AlgoSec Reviews

We use the solution for firewall management (with AFA - AlgoSec Firewall Analyzer) and application network visibility (with AppViz).  

We are running multiple firewalls and hundreds of users who request firewall connectivity.  

When it comes to a large organization with many vendors/partners, our firewalls are more easily managed using the AlgoSec AFA component.  The ease of use, visibility, compliance, and efficiency is unmatched in the industry. 

We have used AlgoSec AFA to have more visibility into the network and know what firewalls to activate. 

AlgoSec AFA has great search tools and firewall cleanup functionality. 

The Algsec AppViz is a newer Algosec element that we will use to improve application security and visibility in our complex network.

The firewall management tool and AppViz for application visibility and security in the network are great. 

The user-friendliness, visibility, compliance and efficiency are unparalleled in the industry. We have more visibility into the network and now we know what firewalls to activate. 

AlgoSec AFA has great search tools.

The firewall cleanup functionality is helpful. 

We also enjoyed the use of AlgoCare which speeds up the ticket troubleshooting process with AlgoSec Support.

I would say that the cases opened with AlgoSec could be solved faster or escalated sooner to the senior engineers/2nd or 3rd tier. AlgoSec Support is very good at responding very fast (faster than the required SLA) and very timely. Their engineers are based either in India or Israel. Each region has its sales person and technical engineer person.  

Another pet peeve is that there are hotfixes for new issues or bugs at least once a month, if not more frequently.  Overall, AlgoSec is trying to improve its case-resolution support team and process, and we are optimistic that our issues or bugs will be fixed much timelier.

We've used the solution for over three years.

It is a very stable product.

The solution is very scalable.

Customer service and support are very prompt, always complying with SLAs. However, the time to resolution can be improved.

We did not use a different solution previously.

The initial setup is very straightforward, and the online documentation and AlgoSec engineer support are more than adequate.

We set up the solution in-house.

I am not privy to the financial benefits or ROI for this product.

I am not privy to the cost of the product, as I am a Network Specialist.

The AlgoSec solution was selected before I joined the organization.

We use AlgoSec Firewall Analyzer and AppViz. We have bought the FireFlow license, but we do not use it currently. We plan to use it, but we are not using it right now. 

Firewall Analyzer is helpful for network assurance and meeting some requirements of PCI DSS. 

We use it to manage only our on-prem environment. Our network environment is mostly on-prem. We do not use cloud networking. We have an internal cloud, which is hosted in the Netherlands, but it is like a private cloud.

It gives us a pretty good understanding of what's going on in our network in terms of network security policies. In terms of the overall visibility that it gives into our network security policies, I would rate it a nine out of 10.

For preparing for audits and ensuring that our firewalls are in compliance, Firewall Analyzer gives a great overview of what's going on with the firewalls in terms of rules, etc. It offers a great input for auditors or for reporting to auditors.

We use Firewall Analyzer in order to monitor the PCI DSS network area. It is helpful for meeting some requirements of PCI DSS.

We work with multiple security vendors. It works when it comes to integrating it with the leading vendors. We didn't have any problems integrating with the solutions of our top three vendors.

Firewall Analyzer and AppViz are the most important features because they provide a lot of information regarding network segmentation. For us, this is a valuable input in order to provide network segmentation for various applications that we have developed in-house or that we bought from vendors. Our network is not properly segmented right now, but we plan to do it using AlgoSec. This is the most important feature for us right now. We also plan to use FireFlow in order to automate the firewall change management.

The Firewall Analyzer module can be improved to implement a vulnerability management solution, or they can link Firewall Analyzer with a vulnerability management solution in order to get a better overview of what's going on in our network in terms of vulnerabilities.

We started implementing AlgoSec in April this year.

So far, so good. We didn't have any problems. It is pretty stable.

From what I've heard and what I've read on their portal, it is pretty scalable. There are no issues around this.

We have not opened any tickets on the portal. We have a dedicated support person who assists us in the deployment. They are pretty fast to react. If I ask them a question today, they will respond very quickly.

We didn't have a different solution.

It was pretty straightforward. We started implementing AlgoSec in April this year. We are not fully into production, but we have been using it since May. Technically, it took less than a month, but we still have to do some paperwork in terms of security procedures, security monitoring, etc. So, it has been all paperwork from May till today.

