Cisco Secure Firewall Reviews

We are using Cisco ASA Firewall 5525 for network security. We needed a network security solution that can take care of the network security and URL filtering. We also wanted to create site-to-site VPNs and have remote VPNs. For all these use cases, we got Cisco ASA, and we are pretty happy with it.

The remote VPN and IPsec VPN or site-to-site VPN features are valuable. The clustering feature is also valuable. We have two ISP links. Whenever there is a failover, users don't even get to know. The transition is very smooth, and the users don't notice any latency. So, remote VPN, site-to-site VPN, and failover are three very powerful features of Cisco ASA.

Cisco has the best documentation. You can easily find multiple documents by searching the web. Even a child can go online and find the required information.

There is huge scope for improvement in URL filtering. The database that they have is not accurate. Their content awareness and categorization for URL filtering are not that great. We faced many challenges with their categorization and content awareness. They should improve these categorization issues.

It is very reliable.

It is scalable. Cisco is pretty popular with organizations, and many customers are using it. It is suitable for all kinds of customers. It can cater to small, medium, and large organizations.

I have interacted with them many times. I have been on a call with their technical support continuously for 48 hours. They were very prompt. In terms of technical support and documentation for switching, firewall, and routing solutions, no one can match Cisco.

Its initial setup was very straightforward. Its documentation is very easily available on the web, which is very useful.

Their pricing is very aggressive and good. Even a small company can afford it. I am happy with its pricing. Its licensing is on a yearly basis.

I would recommend this solution to others if they are not specifically looking for URL filtering and want to use it for their infrastructure. It is a perfect and very reliable solution, but it lacks when it comes to URL filtering. 

I would rate Cisco ASA Firewall a nine out of ten.

We are a large company in the country in which we operate. We are a government agency dealing with taxes and we provide services for all taxpayers within the country. We have services for internal users, as well as services for public users. The main reason we use these firewalls is to protect our environment and to provide our services efficiently so that we are up and running 24/7.

Our solution is deployed in a private cloud. Everything is hosted in our environment and provided as cloud services. We are in the process of moving our infrastructure from the previous environment to the new environment where Cisco firewalls are installed.

In terms of our security maturity as an organization, we are young. In fact, we are young as a country. We have been providing electronic services for more than 10 years for our clients. We have a huge number of clients, with over 120,000 users who subscribe to our system and who access our services on a daily basis or, at a minimum, three to four times per year.

We use a few tools for security in terms of management, both internal and external, but we are mainly relying on Cisco. Our network is based on Cisco, and we also protect our mail system with Cisco. Previously, and in parallel, we used Sophos next-generation firewalls.

The solution provides us with application visibility and control and, at this stage, we are happy with it. Similarly, we are very happy with Cisco Firepower Management Center. We're still at an early stage, but we haven't seen any problems with the Cisco products. We are still switching on features and looking at how they are working.

When it comes to the integration among Cisco tools, we find it easy. It's a very practical integration with other components as well.

We also believe that Cisco is updated about all security issues and threats and efficient enough to provide us with the features and protection we need.

We just installed them recently. We started installation at the end of 2020 and we completed it this month, April 2021.

It's still early, but we believe the stability is alright.

The scalability of the solution is better than the other firewalls we have, due to technical features. Our technicians have realized that this is much more scalable compared to other solutions.

So far, the technical support has been excellent.

The initial setup was a bit complex. It wasn't a major challenge, but due to our requirements and network, it was not very straightforward but still easy enough.

We did a proper implementation plan according to the complexity of our network and our requirements. Then we used the best method for implementing it while mitigating our risks and meeting our requirements. We found a good way to implement it.

The setup took us two calendar months, but in terms of the actual time required to configure it, it was not so long. The setup took approximately as long as for other firewalls we have used.

It's hard to talk about ROI when it comes to security, but security now is expensive. You have to pay for it.

For us, the pricing was more economical than other products we used. There were no extra costs.

We evaluated a lot of the providers: Juniper, Palo Alto, Check Point, and Fortinet. Our technical team really researched things for a considerable amount of time, and they came up with a decision that this would be the best.

Cisco was chosen because there were many features according to assessments made by other users and as noted in technical data sheets we looked at during the research. They came up with a few features which are better than what other products have. 

Also, especially when you have been a long-time user of Cisco products and services, we found that from a budget perspective it was going to be much more preferable than the others.

We are very satisfied with the service and the product. I don't think that any product would be better than Cisco when it comes to next-generation firewalls.

I am using Cisco ASA 5525 for netting, routing, and site-to-site VPN. We have two sites. I am using Cisco ASA Firewall on one site and Check Point Next-Generation Firewall on another site.

We have integrated it with Cisco Anyconnect. This feature has been very good for us during the lockdown.

