CRITICALSTART vs WithSecure Countercept Managed Detection and Response comparison

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between CRITICALSTART and WithSecure Countercept Managed Detection and Response based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about CrowdStrike, Arctic Wolf Networks, Huntress and others in Managed Detection and Response (MDR).

To learn more, read our detailed Managed Detection and Response (MDR) Report (Updated: July 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Managed Detection and Response (MDR)

July 2024

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Helped 793,295 peers since 2012

Categories and Ranking

Binary Defense MDR

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2024, in the Managed Detection and Response (MDR) category, the mindshare of Binary Defense MDR is 0.8%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CRITICALSTART is 0.6%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WithSecure Countercept Managed Detection and Response is 0.5%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Managed Detection and Response (MDR)

Unique Categories:

No other categories found

Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR)

0.1%

No other categories found

Featured Reviews

reviewer2329146

Cyber Security Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Jan 5, 2024

Offers excellent support, stability, and flexible pricing

The support is very timely and accurate. I would rate the support as a nine out of ten. The response times from Binary Defense have been in line with the agreed-upon statement of work. They have consistently followed through on the features and promises outlined in their quotes and statements of work. We are pleased with our overall partnership with Binary Defense and hope to see the relationship continue to grow. A good enterprise MDR provider, like Binary Defense, should feel like an extension of your team. Their approach makes it seamless and ensures the client feels supported, which might not be the case with other providers.

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reviewer1395576

Cyber Security Manager at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Aug 17, 2020

Offers the ability to close review tickets or alerts through a mobile phone and to interact with engineers on their side via the app

They could dig a little bit deeper into the Splunk alerts when they feel like they need to be escalated to us. For example, if a locked account shows up, they could do a little extra digging to verify that the locked account was due to a bad password on the local system. They could just do a little extra digging within the Splunk environment instead of pushing it onto us to go do that extra little digging. We actually created dashboards for our help desk group to be able to hunt down locked down accounts. We've asked CRITICALSTART to start using that as a means of validating the lockdown accounts before they just start escalating them to us. If we go down the endpoint protection route, then I could probably have other input after I've used that for a while.

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Rolf Cockerill

Head of IT at a financial services firm with 11-50 employees

Jul 2, 2024

We now benefit from regular account reviews and proactive event monitoring

Our security posture has improved. We previously lacked intrusion detection and response capabilities, but now we benefit from regular account reviews and proactive event monitoring. Their portal provides a straightforward way to report suspicious activity, keeping us well-informed about potential…

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The biggest aspect for us is that they are able to conform to our environment and utilize our tools. That way, we still maintain ownership of all the data and access to the applications, and we never lose control of the ability to run the solution ourselves if we need to."

"Binary Defense is comprehensive. We see most of the questionable activity. Once you see things a couple of times and are familiar with the processes, you know what those are. The level of activity is definitely favorable."

"The most valuable features are the SIEM and the ticketing function; the latter is very smooth and easy to read and understand. We don't have any issues looking at the ticketing information when we're trying to identify what's going on."

"Among the valuable features are the agent, continuous reporting, and dashboard. It has all the features we need and we haven't had to customize it, other than turning on certain features that we wanted."

"The most valuable part of Binary Defense is its team of cybersecurity analysts. Their analysts filter out the noise and only forward the critical threats that require a response instead of false positives."

"Binary Defense has a human service department that provides live monitoring for our systems."

"Binary Defense's most valuable feature is the 24/7 monitoring and threat hunting. Their team checks the latest breaches and how they're done."

"With Binary Defense, we don't just get an alert, but also a detailed rundown of why they're alerting us on it. They tell us what was executed, or the username, script, or IP. That way, we're not wasting time investigating."

More Binary Defense MDR pros

"The main difference between the other options and this one is the quality of the personnel within the SOC. It's their knowledge and depth and the way they handle customers."

"The quick interaction between the agents is the most valuable feature. If we have questions, they're quick to answer. If we make a change to our system, they quickly make the changes that are necessary to filter the logs correctly."

"There is a team of people who monitor our traffic and processes 24/7, so if anything raises a flag or alert, it will escalate back to me right away. That's the most incredible part: Humans working behind the scenes 24/7 to monitor our networks."

"From where we were prior to going into them, the service has increased our analysts’ efficiency to the point that they can focus on other areas of the business. It gives me the ability to allow analysts to do Level 3 and 4 work and stay out of the weeds of the alerts, where you tend to get alert fatigue. The service takes care of much of the Tier 1 and Tier 2 triage. It is more effective than what we had been used to, because it allows the filtering of Level 1 and Level 2 type alerts to be taken care of. This leaves less for us to handle, which is a good thing."