The patching process of this solution is also pretty straightforward. They provide monthly patches, and it doesn't take a whole bunch of people to maintain it. Just one or two people can do the job.

Even though we had a reseller involved in this process, we did it on our own but with a little help from AlgoSec.

We have not yet seen an ROI. We are currently at the beginning of implementing the solution, and there is still a lot of time before we see a return on investment.

Price is not my concern. If a tool does its job, it is not my concern to obtain a good price for it. If a tool is needed, we are going to buy it.

We evaluated other solutions such as Skybox, Tufin. We found the graphical user interface of AlgoSec to be very user-friendly. It provides the information that you need. The information that you need is very well organized as compared to other solutions.

It depends on your needs. If you want to have a better overview of your network, AlgoSec is a tool that you can rely on. You can have an overview of your network by using your own equipment, but you have to dig in deeper. AlgoSec provides better visibility with a little amount of effort.

We haven't had any breaches in the past. We have not used it to implement and manage microsegmentation initiatives. We use it for network segmentation, which is done at the network level which includes firewalls, switches routers, and so on. Network segmentation is an ongoing process. 

I would rate it a nine out of 10.

I mainly use AFA and FireFlow. The majority of the network is internal. We have a very limited footprint in the cloud right now. But what we do have in the cloud is private. Being a financial institution, everything is very secure. So we don't have anything in the public cloud.

We're primarily using AlgoSec for firewall management and change validation. So we use it for monitoring all the firewall changes and security ratings. Any kind of firewall change is monitored and we have our own process that we use AlgoSec for to validate that changes are implemented according to the requests and go through all of the change approval processes.

We are using it for the firewall change auditing process for our department. They are one of the leaders that we found in this area. There is a very limited group of vendors that provide this kind of functionality and we've gone through the majority of them. AlgoSec still stands out as the leader, in our opinion.

We primarily use AFA for the change management portion of it. But the security ratings also are used by our security group to ensure compliance and validate that nothing is being configured that is not in our best interest.

The overall visibility AlgoSec gives into our network security policies has been very good. We are happy with the way the application works. It is very intuitive and easy to use. I would give that a very high rating.

AlgoSec provides full visibility into the risk involved in firewall change requests as well. It definitely allows us to drill down to the level where we can see the actual policy rule that's affecting the risk ratings. If there are any changes in ratings, it'll show you exactly how to determine what's changed in the network that will affect it. It's been very clear and intuitive as far as that.

I don't know if it has reduced the time it takes to implement firewall rules in our company. We don't use it for implementing changes because our network is very in-depth and we're very particular with our security on that, that we do manually make all of our firewall changes. So we're not using the automated functionality of AlgoSec to do that for us. But I think that's more because of the restrictions that we have in our own network.

AlgoSec is very good when it comes to preparing for audits and ensuring our firewalls are in compliance. The security ratings are a major factor in that lately, as well as being able to show the configurations and how they affect the risk ratings. Whenever we do need to address any issues, it's very clear to show us exactly what the effects of the ratings are, as tied into the firewall policies.

We work with multiple security vendors. I'm not on the security team any longer. I went from network group to security and then back again. But our security group does work with AlgoSec and they use it very intimately for different functions.

Some of the auditing functionality needs improvement. Our major focus is the firewall validation process and tracking and verifying that changes are implemented correctly. We are actually doing parts of the auditing process manually. And getting any one of the vendors to bring out a good auditing process has been very difficult. AlgoSec does a good job of showing us the changes, but we're doing a manual process to actually audit it and do documentation that we can provide to our auditors that shows we're validating everything, and on top of it, that nothing gets implemented without being caught. Part of that could be improved upon.

I have been using AlgoSec since 2016, so it's been around five and a half years. 

The stability has been great. We had a minor bug with the latest version and development. I did work with support to get that ironed out. They resolved it so right now, it looks to be very stable. And we are looking to put that into production shortly.

The scalability seems very good. I haven't seen any restrictions if we were to bring in other hardware or other devices in terms of how to scale it out, either size-wise or vendor-wise.

We have our network group, which we use AlgoSec for, for investigating the risks, configuration issues and things like that. The security group uses it for risk ratings and compliance verification. Then we have a separate group, which is a different group of security that uses it for the firewall validation process. They're the ones that use it on a daily basis to investigate any firewall changes and tie those back to the original request and validate that they were implemented properly.