Netting is one of the best features. We can modify it in different ways. Site-to-site VPN is also an awesome feature of Cisco ASA.

The biggest advantage of Cisco products is technical support. They provide the best technical support.

Cisco should work on ASDM. One of the biggest drawbacks of Cisco ASA is ASDM GUI. Cisco should improve the ASDM GUI. The configuration through ASDM is really difficult as compared to CLI. Sometimes when you are doing the configuration in ASDM, it suddenly crashes. It also crashes while pushing a policy. Cisco should really work on this.

We have been using this solution for one and a half years.

It is stable and reliable. If you are looking for security from Layer 1 to Layer 4, Cisco ASA is good, but if you are looking for Layer 7 security, deep security, and malware detection, this is not the right product. You have to use some other product.

We have more than 400 employees. We are currently not thinking of increasing its usage because we need more security, and Cisco ASA is not good for Layer 5 to Layer 7 security.

The biggest advantage of a Cisco product is technical support. They provide 24/7 support on 365 days. Their technical support is one of the best. I would rate them a ten out of ten.

Cisco ASA is very not complex. It is a very simple firewall. If you are configuring it through CLI, it is easy. If you configuring it through ASDM, it will be more difficult for a beginner engineer.

It takes around two to three days to cover all the parameters. It is very easy to deploy in an existing network, which is one of the main advantages of Cisco ASA.

We are happy with its price. Licensing is on a yearly basis for technical support. There is one license for technical support. There is another license for IP Version 2 VPN and IPS.

I considered pfSense, but when I checked the reviews, pfSense's reviews were really bad, so we purchased Cisco ASA.

I am very happy with this product in terms of netting, routing, and VPN functionalities. If you are a small organization with around 100 people and you are not thinking of Layer 7 security, deep security, and malware detection, Cisco ASA would be very useful and cost-effective for you.

I would rate Cisco ASA Firewall an eight out of ten.

We currently have this solution hosted in a service provider's premises. They give us the link for our infrastructure and that is how we manage our equipment. We use the VPN feature to connect with our clients. 

The most valuable feature we have found to be the VPN because we use it often. Additionally, overall the solution is user-friendly and especially the ASDM GUI.

The solution has not had any layer upgrades. It does not have layer five and upwards, it only has up to layer four. This has caused some problems for us.

In the future, it would be wonderful to have an antivirus, log analyzer, and PDF/Excel data exportation features build into the solution. The data export would be great to be able to look at the access list.

I have been using the solution for four years.

The solution is stable up to a point. We have had some troubles making VPN connections with other technologies, such as Check Point. We have some of our clients that have Check Point equipment on their side, and sometimes the traffic ceases. We then are forced to reset the tunnel in order to get the traffic back.

Currently, we have approximately 20 site-to-site VPNs operations.

We have had no issues with technical support.

We are currently using a Check Point solution because this solution lacks by not having an application layer.

The initial setup is can be complicated if you are not familiar with the command line. There is documentation available by Cisco and once you are trained it is not difficult at all.

We use implementation consultants for the full deployment and it took approximately two weeks to complete.

My advice to those wanting to implement the solution would be that implementations sometimes do not go as planned. You need to do your research to be prepared. 

We are evaluating other solutions because this one is getting close to its expiration. There are no other technologies out there that offer better features than this ASA solution.

I rate Cisco ASA Firewall a six out of ten.

We primarily use the solution to operate that LAN environment over the internet and use the public and private networks separately. It's a very good firewall in terms of security, in terms of certain scenarios, and also from an ethical hacking point of view. Both are available in our environment. Both are doing great.

Cisco, obviously, gives you a great amount of reliability which comes in handy. The brand is recognized as being strong. 

Even in very big environments, Cisco comes in handy with configuration and offers reliability when it comes to managing multiple items on one platform. You are able to integrate Firepower and all AMP. With so many items to configure, I haven't yet done them all, however, I hope to.

It's great for securing the network. You learn a lot.

The initial setup is straightforward.

The solution is very stable.

The scalability of the solution is very good.

Most of the firewalls almost 90%, 95% of the firewalls will move to GUI. This is the area which needs to be improved. The graphical interface and the monitoring level of the firewall need to be worked on. 

Most of us are using the monitoring software where we get the alarm, then details of the servers, et cetera. This aspect needs to be much updated. 

From just the security point of view, in the security, it needs to be updated every day and every week. It is getting better day by day, however, from a monitoring point of view is not the same view as we have on the different monitoring servers or monitoring software, such as PRTG and Solarwinds. It needs to be changed and improved.

Cisco has launched its multiple products separately. Where there's a new version of the hardware, there is Firepower in it. However, there must be a solution for an integrated version that includes everything in your network and your firewall as well so that you can manage and integrate from the same web portal without going to every device and just configuring it and just doing everything separately. 

It would be ideal if a solution can be configured separately and then managed centrally on one end.

