Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs Symantec CloudSOC CASB comparison

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs. Symantec CloudSOC CASB

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Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

iboss

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) category, the mindshare of iboss is 2.0%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is 9.8%, down from 12.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec CloudSOC CASB is 0.7%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)

Featured Reviews

Matt Crockford

Head of Cybersecurity at SES Water

It's easy to roll out, and their understanding of our business made it seamless

One aspect we value about iboss is its simplicity. Their customer service is brilliant, and they are super responsive and knowledgeable. It's easy to roll out, and their understanding of our business made it seamless. We were impressed by the solution's mental health function, which can detect if someone needs help. It scans what users are browsing and flags warning signs so we can check to see if they are okay. We've had to use it a couple of times. The user interface is highly intuitive. Our IT team picked it up with minimal training. It's arranged so that it's easy to find where things are. Another advantage is the single pane of glass console, which gives you visibility into what's happening. We're not fully there yet because we haven't implemented zero trust, but we're excited about the possibilities from the demos we've seen. We launched a POC of iboss' ChatGPT Risk Protection feature two weeks ago. AI is a great tool, but you need to be careful what you put into it. My biggest fear is employees inputting sensitive corporate information or customer PII data into one of these chatbots. I was impressed by our trial of the feature. It's exactly what we wanted. Now, when a user goes to ChatGPT, there's a banner warning them not to share information, and we can block conversations containing customer data like bank details and email addresses. I don't want to stop people from using it, but we need visibility. We've only tried it on a test group of 15 people. You can configure it to look for specific keywords or integrate it with your DLP policy if you have that configured

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Jagadeesh Gunasekaran

Cyber security engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Saves us time, has good visibility, and a single dashboard

The solution is user-friendly and provides great visibility into threats. There are easy options available for specific workflow inspections. We can also get support by going through the Microsoft documentation, which is straightforward. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps helps us prioritize threats across our enterprise. It covers us from a compliance perspective and protects our organization's data. Data protection is a very important aspect of any new organization, as we need to protect our data from both external attacks and insider threats. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps helps us monitor for abnormal activity by insiders, which is one of the most important access points for attackers today. Additionally, the different cloud apps that Defender for Cloud Apps supports provide us with much more visibility into potential threats and activities on the internet. We have integrated Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps alerts with Sentinel. The integration is straightforward. We can find the configuration details on Microsoft's official documentation website. If we are familiar with how Microsoft products work, we will be able to follow the instructions clearly. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps and Sentinel work natively together to deliver coordinated detection and response across our environment. Our integrated Microsoft solutions provide comprehensive threat protection, covering most of the tactics and techniques relevant to the MITRE ATT&CK framework. Sentinel allows us to ingest data from our entire ecosystem. When implementing an SIEM solution, there are always prerequisites such as Active Directory logs, security logs, firewall logs, and DNS logs. These are important logs that need to be ingested into the environment. Sentinel has many third-party connectors available that make integrations straightforward. Microsoft provides the configuration details in the Sentinel platform. It is important to integrate all relevant log sources into the SIEM solution so that we can detect and be alerted to any type of threat factor, whether it is from an internal or external source. Integrating third-party solutions into the platform requires a separate configuration, but Microsoft provides the necessary information. However, we need to have the appropriate permissions to execute these setups. Sentinel provides a centralized dashboard that covers threat management and configuration. It gives us complete insight into what entities are accessing, as well as full details for investigation. We can see how the alerts and threats are relevant to suspicious activities, whether they are related to malicious IP addresses, suspicious ASHAs, or any other indicators of compromise. All of this relevant data can be seen in a single pane. Recently, Microsoft introduced a new investigation experience in a single pane. This means that we can now get a lot of details in a single pane, without having to go there and execute a query. There are a lot of new insights being developed in the Sentinel platform these days. It has software intelligence. They recently introduced Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence, which covers almost all IOCs. This protects organizational assets from threats and suspicious traffic associated with IOCs. If a match is found, alerts are generated. This is a very interesting feature. Another great feature is automation and logic apps. We can create a number of operations, such as posting in a team's channel if a severe incident occurs or sending an email notification. There are many operations available, so we can automate a lot of tasks. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps helps us stay compliant. It has predefined mechanisms in place to prevent attacks. For example, if an external user tries to access our SharePoint folders or files, an attack will be blocked. This is why it is important to give appropriate access to guest users. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps has many features and benefits. It provides a number of policies that can be configured to meet the specific needs of our security team. These policies can be used to customize cloud applications so that only authorized users can access them and perform operations that benefit the organization. In terms of safety and security, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is top-notch. Using the solution's automation features, we can suppress false positive alerts. We can also close alerts, lower their severity from "high" to "low" or "informational," or close them immediately with the appropriate commands. This will depend on the configuration automation rule and the perspective from which we are testing. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps provides a single console. We are also provided with Microsoft templates to enable workbooks instantly. Alternatively, we can build our own customized workbooks to provide better insights and improve our SOC efficiency and overall performance. Consolidating all of our security data into one dashboard has saved our security operations team a significant amount of time. From an analyst's perspective, it is now much easier to correlate events, investigate alerts, and visualize specific entities. For example, an analyst can quickly see all of the alerts associated with a particular IP address, or they can view all of the activity for a specific entity over the past 24 hours or 7 days. This level of detail and insight would not be possible if our data were siloed in multiple dashboards. The single dashboard saves our operations approximately 20 hours per week by eliminating the need to access multiple consoles and tabs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps threat intelligence can help us prepare for potential threats before they happen. However, it depends on how we develop the policies for the database to block or ignore things in our environment.