The support has been very good. They're very responsive, very quick to get back to you, and very helpful. They bring in developers very quickly and easily to get into the details. Our last issue we had seemed to be very unusual, and with their support, they brought in the actual developers that were working on this software and resolved it very quickly.

We used a couple of different solutions and they all have their problems. We thought we had a good solution at one point until we found out that it wasn't working properly. When you trust in an application like this and you believe in the numbers that it's giving you, you go with that as gospel until you find out that it's wrong. That vendor's support was just not on the level that we wanted. We were getting no response from them for a long time. So we finally gave up on them until we went to AlgoSec, and it was a much better solution for us.

The initial setup is very straightforward. It is very easy to integrate network devices into AlgoSec and manage them. It's even getting easier with the latest version. We integrated Palo Alto devices into AlgoSec and it is very simple to bring it in. We have a development server that we're testing out the latest version on, and that came in in minutes. It brought it all in automatically.

The earlier versions of AlgoSec, especially when they came out originally, would not integrate properly with Panorama. So at that point, we had to integrate AlgoSec to actually reach out to every firewall individually for configurations and change status. The current releases are now integrating directly into Panorama. It's just basically one connection into Panorama and it pulls in all of the configurations from there. It's much more simplified.

I don't really get involved in ROI. But I definitely think it's valuable to us and I think it is a good solution for us.

I don't get into the pricing aspect of it that much. But from my beliefs of it, I believe it is very cost-efficient compared to other vendors. Their licensing is very straightforward and they're easy to work with.

There were three main players at the time, we went through proof of concepts with each of them, and AlgoSec was definitely the strongest vendor in that group and we don't regret it at all. I think it is a good solution.

The other vendors were promising a lot more than they were actually delivering on when it came time to actually putting it onto our network and evaluating it. We were finding that things that they were telling us that they supported and were part of their packages were not actually functional at the time. So we did not go forward with them because of that. AlgoSec actually had everything working properly. It was very easy to set up and use and it did what they promised.

Their sales engineers have really been very helpful and very good at working with us. I have nothing bad to say about them. They were excellent and I have a good relationship with them. If I ever need anything, I'll reach out to either our sales executive or our SE anytime and they respond immediately to us.

I would say the biggest thing we've learned with it is how much information it does give you. It is a nice platform. It definitely drills in a lot of layers of security and efficiencies that you can do. We're not using it to its full potential for cleaning up policy rules. As most companies are now, they are short-staffed and overworked. But it definitely can be used a lot more than we are using it for. Overall, it's a great solution and I have not seen another vendor in this marketplace that does any better than this.

I would rate AlgoSec a nine out of ten. We would like to see the auditing functionality improved. But that would be the only shortcoming at this point. I do think that they are top of the marketplace for this.

AlgoSec is a very helpful product in carrying out security operations effectively.

It has a user-friendly interface, and we don't encounter any problems during or after installing updates.

We can get quick support from the manufacturer in case of problems.

The ability to automate policy analysis, optimize configurations, and visualize security risks allows organizations to mitigate threats and reduce the risk of security breaches proactively. 

By providing visibility into security risks, compliance gaps, and application connectivity requirements, AlgoSec helps organizations strengthen their security posture.

This product has had many benefits in improving my security posture by fixing many vulnerabilities.

Lack of sufficient resources or expertise to leverage AlgoSec's capabilities to their full potential might hinder the expected improvements.

The ability to automate policy analysis, optimize configurations, and visualize security risks allows organizations to mitigate threats and reduce the risk of security breaches proactively. AlgoSec's reporting and compliance features help organizations meet regulatory requirements more effectively.

AlgoSec offers a centralized platform for managing complex network security policies across heterogeneous environments. This feature enables users to visualize, analyze, and manage policies from a single interface, enhancing efficiency and reducing errors associated with manual policy management. 

AlgoSec's ability to integrate with various security and networking solutions enhances its overall value. Integration with firewalls, cloud platforms, SIEM tools, and other security devices ensures a cohesive security ecosystem and enables better threat response and mitigation.

Enhancements that allow for more automated policy management, change workflows, and orchestration can significantly streamline network security operations. 