We have more than one Cisco firewall and it is difficult for me to integrate both on the single UI. If I have three firewalls and one is a normal firewall, I need to configure everything separately. I can't have it on the same port or integrated on the same single IP or bind it something like it.

We've mostly used Cisco solutions for two or three years at this point. Our old Cisco devices were due to be changed, and we moved over to ASA.

The firewall is stable, however, every two, three, or four years, you have to change the hardware and therefore get an updated version of the firewall.

This is something which companies have been doing for the sake of a new product and launching a new device. Yet, the stability needs to be considered where you have to upgrade for every two, three, four years and change the product and go for the new updated version. What I mean is that there is stability, however, obviously, it's not long-term.

The firewall is very scalable. Most contact versions are available depending upon the organization you have. It works for very large organizations. They are scalable for many scenarios. The scalability obviously is there for sure.

Cisco technical support is one of the best around. They have the most advanced and most experienced level of tech support I've been in contact with. Whether it is a hardware or software issue, the tech team can support you and help. They are very helpful and knowledgeable. We are quite satisfied with the level of support on offer. 

We also have experience using FortiGate.

The Cisco firewall is straightforward. It isn't a complex implementation. Obviously, you have to bind your IP on the port and then you must go on to configure for security and something like that. It's easy for me to configure a firewall at such a level.

If you pay for the hardware, you get the Firepower and if you don't, then you get the Cisco Firewall. 

We are just a customer and an end-user.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

Obviously, you need to have one tech person on your online when you are configuring it, or just implementing when you are integrating with your live environment and organization. My advice is that the configuration is easy when a network engineer like myself handles it. A trained person is more than capable of the task. Other than configuring, a less technical person can manage the solution.  

We use it to configure the perimeter firewalls. In FireSIGHT, we have two firewalls in a cluster with high ability, then we have five firewalls in Offices. We use those firewalls as a perimeter for Offices.

We have all the devices in the Firepower Management Center system. We always work with Firepower devices in Firepower Management Center.

We have offices around the world. We are in Europe, the USA, and South America.

We have border security with Firepower. We try to curb security issues by using this Firepower firewall.

The solution provides us with good working application visibility and control.

I have access to the web version of Cisco Talos to see the reputation of IP addresses. I find this very helpful. It provides important information for my company to obtain the reputation of IP addresses. The information in Talos is quite complete.

The configuration in Firepower Management Center is very slow. Deployment takes two to three minutes. You spend a lot of time on modifications. Whereas, in FortiGate, you press a button, and it takes one second.

Three years ago, the Firepower Management Center was very slow. The solution has improved a lot in the last couple of years. It is now faster. I hope that continues to improve. 

I have been using it for three years.

We have five devices. In Rome, we don't have a technician and didn't work when we started using it. We had to send a technician to Rome to reboot the system. Now, it is stable with no problems. Also, we lost the link to the high availability firewall in our data center. We only had one device there, and Solutel had to solve this issue.

The scalability is great.

We have five devices in four locations.

Three network administrators who work with Firepower, including myself.

I usually create an issue with Solutel, then they create a case with Cisco Talos or the Cisco technicians. I am happy with Solutel's support.

We deployed in several cities, but not the same day. 

The initial deployment was done by a Cisco partner, Solutel. Our experience with Solutel was fantastic. They are local partners for us and provided us with great service.

We realized that clearly we have issues of security with a lot of attacks. I don't know if it is because with the COVID-19 virus a lot of hackers are at home or working more hours. In the last year, we have seen attacks that are very big, and we need a barrier. So, we use a firewall to block these attacks.

The price for Firepower is more expensive than FortiGate. The licensing is very complex. We usually ask for help from Solutel because of its complexity. I have a Cisco account where I can download the VPN client, then connect. Instead, I create an issue with Solutel, then Solutel solves the case.

Our license for Firepower is their best license.

We have FortiGate firewalls, the security of Office 365 from Microsoft, Cisco Umbrella, and Kaspersky Anti-virus. We are also using Cisco ASA, Meraki switches, and a router from Cisco.

The Firepower Management Center tool is very slow. We also have the FortiGate firewalls and these tools for configuring the firewall are faster.

We have to make a change to our devices in South America. We are currently evaluating Cisco Firepower Series 1000 versus FortiGate. Firepower is more powerful than FortiGate, but FortiGate is more flexible and easier to configure. Because of our last issues with Firepower, it is possible that FortiGate is more stable.

It is a very powerful device. Firepower Management Center is a great tool, but it is a bit slow.

We don't have Cisco Umbrella integrated with Firepower. We tested Firepower's integration with Meraki Umbrella, but we don't use it because you need better firmware.

I would rate this solution as an eight (out of 10).

We use it for the actual firewall and also site-to-site VPN.