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cto543714

CTO at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Works very well in a hybrid environment in terms of DLP policies, but trying to do your own troubleshooting can be a little bit difficult

It does scale. They have different data centers spread out for you to do things. It scales just fine, but it is the setup and configuration that you have to do in order for it to scale the way you want it to. I know that some of the newer technologies, such as Zscaler, are doing SD-LAN type connections and things of that sort to improve performance and scalability. So, things are still evolving in terms of scalability. Depending on how you deployed it, you can run into some performance gotchas. If you take a VPN connection and try to overtax it, you can run into problems. You can't say that it didn't scale. You have to use a different method to get the traffic, or you may have to set up two VPN tunnels or things of that sort. So, if you want it to scale, you have to think it through and make sure you are deploying it in a manner to scale. It can scale, but you have to plan it and make sure you think everything through.

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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 security aspect of the solution, particularly the malware behind it, is excellent. That's something that really helped us out. It's not just a simple proxy that just blocks the insights of potential threats that come on behind it. They do malware detection and that helps us a lot."

"iboss is easy to use despite its complexity. Multiple engineers manage it, but it's significantly more straightforward to administer than traditional VPNs and web proxies."

"Granular setup, which was able to set different levels of filters using the OUs in the AD."

"The solution has massively improved our security posture, giving us full visibility into what our staff does online."

"The console is cloud-based, which is something I really appreciate."

"iboss is pretty scalable. They provide good support. The case managers you work with to coordinate what you need are pretty good."

"I would definitely recommend iboss for web filtering purposes to other organizations or individuals."

"We chose iboss for both zero trust and proxy (SWG) because their SWG was superior."

More iboss pros

"Defender helps us control which applications are being used and gain more security insight into remote and hybrid users based on user identity and log in location. You can also integrate Defender for Cloud Apps with Defender for Endpoint to extend its capabilities."

"The integration within the entire Defender suite is highly valuable because it allows for communication between different components and offers pretty decent correlations."

"It's very easy to install and it includes the Intune portal from Microsoft where I can control all the devices from one place."

"The most valuable feature is the seamless integration across different clouds."

"All of the features are valuable because all of the features are related."

"There are a lot of features with benefits, including discovery, investigation, and putting controls around things. You can't say that you like the investigation part but not the discovery. Everything is correlated; that's how the tool works."

"We have become more aware of what services our users are using, how often they are using them, and what data is being sent out of the organization and to which services. So, it is really a lot about visibility and helping us make decisions based on that. It drives some of our policy decisions for adding extra security controls."

"The most valuable features of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps include live, up-to-date information, which provided real-time alerts, and the ability to delve into detailed metadata information."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps pros

"This solution has improved my organization because it allows us to have visibility and monitoring over our global workforce connectivity to Office 365 and for Service Now."

"The value in some of these solutions is just the integration of technologies with their on-prem DLP solution. So, you can tie on-prem and cloud DLP policies together. You can apply on-prem policies to the cloud to have consistent policies in a hybrid environment. So, it works very well in that hybrid environment of on-prem and cloud."