Advanced analytics and reporting capabilities that provide deeper insights into network traffic, security policy effectiveness, compliance, and risk management can be beneficial. 

Features that allow security policies to be defined and managed based on specific applications' needs would be ideal.

I've been using the solution for two years. 

We use AlgoSec to integrate firewalls. I'm a senior network security engineer and we are customers of AlgoSec.

Security ratings and security rules analysis are two valuable features. In general, it's a very good and stable solution. 

I believe the customization of dashboards should be simplified and more user-friendly. Customization inside the domain level needs to be improved.

The solution is stable although there are occasionally issues with patches, but they are generally resolved quickly. The solution is extensively and regularly used for compliance reports. 

The solution is scalable. We have close to 30 firewall admins.

The technical support is good. The only drawback is that the product is not very user-friendly and it's too expensive to contact support each time we have a problem. 

The initial setup was carried out using professional support and the company was happy with the integrator. We moved our ticketing up to AlgoSec using FireFlow. I wasn't around but I think it took some time.

The license was initially renewed every three years but it's now done on an annual basis. I'm not aware of any additional costs. 

I rate this solution eight out of 10. 

My main use case is as a firewall analyzer module where it can be further broken down as follow: 

1) Network topology visualization: visualizes a network traffic path during troubleshooting

2) Policy optimization: uses optimization and clean-up recommendations to perform annual housekeeping of the firewall

3) PCI DSS compliance: follow the out-of-the-box checklist to prepare for a PCI DSS audit

4) Risk reduction: uses the recommendation of the risky rules to address all the critical and high-risk rules

5) Monitor changes:  monitor for firewall-config changes in real-time via email alerts

The solution has improved our organization in multiple ways. We can:

• Easily understand and provision application connectivity to accelerate application delivery and minimize outages

• Process firewall changes 4x faster, and eliminate misconfigurations and rework

• Proactively assess the impact of network changes to ensure security and continuous compliance

• Simplify and automate internal and regulatory firewall audits, and reduce time and costs

• Streamline communication across the application, network and security teams

• Deliver a tighter security policy that provides better protection against cyber-attacks

The product is great for:

1) Network topology visualization: reduces network troubleshooting effort which contributes to quickly restoring network or application outage.

2) Policy optimization: reduce/consolidate the number of rules created prior to the existence of AlgoSec Firewall Analyzer in order to free up hundreds of rule capacity before reaching the max rule limit of the firewall.

3) PCI DSS compliance: helps to highlight the area which firewall admin need to take note and address in a streamlined and structured manner.

4) Risk reduction: helps to quickly identify the risk that exists in existing rules and provide useful recommendations that help the firewall admin to remediate with ease.

5) Monitor changes: helps firewall admin to comply with security requirements of providing real-time security alert whenever a change is made, with detailed info on what was the value before and after.

The FireFlow's out-of-the-box workflow configuration/customization wizard could be improved to be more user-friendly and have a shorter learning curve. The current configuration wizard is quite complex and complicated, which will result in the need to engage with an AlgoSec professional services team to perform even the simplest workflow adjustment.

I had tried AlgoSec's direct competitor's workflow configuration wizard and found it to suit most organization requirements even though the customization capability may not be as advanced as AlgoSec.

I've used the solution for six years. 

The setup is fairly straightforward.

We did also consider Tufin.

We have a large setup of multi-vendor firewalls with large in numbers of policies and rules. Handling rules and policy visibility manually are very difficult for clients multi platform firewalls. AlgoSec AFA has eased day-to-day operation, firewalls rules optimization, clean-up for unused policies and reporting, and visibility on policy and rules. All of this improves the firewall performance.

AlgoSec FireFlow workflow change tracking in environment makes it easy to have a central repository also multiple stakeholder approved change management.   

The AFA workflow has helped us to manage firewall rules implementation using multiple stakeholders' approval with an end-to-end lifecycle of change management and tracking. 

Reporting helps us with deliverables, areas of focus for improvement, and much more. Algosec AFA is useful for policy optimization and clean-up and can measure capacity management. 

AFA provides greatly extended support for firewall rule review for risky rules, optimization, and clean-up for unused rules. 

Firewall rule automation for implementation also makes support easy for support firewall administrators.

AlgoSec currently has two useful features: AFA and AFF. 

The AFA workflow helped us to manage firewall rules implementation using multiple stakeholders' approval with an end-to-end lifecycle of change management and tracking. 