Our company is always growing. Every day's a new day and there is always something new to learn. We are a mature organization, but we can never sit still. We have two company locations and we use Cisco Firepower as our main firewall at both locations.

Overall, for security, we use about seven tools.

Within our company, there are just two people that maintain this solution. Myself and the IT manager. I'm the network administrator.

We were the subject of a ransomware attack a little over a year ago. Due to our console, we're able to easily see where the threat came from, all the while being able to shut down the network but maintain our network on the other side — or the other side of the site-to-site VPN. Then we could fix what we needed to be fixed here, and then subsequently correct the issues on the other side.

The manageability through the FMC is superb. I have a single dashboard that I can manage my firewalls from. I can see and manage all of my objects and control all my policies. I can look at all my logs and control my whole network from one dashboard.

FirePOWER does a good job when it comes to providing us with visibility into threats, but I would like to see a more proactive stance to it. Maybe more of an IDS approach. I don't know a better way to say it, but more of a heavier proactive approach rather than a reactive one.

I have been using Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall for two years.

I have had little to no issues except with the first version that we had. There was a known issue with Cisco in the first version. When I went to do a restore, there was a known issue with something with the Linux kernel. It took us about two weeks to get the restore working. It was a scary moment for us, but we worked through it, and ever since we've had no issues, stability-wise.

I have contacted support multiple times and I have no problems with them. I think they do the best with what they have — especially with the pandemic this year. I think they've done everything they can do with what they have. They don't stop. They don't give up until the issue is resolved. They're really good with following-up too, making sure that the issue hasn't come back.

We have another product that monitors all traffic. It just sits back and idols in the background — It integrates, but it doesn't if you know what I mean. It's a separate dashboard, but it alerts us. We can control the security — level zero through one hundred. If a threat registers above 54% (we have the limit set at 51) it alerts us. If it's a specific threat, it can shut down services, ports, machines, authentication, and so on and so forth.

We also use AMP, Umbrella, SecureX, and Duo. They're pretty easy to integrate. I wouldn't say beginner level, but if you have a working knowledge of networks and security, you can easily get them integrated. Also, if you need help, Cisco's always there to assist.

We use Firepower Management Center — it's a wonderful tool. It has an awesome all-in-one pane of glass dashboard so you can manage multiple devices from one dashboard. It's also very easy to set up.

We used to use SonicWall. Cisco was purchased right before I came on board, but from my knowledge, we had issues with the licensing of SonicWall. We are a Cisco shop. Both my manager and I prefer Cisco over other vendors. We have more experience with Cisco and their customer support and the products themselves are just better in our experience.

The deployment was with all new networks, so the architecture was with a peer. We first sat down and discussed or laid out our network and what it would look like through IP schemes and everything else in that sense. We then figured out how many users we would have and decide what size of hardware we would need. We decided on what type of VPN connection and what certificates we would need. After that, once we were able to secure those tunnels and get communication going between our two locations, we then started tightening down our two networks as we have multiple networks within each location.

We had to decide what all needed to communicate with one another. Not every network needed to touch the outside world.

From start to finish, including production rollout for other areas, deployment took roughly one month. We did it all in-house.

Some maintenance is required involving security patches. Cisco is really good at deploying those or not deploying those, but putting those out and having release notes and upgrade paths and just the information behind all of their patches. Cisco does a really good job with that.

With any solution from anybody, I always think that licensing is a little high — but it's comparable to other companies. It definitely competes with the other vendors in the market.

If configured, Firepower provides us with application visibility and control.

The ability to futureproof our security strategy is definitely there. There are a lot of functions that we don't yet use. When I say we don't use a function, I mean that the functionality or the ability is not turned on yet simply because we have not gotten around to it. The ability is there, the capability is there. That also goes into the reasoning behind why we chose it.

Do your research, know your skillset, be comfortable with your skillset, and don't be afraid to challenge yourself.

Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of eight.

We use the platform to provide secure perimeter internet access for customers and also to provide secure networks or secure SANs for customers. We have a global partnership with Cisco and I'm a re-sales and security manager of IT services.

The top features for me are the filtering, the intrusion prevention system, and the AMP on small operations. 

To configure the FirePower it is required an external console. It would be nice to have the console embedded in the Firewall so you don't require an extra device. I'd like to see some kind of SD-WAN included as a feature. 

I've been using this solution for six years. 

The solution is very stable and we feel very secure with it. 

The scalability is no problem. 

The technical support is excellent. 

The initial setup is quite straightforward. I think someone who knows the iOS platform and knows about firewalls can setup the device. If you don't have experience, it will be somewhat complicated. If you know the platform, implementation is very quick. We've installed over 1,000 firewalls for different customers.

This is a very stable platform, and you can adjust the engine for malware protection. It is one of the best and a very reliable solution.

I would rate this solution a 10 out of 10.