We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Network Analytics and Vectra AI based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."The most valuable features are encrypted threat analysis and the ability to run jobs on entire flows."
"Cisco Stealthwatch has reduced the amount of time to detect an immediate threat."
"I believe this solution has reduced our incident response time."
"If you are using Darktrace or NAC solutions you can integrate Stealthwatch."
"It's easy to set up. The deployment takes one or two days. You need to collect the data from a device and then direct it to the portal."
"The most valuable feature is integration."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the way the net flow is being merged together in a single pane. That's been extremely useful for us, because can see what's going on with traffic in one single place."
"StealthWatch lets me see the ports running in and out and the country. It has excellent reporting, telemetry, and artificial intelligence features. With the telemetry, I can set thresholds to detect sudden changes and the alarms go through the PLC parts. I can see all the ports running on that trunk."
"One of the most valuable features is all the correlation that it does using AI and machine learning. An example would be alerting on a host and then alerting on other things, like abnormal behavior, that it has noticed coming from the same host. It's valuable because we're a very lean team."
"One of the core features is that Vectra AI triages threats and correlates them with compromised host devices. From a visibility perspective, we can better track the threat across the network. Instead of us potentially finding one device that has been impacted without Vectra AI, it will give us the visibility of everywhere that threat went. Therefore, visibility has increased for us."
"Vectra AI helped our team be more productive and save time. We have less work thanks to it."
"The biggest feature for us, because we are heavy Microsoft users, is its integration with Office 365. On top of Vectra AI, we use all of the Microsoft security platforms, such as Defender ATP and Sentinel. Having full integration and a central platform to look at all of the threats that are coming through from the different platforms is a huge benefit for us."
"It has helped us to organize our security. We get a better overview on what is happening on the network, which has helped us get quicker responses to users. If we see malicious activity, then we can quickly take action on it. Previously, we weren't getting an overview as fast as we are now, so we can now provide a quicker response."
"Vectra AI can bring the ability to detect intrusion on the network more so than legacy IDS tools."
"The fact that we get the visualization of what's happening on our network, which is a way of improving our security in-depth is most valuable."
"It is doing some artificial intelligence. If it sees a server doing a lot of things, then it will assume that is normal. So, it is looking for anomalous behavior, things that are out of context which helps us reduce time. Therefore, we don't have to look in all the logs. We just wait for Vectra to say, "This one is behaving strange," then we can investigate that part."
"There could be better integration on the programming side, which uses Python. StealthWatch could provide a template for Python to manage the switches. For example, it would be nice if StealthWatch bounced a port automatically it detected something anomalous."
"Stealthwatch needs improvement when it comes to speed."
"The customizability of the UI should improve."
"The initial setup was complex."
"I would like to see more expansion in artificial intelligence and machine learning features."
"I would like to see a hybrid solution that can work without being connected directly to the internet for those destinations."
"We've had problems with element licensing costs so scalability is a concern."
"I would like to see better filters."
"An area for improvement in Vectra AI is reporting because it currently needs some details. For example, when you download a report from Vectra AI, you won't see complete information about the alerts or triggers. Another area for improvement in the tool is that sometimes, an alert has high severity, yet it's marked as low severity. Vectra AI should have a mechanism to change the severity level from low to high or critical."
"One thing which I have found where there could be improvement is with regard to the architecture, a little bit: how the brains and sensors function. It needs more flexibility with regard to the brain. If there were some flexibility in that regard, that would be helpful, because changing the mode of the brain is complex. In some cases, the change is permanent. You cannot revert it."
"One of the things that we are missing a bit is the capability to add our own rules to it. At the moment, the tech engine does its thing, but we have some cool ideas to make additional rules. There should be an option in the platform to add custom rules, or there should be some kind of user group where we can suggest them for the roadmap and see if they get evaluated and get transparent communication on whether they will be implemented in the product or not."
"The false positives and the tuning side of it is something that could use improvement. But that could be from our side."