"My impression of the transparency of the data is that it has good detail. It allows you to see how many events have come in, how many of those events have made it down to their analysts to review, and then however many from their analysts to be able to close out, have been able to been escalated to us. It's a good metric that we can share with my management. They see the value of what the SOC is bringing on top of what my team is already doing."

"The new mobile app is awesome. It is one of the best I've ever seen. It's much better than its predecessor. It's more intuitive, a whole lot easier to navigate and get where you need to go. It's less repetitive and just generally easier to use. It allows me to not have to be sitting at my computer all the time. I can be on my phone or tablet or wherever I'm at. It makes it a lot easier to answer tickets and do that kind of thing."

"Customer service and their response are phenomenal. I would give their customer support a nine point five (out of 10). Our easy access to their SOC analyst, sales team, and leadership team instills confidence in me that they are there for us 24/7."

"The most valuable feature of their service is their tuning... If we were getting 1,000 alerts a day without them, they tune it until they know what to do for 999 of them, and one will make it through to us per day. That tuning is the most valuable part of their solution."

More CRITICALSTART pros

"Our security posture has improved. We previously lacked intrusion detection and response capabilities, but now we benefit from regular account reviews and proactive event monitoring. Their portal provides a straightforward way to report suspicious activity, keeping us well-informed about potential threats."

Cons

"We found a couple of bugs in the user interface."

"While my understanding is that they're working on this, I would like to see some more of the quantification or reporting."

"I would like to get more reports from Binary Defense about what they're blocking."

"The most significant area for improvement is in support for non-English speakers; we're a global organization, so many of our users are not English speakers, which can make interacting with them a challenge. There's no Chinese language support, so we must rely on what we can do with the internet. We don't expect Binary Defense to build a language staff, but details can get lost in translation when we assume the whole world speaks English."

"Binary Defense MDR could be even better with additional features, like automatic scans and file quarantine."

"The current reporting system could benefit from improvement."

"I would like to see more frequent check-ins with our security status."

"We should be able to isolate devices faster. They should shorten the time between clicking on a device to contain it and carrying out the action. That would be a welcome improvement."

More Binary Defense MDR cons

"They just did a user interface overhaul to the website portal that you use for troubleshooting tickets. The old one was fine. The new one is not intuitive..."

"They could dig a little bit deeper into the Splunk alerts when they feel like they need to be escalated to us. For example, if a locked account shows up, they could do a little extra digging to verify that the locked account was due to a bad password on the local system. They could just do a little extra digging within the Splunk environment instead of pushing it onto us to go do that extra little digging."

"In terms of responsiveness, when I open up an alert, sometimes it takes a bit of time to load. However, it only happened once or twice."

"There is room for improvement with the new UI, and that's about it. I would like to see a more intuitive design."

"The biggest room for improvement is not necessarily in their service or offering, but in the products that they support. I would like them to further their knowledge and ability to integrate with those tools. They have base integrations with everything, and we haven't come across anything. They should just continue to build on that API interface between their applications and other third-party consoles."

"The updated UI is actually pretty bad. Regarding the intuitiveness, it is fairly easy to use, but the responsiveness, on a scale of one to 10, is a one. It's really poor performance."

"It has frustrated us that they don't have a native Slack integration, because most things do now. That's something we've asked for, for years, and it just doesn't really seem like it's a priority."

"During the six-month integration and rollout, there were some bumpy roads along the way. There were communication breakdowns between the project manager, CRITICALSTART leadership, and us (as the customer). I expressed my displeasure during the integration in their inability to effectively communicate when there were holdups or issues. They were going through some growing pains at that time, but they have been right there for us ever since."

More CRITICALSTART cons

"It could improve the customer portal and possibly reduce prices slightly. It's very good because it includes user behavior analytics, detection rules, and thorough log investigation."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing isn't that bad, it's very competitive. I don't feel that it's over-priced and I don't feel that it's under-priced."

"Binary Defense has changed its pricing model from being primarily based on the volume of data to one based on escalations and incidents they handle."

"From the initial cost that Binary Defense came in with, we pared it down quite a bit over the course of 30 or 60 days. My leadership would say that their cost was high, but realistically, they were in line with the market."

"After we acquired this platform, we met with a number of different vendors. Binary Defense came in with a proposal that was surprisingly affordable. In fact, we were able to recoup the cost of their services within a short period of time. This is because Binary Defense is able to provide the same level of security as a team of two or three in-house analysts but at a fraction of the cost. As a result, Binary Defense is saving us an estimated $250,000 to $300,000 per year."

"It's valued at the right price. Even with the number of endpoints we have, we don't feel that it's a lot more than any competitor. In fact, it might be less expensive when you look at the fact that you're getting a full flex SOC out of it along with the tools."

"The pricing is very good. They are definitely competitive and they were lower at the time that we went with them."

"The pricing is on target. Working with their sales team on pricing negotiations was a pleasant process. They were very respectful of the constraints we had and I feel that we're paying a fair price."

