Microsoft Defender for Identity vs Symantec Advanced Threat Protection comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Microsoft Defender for Identity and Symantec Advanced Threat Protection based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two ATP (Advanced Threat Protection) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft Defender for Identity vs. Symantec Advanced Threat Protection Report (Updated: March 2024).
765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"This solution has advanced a lot over the last few years.""The best feature is security monitoring, which detects and investigates suspicious user activities. It can easily detect advanced attacks based on the behavior. The credentials are securely stored, so it reduces the risk of compromise. It will monitor user behavior based on artificial intelligence to protect the identities in your organization. It will even help secure the on-premise Active Directory. It syncs from the cloud to on-premise, and on-premise modifications will be reflected in the cloud.""The solution offers excellent visibility into threats.""The feature I like the most about Defender for Identity is the entity tags. They give you the ability to identify sensitive accounts, devices, and groups. You also have honeytoken entities, which are devices that are identified as "bait" for fraudulent actors.""The basic security monitoring at its core feature is the most valuable aspect. But also the investigative parts, the historical logging of events over the network are extremely interesting because it gives an in-depth insight into the history of account activity that is really easy to read, easy to follow, and easy to export.""The feature I like most is that you can create your own customized detection rules. It has a lot of default alerts and rules, but you can customize them according to your business needs.""The most valuable aspect is its connection to Microsoft Sentinel and Defender for Endpoint, and giving exact timelines for incidents and when certain events occured during an incident.""One of our users had the same password for every personal and company account. That was a problem because she started receiving phishing emails that could compromise all of her accounts. Defender told us that the user was not changing their password."

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"Technical support has been helpful and responsive.""The incident management on the solution is very good. You get a lot of detailed information about an incident. You also get a lot of documentation in connection with the CVI or integration.""You don't have to buy a separate email security platform. You can enable that using their endpoint, and I like that. You don't have to have two agents running on the same box.""Real-time threat analysis is quick and takes action on threats immediately.""What I like most about Symantec Advanced Threat Protection is its notification capability.""Symantec Endpoint Protection provides end-to-end protection. Along with antivirus protection, it has a lot of key areas, including intrusive prevention, firewall features, and application and device control.""Endpoint to network protects the line.""All of the solution's features are quite valuable for us. We especially like the threat protection it provides."

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Cons
"There is no option to remedy an issue directly from the console. If we see an alert, we can't fix it from the console. Instead, we must depend on other Microsoft products, such as MDE. That is a significant drawback. It simply works as a scanner, which can sometimes put enough load on the sensors. Immediate actions should be possible from the dashboard because. It can prevent issues from spreading further.""The tracking instance needs to be configured appropriately.""Microsoft should look at what competing vendors like CrowdStrike and Broadcom are doing and incorporate those features into Sentinel and Defender. At the same time, I think the intelligence inside the product is improving fast. They should incorporate more zero-trust and hybrid trust approaches. They need to build up threat intelligence based on threats and methods used in attacks on other companies.""An area for improvement is the administrative interface. It's basic compared to other administrative centers. They could make it more user-friendly and easier to navigate.""When the data leaves the cloud, there are security issues.""The solution could be better at using group-managed access and they could replace it with broad-based access controls.""One potential area for improvement could be exploring flexibility in the installation of Microsoft Defender for Identity agents.""Defender for Identity gives us visibility, but we often get false positives from Azure that take us down the garden path. We go through 30 incidents each day and most of those are false positives or benign positive alerts. Occasionally, we get true positive alerts."

