What is our primary use case?
We just needed something that was intuitive and easy to use. It had a good record for catching viruses in the wild and things like that.
We have the cloud endpoint solution, so it is cloud Malwarebytes or the cloud EPP.
What is most valuable?
It is intuitive and easy to use. For the most part, it does a good job of catching things. It is good at stopping stuff. I did a couple of tests with a password cracker. I tried to load that on, and Malwarebytes didn't let me do that, which was pretty good.
It has a rollback feature that I haven't seen with any other company. If one of your endpoints are hit with mass ransomware, you could actually roll it back. I watched a demo of them do that, and it was pretty sweet.
What needs improvement?
The EPP solution lacks the sophisticated artificial intelligence required for automating reports and letting you know about things in real-time. It stops a suspicious activity in real-time, but it doesn't let you know in real-time. You have to look at a report, and then you find out that something is wrong. You have to manually kick off a scan.
With the Advanced EDR solutions, Malwarebytes has the ability to alert you in real-time, but they still don't do automatic remediation or quarantining of devices. That is something that you still have to do manually. So, the endpoint protection piece, which is just like their basic endpoint protection, lacks AI. For the advanced detection and response piece, there is an add-on that comes with it, but it still doesn't go far enough in terms of automatic remediation of viruses. It won't separate that virus from your network if something happens. You have to manually go there and do it.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution since 2016.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Its stability is fine. I haven't had any problems. The only thing is that it catches some of the programs as viruses. We have a program called Poll Everywhere that some of our staff members use, and Malwarebytes flagged it as a virus. Very often, we have to go in and update the hash on this particular software. Malwarebytes catches a lot of things like that. It is good I guess, but there are a lot of false positives.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is easy to scale, but it depends on what your organization is. If your organization has a lot of PII and you are a large company, then you might want to look at a different type of solution. One of the reports that we got back for Malwarebytes said that it is too commercial, and it is for big businesses like law firms and stuff like that, and we should probably use something else, but that was it. Malwarebytes also had a bad report in third-party testing. This company tests a product against all these viruses in the wild, and apparently, it did pretty poorly in that.
How are customer service and support?
Tech support is good. I haven't called them. You don't really have to call them because it is good at stopping stuff.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We switched to Malwarebytes from Sophos. Sophos provided good protection, but the customer support was just awful. We had to get away from them for that reason. Sophos also made it really difficult for even an admin to remove a product. Sometimes we had problems with the application, and we wanted to uninstall and re-install it, but it was just a nightmare trying to get that stuff off. It is a plus when you are trying to uninstall somebody's antivirus, but it is just hard for an admin who has a legitimate reason for going in there and removing it.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was straightforward. In terms of the implementation strategy, the only thing that we had to do was to create policies to turn off Windows Defender. It is recommended that you don't have two antiviruses running at the same time. We did that with a GTO, and then we pushed out the software through group policy. It was a big process because we had Sophos. We had to get Sophos off the machines and then deploy Malwarebytes.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Its cost is around $60 a machine. The cost of the total solution for 250 people is about $8,500 a year. If we add EDR to it, it will bring that cost up to about $15,000. The cost for Carbon Black is about $25,000, which is $10,000 more, but you get all AI functions with it.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We evaluated Carbon Black and Trend Micro. We had a demo with Carbon Black. It is a really good solution, but it is expensive, and there is a learning curve associated with it,
We use a research company. We had a meeting with them, and they gave us an initial bad report with Malwarebytes. The researcher thought that we were this huge company, whereas we only have 150 employees. The same person wrote a report saying that Malwarebytes was good. The report they gave us at a meeting contradicted another report they gave us.
What other advice do I have?
If you're a small company with less than 500 people, the Malwarebytes EDR solution is a good fit. It is also a good solution if:
- You don't have any DOD requirements for your data.
- You don't have a lot of PPI.
- You don't have a lot of confidential documents in your environment.
If you have strict DOD regulations or something like that, you might want to look at Carbon Black and Trend Micro.
I would rate Malwarebytes an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
*Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.