"The solution's price is spot on; if anything, it's slightly below the norm for most services. Compared to building the same team internally, it would cost more to create the same amount of capability than what we get from an external team. Price-wise, Binary Defense is in a great spot."

More Binary Defense MDR pricing and cost advice

"Overall, for what I'm paying for it, and the benefit I'm getting out of it, it is right where it needs to be, if not a little bit in my favor. For what it costs me to actually have this service, I could afford one internal person to do that job, but now I have a team of 10 or more who are doing that job, and they don't sleep because they work shifts."

"The pricing of other services was so insane that they weren't even an option."

"As far as the expense goes, it's very competitive pricing and the services you get are almost like you have a person on your team."

"The pricing has always been competitive. They have always been good to us. They will make it a fight. They don't try to hide anything; it's always been fully transparent and well-worth what we pay for it."

"I've told CRITICALSTART that I think the managed service they provide is cheaper than it should be. It's a really good deal."

"It costs a lot for what we felt comfortable to spend."

"There are contractual penalties if their SLAs are not met. This commitment was very important in our decision to go with this service, because not having downtime is extremely important to us. The providers has not missed an SLA in the 18 months that I have worked with them."

Information not available

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

18%

Healthcare Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Retailer

Healthcare Company

Security Firm

23%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Binary Defense MDR?

The most valuable feature is reviewing tickets and the notes added by technicians.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Binary Defense MDR?

Binary Defense is reasonably priced, considering that it saves us from hiring personnel and deters threats that could...

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What needs improvement with Binary Defense MDR?

The only area I see for improvement with Binary Defense is their service portal. It could benefit from some enhanceme...

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Compared 100% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Binary Defense MDR

July 2024

Download Binary Defense MDR product report

Buyer's Guide

CRITICALSTART

July 2024

Download CRITICALSTART product report

Buyer's Guide

Managed Detection and Response (MDR)

July 2024

WithSecure Countercept Managed Detection and Response report

Download WithSecure Countercept Managed Detection and Response product report

Also Known As

Binary Defense Vision, Binary Defense Managed Detection and Response, Binary Defense Managed Detection & Response

Critical Start, CriticalStart

F-Secure Countercept

Learn More

Binary Defense

Critical Start

Video not available

WithSecure

Overview

Binary Defense provides a Managed Detection and Response service using an Open XDR strategy that detects and isolates threats early in the attack lifecycle. Expert security analysts in the Binary Defense Security Operations Center leverage an attacker’s mindset, monitoring your environments for security events 24x7x365 and acting as an extension of your security teams. When a security event occurs, Binary Defense analysts triage, disposition, and prioritize the event. Analysts conduct full kill chain analysis and supply tactical and strategic mitigation recommendations to your security team with the goal of increasing your organization’s security posture against the latest adversary threats.

Visit us online at https://www.binarydefense.com

The cybersecurity landscape is growing more complex by the day with the arrival of new threats and new tools supposedly designed for combating them. The problem is it’s all creating more noise and confusion for security professionals to sort through.

CRITICALSTART is the only MDR provider committed to eliminating acceptable risk and leaving nothing to chance. They believe that companies should never have to settle for “good enough.” Their award-winning portfolio includes end-to-end Professional Services and Managed Detection and Response (MDR). CRITICALSTART MDR puts a stop to alert fatigue by leveraging the Zero Trust Analytics Platform (ZTAP) plus the industry-leading Trusted Behavior Registry, which eliminates false positives at scale by resolving known-good behaviors. Driven by 24x7x365 human-led, end-to-end monitoring, investigation and remediation of alerts, their on-the-go threat detection and response capabilities are enabled via a fully interactive MOBILESOC app.

Countercept’s dedicated attack Detection and Response team deals with potential cyber threats to your organization in minutes. Countercept acts as an extension to your cyber security team, sharing our threat hunting expertise, helping your team learn and grow and supporting continuous improvement of your security posture.

WithSecure threat hunters spend up to 30% of their time proactively hunting for threats and evolving tools and techniques they use to detect them. The DRT investigates every alert or combination of alerts that represent a significant detection.
Countercept MDR’s proprietary Endpoint Detection & Response (EDR) agent and log collectors, which feed data into our XDR detection platform, provide excellent visibility of user, endpoint, cloud and network activity.
Countercept MDR’s 24/7 First Response service contains and remediates cyber security incidents before they have a chance to impact the business. Our proven First Response methodology enables the <1% of incidents requiring specialist support to be smoothly escalated to our incident response team.

We deliver operational efficiency and resilience to clients that enables them to achieve their goals.

Sample Customers

Securitas USA, Black Hills Energy, Lincoln Electric,The J.M. Smuckers Company, New York Community Bank, State of Connecticut, NCR

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Managed Detection and Response (MDR)

July 2024

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