Algosec AFA is useful for policy optimization, cleanup, and measuring capacity management. 

AFA provides greatly extended support for firewall rule review for risky rules, optimization, and clean-up for unused rules. Firewall rule automation for implementation also makes support easy for support firewall administrators.

There could be certain improvements such as supporting secure email. We have some cases where the client SMTP /POP email system is discarded, which is very important factor change notifications.

Fireflow workflow rule/change implementation for time-based rules is not currently supported. 

These improvements in upcoming code will definitely help with end-to-end firewall rule implementation. 

NAT rule implementations were in the roadmap. We are expecting this soon. 

Certain optimization of AFA/AFF SMS resources would ease daily operations.

I've used the solution for four years.

While stability is good, further improvement is needed.

The scalability is good.

Technical support is good.

Positive

We did not use a different solution previously.

Some changes in setup are ongoing as we are growing.

I am a vendor partner of AlgoSec.

The licensing is commendable.

We evaluated a few other options before positioning this solution. 

The solution could use improved support.

We planned to start with AlgoSec Firewall Analyzer and later procured FireFlow as well.

We deployed Fireflow as we have been migrating the Infrastructure to SaaS, increasing in multi-vendor engagements on multiple Network and Security layers and handling requests from roaming users ends.

AlgoBot has been enabled to few users to validate their requirements and requests on their own, which has helped them to understand their current access and to create requests that are very accurate and relevant.

With respect to the environment, it's distributed with various network and security solutions, with multiple zones and a maintenance team.

Over the period of two years, we integrated the AlgoSec Firewall Analyzer and FireFlow on multiple solutions including next-generation firewalls, web security, proxies, and other network devices.

On the improvement part, we enabled the common set of policies across firewalls and proxies. This tool helped us eliminate the requirement to have L3 engineer in our other data centers and our Tier 1 and 2 engineers utilize the solution well from the configuration and maintenance areas.

We simply pass over three to four external agency audits on various particulars which we spent more time on before onboarding the solution.

One of the most valuable parts for us is to achieve the compliance standards without ample strain and burden. Defined templates assisted us to make effective on following the internal processes and the industry standard.

It enhanced the complete workflow system within six months of deployment. We eventually onboarded by integrating with multiple solutions.

We performed regular audits internally to standardize and to pass the external audits effortlessly.

In simple words, this process empowered us to define a metrics among our industry and set the development goals clearly.

Support tickets and engineer assignments are one of the few concerns we are facing these days. Initially, they were hard to co-ordinate with the technical support team and the AlgoSec management team helped us to follow the defined Service Level Agreements.

We needed to directly communicate with the integrated solution TAC Teams, let say of Palo Alto or Checkpoint, and we needed to co-ordinate jointly for addressing an issue.

The AlgoSec support team came on a joint call to address the issue on time without saying "this is not my cup of tea" and by then we were happy about the support. This happened during one of our major migrations.

Our management is expecting us to set up a CXO/CISO dashboard from AlgoSec. It would be great for us if the AlgoSec team could assist in setting up the new benchmark.

We have been using this solution for more than two years.

Over the period of two years, we have seen multiple enhancements being made available inside the product. One of the new requirements is on containers/Docker/Kubernetes where AlgoSec really needs to focus. I am not sure about the availability of the latest support release, however, these are booming technologies and we require solutions like AlgoSec to support them.

Earlier it was good. Possibly due to the pandemic, we faced a couple of challenges in getting the support on time. That said, now it's getting better.

Neutral

Earlier we used to manage everything with our internal and vendor team, where lots of coordination was required. It was a long time-consuming process of gathering requirements and defining the best possible solution.

Since few of the solutions were being managed by outsourced team, it was challenging to make the solutions ready to integrate with AlgoSec during the deployment phase.

Some delays happened due to the lack of support by the external party. There were some delays due to upgrading products to make everything compatible with AlgoSec Analyzer and FireFlow.

Initially, we found this as a complex deployment. Later, it was easier than anticipated. We referred to the technical documents and AlgoPedia portal to understand more and deployed successfully within the proposed timelines.

Our in-house team took care of almost everything and the AlgoSec team did the governance.

We'd like the solution to share the complete Infrastructure details along with the business use cases with AlgoSec SE to evaluate and propose the best fit deployments and licensing.