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"The product's support services need improvement.""The support for new OSs and older OSs could be a little tighter. They need to be more upfront about what protection services they're going to provide on new OSs. I haven't seen the Windows 11 version out yet. It is either already released in Beta, or the Beta will be released soon. There could be a little bit more advanced updates on what they're doing to help protect Windows 11 environments. They can let us know in advance so that we know it is going to be protected. We can't roll out the new OS without putting end-point protection on it. So, they should tell us what is their support model for that, and what are they doing to protect Windows 11. They're not telling me, and that's a criticism. The same issue is applicable to all the other antivirus tools. It is not just Symantec; all of them have this problem.""The security features need to be improved.""The cloud platform needs to have improvement in terms of the user interface and the different capabilities it has available. It needs to match the other leading next-gen EDR products that are available in the market. That's the reason why we are stepping away from Symantec. Their cloud environment is just generally lacking in comparison to others.""The support has dropped down to a five out of ten.""Scalability could be better.""There are some ‎features that would add value to this product. One of them would be a graphical presentation of threats that the system has encountered.""An improvement could be made on the reporting because then it would be easier to collect information and submit it for compliance."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "You won't be able to change your tenants from where you deploy them. For example, if you select Canada, they will charge you based on Canadian pricing. If you are also in London, when you deploy in Canada, the pound is higher than Canadian dollars, but your platform resources are billable in Canadian dollars. Using your pounds to pay for any of these things will be cheaper. Or, if you deploy in London, they will charge you based on your local currency."
  • "Defender for Identity is a little more expensive than other Microsoft products. Identity and Microsoft Defender for Cloud are both a bit costly."
  • "The product is costly, and we had multiple discussions with accounting to receive a discounted rate. However, on the open market, the tool is expensive."
  • "It is very affordable considering that other SIEM solutions are much more expensive and have many more licensing restrictions and fees."
  • More Microsoft Defender for Identity Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Pricing is good. It is nice to have a great product at a fair price."
  • "The pricing of this solution is inexpensive and affordable."
  • "Symantec Advanced Threat Protection's pricing is comparable."
  • "Symantec Endpoint Protection has an average price."
  • More Symantec Advanced Threat Protection Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:Microsoft Defender for Identity provides excellent visibility into threats by leveraging real-time analytics and data intelligence.
    Top Answer:One potential area for improvement could be exploring flexibility in the installation of Microsoft Defender for Identity agents. Currently, it is mandatory to install the agent on the on-premises… more »
    Top Answer:Microsoft Defender for Identity is like a personal security guard for our organization's identity. It keeps a close eye on how we use our identities across both on-premises and Azure Active Directory… more »
    Top Answer:Symantec Endpoint Protection provides end-to-end protection. Along with antivirus protection, it has a lot of key areas, including intrusive prevention, firewall features, and application and device… more »
    Top Answer:Symantec Endpoint Protection has an average price. I rate its pricing a five out of ten. It depends on the number of user licenses purchased.
    Ranking
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    2,927
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    1,630
    Reviews
    9
    Average Words per Review
    956
    Rating
    8.9
    Views
    1,175
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    657
    Reviews
    4
    Average Words per Review
    273
    Rating
    8.3
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Azure Advanced Threat Protection, Azure ATP, MS Defender for Identity
    Learn More
    Overview

    Microsoft Defender for Identity is a comprehensive security solution that helps organizations protect their identities and detect potential threats. It leverages advanced analytics and machine learning to provide real-time visibility into user activities, enabling proactive identification of suspicious behavior. 

    With its powerful detection capabilities, it can identify various types of attacks, including brute force, pass-the-hash, and golden ticket attacks. The solution also offers rich reporting and alerting capabilities, allowing security teams to quickly respond to incidents and mitigate risks. By continuously monitoring user activities and providing actionable insights, Microsoft Defender for Identity helps organizations strengthen their security posture and safeguard their sensitive data.

    Symantec Advanced Threat Protection is a single unified solution that uncovers, prioritizes, and remediates advanced attacks. The product fuses intelligence from endpoint, network, and email control points, as well as Symantec’s massive global sensor network, to stop threats that evade individual security products. It leverages your existing Symantec Endpoint Protection and Symantec Email Security.cloud investments, so it does not require the deployment of any new agents. You can deploy a new installation of Symantec Advanced Threat Protection and start to discover suspicious activity in under an hour. Using the proven technology in Symantec Insight reputation based detection, Symantec SONAR behavioral analysis with the new Symantec Cynic sandbox and file analysis platform, Symantec Advanced Threat Protection provides better detection and prioritization than other vendors, allowing security analysts to “zero in” on just those specific security events of importance.

    Sample Customers
    Microsoft Defender for Identity is trusted by companies such as St. Luke’s University Health Network, Ansell, and more.
    ECI
    Top Industries
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company15%
    Financial Services Firm14%
    Government8%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    REVIEWERS
    Comms Service Provider27%
    Financial Services Firm13%
    University13%
    Computer Software Company13%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization69%
    Financial Services Firm6%
    Computer Software Company4%
    Manufacturing Company3%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business17%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise67%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business21%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise63%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business39%
    Midsize Enterprise9%
    Large Enterprise52%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business7%
    Midsize Enterprise73%
    Large Enterprise20%
    Buyer's Guide
    Microsoft Defender for Identity vs. Symantec Advanced Threat Protection
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Identity vs. Symantec Advanced Threat Protection and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Microsoft Defender for Identity is ranked 6th in ATP (Advanced Threat Protection) with 13 reviews while Symantec Advanced Threat Protection is ranked 18th in ATP (Advanced Threat Protection) with 14 reviews. Microsoft Defender for Identity is rated 9.0, while Symantec Advanced Threat Protection is rated 7.8. The top reviewer of Microsoft Defender for Identity writes "Offers robust protection from insider threats, but the customer support is poor". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Symantec Advanced Threat Protection writes "Good antivirus protection but lacks next generation features". Microsoft Defender for Identity is most compared with Microsoft Entra ID Protection, Microsoft Defender for Office 365, Microsoft Entra Verified ID, Splunk User Behavior Analytics and Rapid7 InsightIDR, whereas Symantec Advanced Threat Protection is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Microsoft Defender for Office 365, Trellix Network Detection and Response, Check Point SandBlast Network and Fortinet FortiSandbox. See our Microsoft Defender for Identity vs. Symantec Advanced Threat Protection report.

    See our list of best ATP (Advanced Threat Protection) vendors.

    We monitor all ATP (Advanced Threat Protection) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.