"The active directory integration is very valuable as we can connect to the list of users that we have and the cloud control, the blocking, the access control of the cloud, can be handled by this product."

"The monitoring and threat protection were the solution's most valuable features."

"One of the most valuable features of Symantec CloudSOC CASB is its detection functionality. It uses the same base as Data Loss Prevention, allowing for close integration between on-premises DLP and the Symantec CloudSOC CASB. This integration lets you manage policies and incidents across both platforms."

"The ability to monitor for threats is the solution's most valuable aspect."

Cons

"File integrity monitoring would be very advantageous as an additional feature."

"Regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing, iboss is not cheap, and that's my only concern."

"For zero trust implementation, we encountered complexity issues, especially with a large infrastructure company ExxonMobil."

"One thing I would like to see differently with their Zero Trust platform is that some of the AI aspects related to high-risk activities have more false positives."

"I am currently doing a PoC of the zero trust aspect of it. Compared to other similar solutions, it is hard to get around each feature. It takes a while to get used to it."

"Fold that in with the risk intelligence they're getting from all of the different subscriptions they are a part of. Now, these security companies subscribe to things like emerging threats, databases, etc. You can fold all this intelligence to decide what's happening on an endpoint. I would love to see them start moving into that space. That would compete directly with Microsoft. Maybe that's why they haven't. Having that ability native within the solution would be great. The other area in which I would love to see improvement is more detailed descriptions of why they block websites."

"The area I would like to see improvement in is the ability with in the reporter to navigate directly to the content the user is traversing. It is kind of there, but it's not perfect. Quite frequently, I receive links that lead me to pages with error messages."

"The reporting feature needs improvement."

More iboss cons

"We are having trouble with our continuous reporting configuration and struggling with configuring the collector properly with our log parsing. We've also faced difficulties getting support for this issue. It's taken us months to figure this out after going through a couple of different support channels."

"The response time could be better. It will be helpful if the alerts are even more proactive and we can see more data. Currently, the data is a little bit weak. It is not complete. I can't just see it and completely know which user or which device it is. It takes some effort and time on my part to investigate and isolate a user. It would be great if it is more user-friendly or easy for people to understand."

"Sometimes the support is actually lacking."

"The insights could be improved, especially in reporting. While it is possible for me to see the usage from different cloud apps, determining if critical data has been uploaded or if it is just normal transport data is difficult."

"The areas of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps that need improvement are related to IAM, as they do not provide much support for local users."

"It takes some time to scan and apply the policies when there is some sensitive information. After it applies the policies, it works, but there is a delay. This is something for which we are working with Microsoft."

"Defender for Cloud apps is primarily useful for Azure apps. It has limited capabilities for applications based on other cloud platforms."

"They should continue integration with all other Microsoft security-related products. The integration with all the other products is still ongoing."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps cons

"They have some room for improvement in terms of being able to do troubleshooting. If you're trying to troubleshoot it, you have to work a lot with their backend people in order to get to a solution. So, trying to do your own troubleshooting can be a little bit difficult."

"The data security needs improvement. We should be able to leverage it a bit better for situations where someone may be trying to upload documents onto the cloud application."

"It's a niche product. Not many people use it, and therefore there isn't as much of a knowledge base surrounding it."

"I would like to see them develop the ability to integrate it with a central management system."

"The solution should work to incorporate some machine learning policies like IDM and VML."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."

"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."

"It is not expensive, and it is also not cheap. iboss is priced right in the sweet spot for the number of features it offers."

"We had the cost of purchasing a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs. However, the following year, the cost of just licensing was similar to what was paid the previous year for a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs."

"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."

"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."

"The pricing is a little bit high but right now, we are okay with it because of the compatibility with Office 365, Teams, and Azure AD."

"The pricing is fair."

"We are an MST and we do not pay for the solution. However, the price of the solution could be better."

"It is a little bit expensive. When you want to have the complete package with Office 365, Defender, and everything else, it is expensive."

"Our clients normally use the Microsoft E1 licensing, which is renewed yearly."

"This product is not expensive."

"I'm not totally involved in the pricing part, but I think its pricing is quite aggressive, and its price is quite similar to Netskope. Netskope has separate licensing fees or additional charges if you want to monitor certain SaaS services, whereas, with MCAS, you get 5,000 applications with their Office 365. It is all bundled, and there's no cost for using that. You only have the operational costs. In the country I am in, it is a bit difficult to get people with the required skill sets."