Pricing-wise, AlgoSec still needs to support the customers.

We evaluated Skybox and Tuffin as well. Our internal team showed interest in AlgoSec right away, however, Skybox was a real challenge to differentiate.

Technical documentation and readily available solution blogs helped us to deploy the solution in a better way

AlgoPedia helped us in many ways - including sharing information on the new vulnerabilities, management of appliances, and maintaining the workflows (by providing enough insights to explore and understand).

The solution is mainly used for auditing firewall rules and inter-zone connectivity within the client environment. 

Another use case we have at the moment is to audit all changes done on the firewalls across the environment. We are also using Fireflow which significantly reduces the administration effort and time required to analyze, plan, and implement firewall changes on a day to day basis. 

Compliance reports are a big help and ensure that the client environment is up to date in terms of their security standing.

AlgoSec has definitely helped to improve the process of auditing all firewall rules and access. 

From a security standpoint, it has significantly improved an organization's standing from identifying all risky items in a given firewall policy as well as change audits, among others. 

Using Fireflow has also significantly reduced the amount of effort and time required to analyze and plan firewall changes that normally happen on a near-daily basis. 

Change audit has also reduced the effort during audit season especially when clients are running multiple-vendor firewalls.

Risky rules and compliance profiles are very valuable. With these reports, we are able to identify gaps in the client's firewall policy and this allows us to effectively remediate such gaps. 

The time and effort saved by using these compliance reports or profiles are definitely welcome. Another feature that we would use on a near-daily basis is the Fireflow and simulation query functionality. With the simulation query, one would not need to log into a specific firewall vendor console to verify if access is allowed or not; we run it through the simulation which saves us a lot of effort.

Support could be improved. Support of the KB database is extensive but still does not cover all subjects, at least from my experience. 

Another area of concern that I think could be improved is the licensing system. With the version we are currently running, it is a bit confusing since, for some reason, AlgoSec license usage is handled differently between firewall vendors. It may be a bit challenging to properly size the purchase of a new license - especially if a client is running multiple vendor firewalls in the environment.

I've been personally been using AlgoSec for more than ten years now.

The solution is very reliable. No issues encountered during daily operations.

I haven't personally done a lot of scaling projects with this product.

The technical support is all right, however, it can be improved.

Neutral

We did not previously use a different solution. 

The setup is pretty straightforward and AlgoSec did provide support during the process.

We worked in-house, with AlgoSec, and with a vendor found that both are highly knowledgeable.

I'm not part of the business team and do not analyze this aspect.

I am not part of the team in charge of licensing. 

We also looked into FireMon and Tufin.

I am part of the team providing managed security solutions and we have a number of clients that have a lot of network and security devices in their environment.

We use AlgoSec primarily to provide solutions to our clients in terms of how we can help tighten their security and optimize network performance.

AlgoSec Firewall Analyser makes this easily possible and with the help of AlgoSec's readily available reports, we are able to provide to all our clients the security and compliance report.

Before AlgoSec, our firewall rules got pretty big over time and it came to the point where it was barely manageable. Duplicate rules and objects were everywhere and there was nothing we could do about it. Performing a manual clean-up was a nightmare and near to impossible.

AlgoSec Firewall Analyser improves the firewall rules dramatically by identifying rules and objects that are not needed and consolidates rules and rule re-ordering.

It also helped our team to optimize performance and further secure the network by identifying risky rules.

I always find the policy optimization by identifying duplicate objects, shadowed rules, and unused objects pretty useful. By eliminating all these duplicate objects, unused rules, and unused objects, firewalls and other security devices will use fewer resources to process certain tasks/requests.

This will benefit both the security engineer managing the security devices and the client as they will spend less time in dealing with optimization and therefore can focus more on other important matters.

AlgoSec firewall analyzer is already an awesome product but there are still some areas that definitely need improving.

For instance, the risky rules reporting should have more information available in the risky rules report - especially when you export the data into a .CSV format. .CSV format being a text-based visualization, some information and formatting cause the reports to lose meaning and only become just another character in the file since it cannot port over some properties (like severity represented by colors).

I've used the solution for more than ten years.

We did not use a different solution previously.

The setup is pretty easy and the cost is really worth it.

We did not evaluate other options.