"You are always limited with visibility on the host due to the fact that it is a network based tool. It gives you visibility on certain elements of the attack path, but it doesn't necessarily give you visibility on everything. Specifically, the initial intrusion side of things that doesn't necessarily see the initial compromise. It doesn't see stuff that goes on the host, such as where scripts are run. Even though you are seeing traffic, it doesn't necessarily see the malicious payload. Therefore, it's very difficult for it to identify these type of host-driven complex attacks."
"The rules for threats are not always precise and Vectra AI should improve this."
"We are using SMB 3.0, which is an encrypted protocol. When we get some alerts or something, we cannot go deep into the protocol to see what's wrong because it's encrypted. We need to decrypt the protocol in another way, which is quite difficult. We might go back to SMB 2.0 just for this reason, but that's not a good solution."
"The solution needs to become more proactive. When Vectra AI is the primary solution in an environment - like it is in our case - you must work on response time. We have a small team so response time at endpoint level is vital."
More Cisco Secure Network Analytics Pricing and Cost Advice →
Cisco Secure Network Analytics is ranked 4th in Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) with 57 reviews while Vectra AI is ranked 2nd in Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) with 40 reviews. Cisco Secure Network Analytics is rated 8.2, while Vectra AI is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Cisco Secure Network Analytics writes "Increased the visibility of what is happening in our network". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Vectra AI writes "Integrates well with other security solutions and provides good technical support". Cisco Secure Network Analytics is most compared with Darktrace, Cisco Secure Cloud Analytics, ThousandEyes, Arista NDR and Gigamon Deep Observability Pipeline, whereas Vectra AI is most compared with Darktrace, ExtraHop Reveal(x), Arista NDR, Corelight and Trend Micro Deep Discovery. See our Cisco Secure Network Analytics vs. Vectra AI report.
See our list of best Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) vendors and best Network Detection and Response (NDR) vendors.
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CylancePROTECT is AI-powered endpoint protection that will scan your endpoint devices with AI and Machine Learning security. It does not work with traditional signature-based protection and will cover your endpoints against the latest malware and event Potential Unwanted Programs. We are also a Darktrace partner and if interested we can demo both Cyber Security solutions to your company. If you are interested in more information about CylancePROTECT and Darktrace and would like to run a free POC, please contact me at cj@groveis.com.
Raffael Marty, Vice President, Forcepoint Research and Intelligence, said: "There is no artificial intelligence in the field of information security, and it is unlikely to be developed in 2019." Most of unsupervised machine learning-based network anomaly detection solution does not provide why the anomaly has been aroused and whether the anomaly is malicious or not. Most of such solution's pricing model is based on number of endpoints but I prefer to have flat fee subscription-based.
The most important thing to get traction is your business approach and some kind of openness for 3rd parties. NOBODY needs "fancy Dashboards"!
Most of the known vendors like Darktrace is extremely "sales offensive" and they don't have a clear sales strategy (direct or channel). A free POV (30days) is a common approach to attract new customers, but the outcome is not really important. It says nothing about the PAINS on the customer site.
Know your competitors!!!! There are many AI CyberSec Startups and Technologies - 99% are using "Machine Learning" what needs more time to the realtime reaction in critical phases. Preferred is Deep Learning like DeepInstinct offers.
Pricing Model per IP´s is pretty usual - but you need flexibility.
Thank you I’m not really interested in being sold to. I’m asking about what works, what doesn’t and pricing models. I don’t want any demos.
Thank you for your comments...what if the malware does not present as anomalous?
We are an Endpoint focused firm represented a Pyramid of EP based protection services (email & web filter, coupled with EP protection, cyber insurance and dark web monitoring). Our key AI product offering is Cylance, world class in it's ability to protect you where over 95% of all hacks occur, the End Point. Cylance is typically sold as a manged service due to some of the complexities of tailoring the product to fit your business needs. Typically the service is price per EP, per month.
Thank you, I am familiar with Darktrace and really like the product. I'd like to know your thoughts on additional features and pricing preferences.
In my opinion, the best response always comes from the source. I have many contacts at Darktrace that can precisely answer these and other questions. Please let me know if you would like me to arrange for a scheduled call.