"The product's pricing seems fair."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps pricing and cost advice

"It compares well with the competition because they're all priced on a per-user basis. I've seen the rest of them. There is definitely a huge price difference between them."

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861,481 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

27%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Construction Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about iboss?

Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss.

What needs improvement with iboss?

For zero trust implementation, we encountered complexity issues, especially with a large infrastructure company Exxon...

What is your primary use case for iboss?

Previously when I used iboss, we did the POC for iboss for ExxonMobil. Four or five people wanted to move from our ol...

Which is the better security solution - Cisco Umbrella or Microsoft Cloud App Security?

Cisco Umbrella is an integral component of the Cisco SASE architecture. It integrates security in a single, cloud-nat...

What do you like most about Microsoft Cloud App Security?

It does a great job of monitoring and maintaining a security baseline. For us, that is a key element. The notificatio...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Cloud App Security?

My impression on the pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is that it's fair. I do...

What needs improvement with Symantec CloudSOC CASB?

After integrating the Gatelet with a live environment, users experienced connectivity issues because they were not im...

What is your primary use case for Symantec CloudSOC CASB?

The solution helps detect and control data in the cloud, focusing on Shadow IT and Shadow Data. The audit module help...

What advice do you have for others considering Symantec CloudSOC CASB?

I rate the overall product a six out of ten.

Zscaler Internet Access vs iboss

Comparisons

Compared 18% of the time

Netskope vs iboss

Compared 16% of the time

Cisco Umbrella vs iboss

Compared 14% of the time

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs iboss

Compared 10% of the time

Cloudflare One vs iboss

Compared 9% of the time

More iboss Competitors

Zscaler Internet Access vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Compared 20% of the time

Cisco Umbrella vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Compared 15% of the time

Netskope vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Compared 12% of the time

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Compared 7% of the time

Skyhigh Security vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Compared 6% of the time

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps Competitors

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs Symantec CloudSOC CASB

Compared 22% of the time

Netskope vs Symantec CloudSOC CASB

Compared 19% of the time

Forcepoint ONE vs Symantec CloudSOC CASB

Compared 19% of the time

More Symantec CloudSOC CASB Competitors

Product Reports

iboss

Download iboss product report

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Download Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps product report

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps report

Symantec CloudSOC CASB

Download Symantec CloudSOC CASB product report

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform

MS Cloud App Security, Microsoft Cloud App Security

CloudSOC, Symantec CloudSOC

Overview

iboss offers a comprehensive security platform designed for diverse use cases such as web filtering, data loss protection, corporate proxy services, and URL filtering.

iboss integrates advanced features to address dynamic security needs, leveraging its strength in SASE, ZTNA, AI initiatives, and cloud integration, while ensuring seamless operations for remote work. It excels in historical forensics, malware protection, and flexible cloud deployments. Users benefit from comprehensive traffic scanning, robust malware detection, and PaaS capabilities that reduce hardware management. An intuitive admin console ensures efficient management with content filtering and low false positives. SSL decryption enhances security, while DLP protects data in AI conversations. Deployment is rapid and scalable, allowing effortless integration with emerging technologies.

What features does iboss offer?

Granular Web Filtering: Provides precise control over web content access.
Traffic Scanning: Monitors data through multiple ports for security breaches.
Malware Detection: Ensures superior protection against malware threats.
PaaS Capabilities: Eliminates need for hardware management.
SSL Decryption: Enhances data protection by decrypting secure connections.
DLP Capabilities: Safeguards data during AI interactions.

What benefits and ROI should users consider?

Scalability: Adapts quickly to growing demands and emerging tech integration.
Rapid Deployment: Reduces time to implement security measures.
User-Friendly Admin Console: Facilitates efficient operations management.
Low False Positives: Increases accuracy of threat detection systems.

iboss finds significant application in sectors such as education, where web filtering for K-12 is crucial, and in corporate environments requiring robust proxy services and URL filtering for network security. Its adaptability is essential in scenarios demanding flexible, decentralized security frameworks, particularly for remote work setups.

iboss

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is a comprehensive security solution that provides protection for cloud-based applications and services. It offers real-time threat detection and response, as well as advanced analytics and reporting capabilities. With Defender for Cloud Apps, organizations can ensure the security of their cloud environments and safeguard against cyber threats. Whether you're running SaaS applications, IaaS workloads, or PaaS services, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps can help you secure your cloud environment and protect your business from cyber threats.

