such as AV and Sandboxing. However, both technologies are unable to defend against unknown threats, these threats are referred to as Zero Days.

Detection-based technology cannot detect something it has not seen before and therefore is unable to stop more sophisticated Zero Day attacks.

Everfox Content Disarm and Reconstruction (CDR)

To defeat these types of sophisticated threats an alternative to detection needs to be used. Everfox CDR technology takes a different approach to defeating malware, instead of detecting malware, it’s simply removed. Everfox CDR is built to recognize only valid, trusted data while remaining unaware of malicious content. This ensures that only the essential, useful elements of the data are preserved, while potential threats, including Zero-Day attacks, are eliminated. When data is sent to Everfox CDR, it undergoes inspection, and a detailed description is generated. Using this description, a brand-new, visually identical version of the data is created.

What happens if someone tries to manipulate the inspection process, so that malware can be preserved?

To combat this, Everfox CDR uses independent verification on the description created from the source data, ensuring that only good descriptions are created. This verification can also be performed in Hardware further reducing an attacker’s ability to influence how the data is rebuilt. To manipulate the hardware an attacker would have to gain access to the hardware, which would be deployed to a secure facility with limited access.

Everfox CDR performs the same process on each piece of data it receives, improving performance, allowing data to be cleaned quickly and efficiently. However, there are limitations to the types of data that can be processed using Everfox CDR, such as active content an .exe for example. Due to this limitation, Sandboxing still has a part to play within the cybersecurity ecosystem, giving administrators the ability to execute untrusted data within a safe environment.

With a combination of Everfox CDR and Sandboxing, a strong data cyber defense can be achieved. Everfox CDR allows most data to be processed quickly and efficiently, with Sandboxing left to focus on the files that need to be detonated within a safe environment.

Real-World Deployment Example

A large financial organization came to Everfox, with a current defense of Sandboxing and AV with a Web Gateway to check all data being downloaded or uploaded to the internet. This meant that some files would take over 10 minutes to be scanned and checked before being delivered to the users, creating a poor user experience. This financial organization was also aware of the risk of Zero Day threats and that none of their current defenses could defend against this.

The financial organization needed to change their cyber defense to improve the user experience and protect against sophisticated threats.

Everfox CDR was evaluated and found to drastically improve the user experience, reducing file processing to less than a second. Everfox CDR was also shown to eliminate known threats, buts also defeat threats that the other cyber defenses had previously missed.

This particular customer was able to reduce their licensing fees and use Sandboxing to focus on the data types it was intended for, e.g. exe etc. The reduction in usage allowed them to purchase Everfox CDR without the need to increase their cyber defense budget. While giving them improved user experience, increased productivity and protection against sophisticated attacks.

Building a Stronger Cyber Defense

No single solution can serve as a silver bullet against today’s increasingly sophisticated cyber threats. Instead, organizations must adopt a layered security approach, combining complementary technologies to create a robust defense.

As the threat landscape continues to evolve and digital attacks grow more unpredictable, relying solely on detection-based methods is no longer sufficient. Prevention-focused solutions like sandboxing and CDR play a critical role in defending against threats before they can cause harm. By integrating the advanced technologies, organizations can build a more resilient cybersecurity posture, staying ahead of emerging threats and ensuring stronger protection for critical assets.

Learn more about how Everfox CDR goes beyond traditional cybersecurity approaches, download the Beyond CDR Whitepaper.   (opens a new window)

[1] The CYER360 Report (opens a new window)

Daniel Feaver

Sales Engineer Architect

Dan has been working with UK Government and Defense designing critical systems, helping innovate and enhance the systems provided. Dan has helped design and deliver Cross Domain systems into UK Central Government and UK Defense systems. Dans current role is Sales Engineer Architect allows him to input into the system design and development of the solutions being delivered. Dan specializes in Cross Domain solutions to help connect the unconnectable networks.

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