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps Benefits:

Provides comprehensive security for cloud applications
Integrates with other Microsoft security tools
Easy to use and deploy
Provides real-time threat detection and response
Strong protection against phishing attacks and other common threats
Highly customizable to meet specific needs of different organizations

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps Use Cases:

Governance, authentication, security, and compliance.
Detects shadow IT and anomalous user behavior
Controls access to applications
Provides auditing and filtering setups
Used for end-user compute devices, file monitoring, user investigation, and activity
Used for data governance, threat detection, and getting visibility over cloud applications
Used to identify information about applications beyond organizational boundaries
Prevent exfiltration and data filtration of corporate data
Used to deal with spam emails and detect shadow IT

Reviews from Real Users

Ram-Krish, Cloud Security & Governance at a financial services firm, says that Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps "Integrates well and helps us in protecting sensitive information, but takes time to scan and apply the policies and cannot detect everything we need".

PeerSpot user, Senior Cloud & Security Consultant at a tech services, writes that Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps "Great for monitoring user activity and protecting data while integrating well with other applications".

Simon Burgess,Infrastructure Engineer at SBITSC, states that Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is "A fluid, intelligent product for great visibility, centralized management, and increased uptime".

Microsoft

Symantec CloudSOC CASB is a cloud access security broker that provides visibility and control over cloud applications and services. It offers a comprehensive set of security capabilities, including data loss prevention, threat protection, and compliance management. With CloudSOC CASB, organizations can gain insight into cloud usage patterns, identify potential risks, and enforce policies to protect sensitive data. The solution integrates with leading cloud providers, such as Microsoft Office 365, Salesforce, and Box, to provide seamless protection across multiple cloud environments.

CloudSOC CASB also offers advanced analytics and reporting capabilities, enabling organizations to monitor and track cloud usage and security events in real-time. With its user-friendly interface and flexible deployment options, CloudSOC CASB is an ideal solution for organizations looking to secure their cloud environments and protect their sensitive data.

Symantec CloudSOC CASB Key Benefits:

Enhanced Cloud Visibility

CloudSOC CASB provides organizations with comprehensive visibility into cloud applications and services being used across their network. It helps identify shadow IT, unapproved cloud usage, and potential security risks associated with unsanctioned applications.

Data Protection and DLP

CloudSOC CASB enables organizations to enforce data protection policies and prevent sensitive data from being leaked or exposed in cloud applications. It helps detect and control data sharing, implements encryption, and offers data loss prevention (DLP) capabilities to safeguard critical information.

Access Controls and User Authentication

SOC CASB enforces granular access controls for cloud applications, ensuring that users have appropriate permissions and follow secure authentication practices. It helps organizations implement strong authentication methods, single sign-on (SSO), and multi-factor authentication (MFA) to enhance access security.

Threat Detection and Incident Response:

CloudSOC CASB incorporates threat intelligence and behavioral analytics to detect and respond to cloud-specific threats. It helps protect against account compromises, malware, data exfiltration, and other advanced threats targeting cloud environments. Real-time alerts and incident response capabilities enable organizations to take prompt action.

Compliance and Governance

CloudSOC CASB assists organizations in meeting regulatory compliance requirements and industry standards. It provides policy enforcement, auditing capabilities, and reporting functionalities to support compliance with data privacy and security regulations. This helps organizations demonstrate adherence to regulatory obligations.

Shadow IT Discovery and Control

CASB helps organizations identify unauthorized or risky cloud applications used by employees, offering insights into shadow IT. It enables IT teams to assess risks, enforce policies, and take appropriate actions to manage and control cloud usage effectively.

Cloud Security Assessments

CloudSOC CASB conducts security assessments of cloud applications and services, providing insights into their security posture and potential vulnerabilities. This enables organizations to make informed decisions about the adoption of specific cloud services and assess their overall risk exposure.

Broadcom

Sample Customers

More than 4,000 global enterprises trust the iboss Cloud Platform to support their modern workforces, including a large number of Fortune 50 companies.

Customers for Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps include Accenture, St. Luke’s University Health Network, Ansell, and Nakilat.

Globe Telecom

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs. Symantec CloudSOC CASB