We are consultants and we have customers using Azure Defender for the protection of their businesses. Many of our customers are in the financial industry.
Founder & CEO at Cloud Steroids
Effective ransomware feature, useful file system protection, and stable
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable features are ransomware protection and access controls. The solution has helped us secure some folders on our systems from unauthorized modifications."
- "The most valuable features are ransomware protection and access controls."
- "The solution could improve by being more intuitive and easier to use requiring less technical knowledge."
- "The solution could improve by being more intuitive and easier to use requiring less technical knowledge."
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features are ransomware protection and access controls. The solution has helped us secure some folders on our systems from unauthorized modifications.
This solution has been very useful for securing core funds and preventing them from being hijacked by any application or spyware for our banking customers. People can be susceptible to scams easily because they are not aware of the current threat trends. We are able to scan for threats which have helped us limit the risks in the future.
What needs improvement?
The solution could improve by being more intuitive and easier to use requiring less technical knowledge.
In a future release, the solution could improve by providing more automation and clarity in the autoanalysis. When we provide our customers with a Microsoft solution for security, Microsoft has to go beyond the basic expectations to impress the customers.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Azure Defender for approximately one year.
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Azure Defender is scalable. We have not found any issue.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support has been responsive. However, we need to be connected to the right level of support. For example, if you are a customer or if you purchased this solution as part of a certification, your level of satisfaction for support will depend on the provider you purchased it from. Microsoft will not be the one doing support for you. If you do not have premier support with Microsoft, as a cloud provider, you will have to support your customers when they are in need. Without Microsoft's premier support you only have break-fix support and if there is a major issue you will not have the help to understand what is happening, or how to prevent it from happening in the future.
How was the initial setup?
The implementation can be difficult if there is not any prior training. There is a lot of elements that have to be understood.
What about the implementation team?
We have an advisor that provides us with information to help us control and configure the solution. Additionally, they have assisted us with automation.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price of the solution is good for the features we receive and there is an additional cost for Microsoft premier support. However, some of my potential customers have found it to be expensive and have gone on to choose another solution. Additionally, if the customer does not take the full package from Azure Defender it makes it difficult for us to manage the solution for them.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Azure Defender an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. partner
Cyber Security Analyst at a security firm with 11-50 employees
Good security manager dashboard, that is stable, easy to use, and easy to deploy
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable features of this solution are the vulnerability assessments and the glossary of compliance."
- "This solution has the best security center, security manager dashboard that I have ever seen."
- "As an analyst, there is no way to configure or create a playbook to automate the process of flagging suspicious domains."
- "As an analyst, there is no way to configure or create a playbook to automate the process of flagging suspicious domains."
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features of this solution are the vulnerability assessments and the glossary of compliance.
What needs improvement?
As an analyst, there is no way to configure or create a playbook to automate the process of flagging suspicious domains. Azure Defender does not have this capability and that is one of the features that is very crucial.
When we receive an alert on suspicious domains, we have to do it manually. We go to VirusTotal, or AlienVault to confirm. It would be useful to have it done automatically.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Azure Defender for three months.
We are using the latest version.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's a stable solution. We have not had any issues.
How are customer service and technical support?
We have not paid for Azure technical support. We have not contacted technical support.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We have not worked with any other solution.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was straightforward. It was easy, very easy.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Azure Defender is a bit pricey. The price could be lower.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We are also researching Darktrace. We wanted to see the capabilities that it offers.
What other advice do I have?
Azure Defender and Azure Resource Manager are all a part of Microsoft Azure. We use all of them.
This solution has the best security center, security manager dashboard that I have ever seen. I would recommend using this solution. It has everything in one place, and it's easy to configure and easy to deploy.
I would rate Azure Defender an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
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Senior Security Architect at a transportation company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Provides very good compliance policies
Pros and Cons
- "Good compliance policies."
- "Our primary use case of this solution is to monitor infrastructure."
- "The documentation and implementation guides could be improved."
- "I think that the documentation and implementation guides could be improved."
What is our primary use case?
Our primary use case of this solution is to monitor infrastructure. I'm a senior security architect and we are customers of Azure Security Center.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature for me are the compliance policies.
What needs improvement?
I think that the documentation and implementation guides could be improved. It would make the implementation process easier.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using this solution for a couple of years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
This solution is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is scalable, we have a couple of hundred people using it.
How are customer service and technical support?
The technical support is fine.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was reasonably straightforward. Implementation took a couple of months and was carried out internally. It required four or five staff, including engineers, managers and admins.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The licensing costs are included and wrapped up in a suite of other products that we are also using.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend this product.
I would rate this solution an eight out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Software Engineer at JKIT
It helps to understand the infections and issues you are facing
Pros and Cons
- "It's quite a good product. It helps to understand the infections and issues you are facing."
- "It's quite a good product, as it helps to understand the infections and issues you are facing."
- "The initial setup is not actually so complex but it feels complex because there are many add-ons. There are many options and my team needs to be aware of all of these changes happening on the backend which is a distraction."
- "I don't know what the issue is but when we do the agent deployment, sometimes it works, and sometimes it fails and we need to go inside the virtual machine and manually install the agent."
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Azure Security Center for one year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I don't know what the issue is but when we do the agent deployment, sometimes it works, and sometimes it fails and we need to go inside the virtual machine and manually install the agent. That's been a bug that we've experienced.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
There are 5000 users.
I do the maintenance. We have 35 engineers who use it.
How are customer service and technical support?
Their support is good.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is not actually so complex but it feels complex because there are many add-ons. There are many options and my team needs to be aware of all of these changes happening on the backend which is a distraction.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Security Center an eight out of ten. Not a ten because of the bugs that we have experienced and because of the cost.
It's quite a good product. It helps to understand the infections and issues you are facing.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
Cloud Architect at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees
Reliable threat protection that is easy to setup with good technical support, but it needs to be more user-friendly
Pros and Cons
- "The technical support is very good."
- "We are using this solution to implement our CAS policy and it monitors compliance with the Security Center, and we also use it for threat protection as it detects any threats and provides threat recommendations."
- "It needs to be simplified and made more user-friendly for a non-technical person."
- "Azure Security Center should be more easily understood by a non-technical person. It needs to be simplified and made more user-friendly for a non-technical person."
What is our primary use case?
We are using this solution to implement our CAS policy and it monitors compliance with the Security Center.
Also, we use it for thereat protection. It detects any threats and provides threat recommendations.
What needs improvement?
Azure Security Center should be more easily understood by a non-technical person. It's more about the security before getting into the product.
It needs to be simplified and made more user-friendly for a non-technical person.
In the next release, I would like to see a better dashboard and more integration with IT sales Management.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Azure Security Center for one year.
We are working with the latest version.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's a stable solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Azure Security Center is scalable. We have ten users in our organization.
How are customer service and technical support?
The technical support is very good.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was straightforward, but you have to understand the product.
It took us 48 hours to deploy.
We have a team of two to maintain this solution. One is an architect and the other is a service engineer.
What about the implementation team?
We did not use a vendor team to implement this solution. I did it myself.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We are using the free version of the Azure Security Center.
What other advice do I have?
I plan to continue using this solution and I recommend it to others.
I would rate Azure Security Center a seven out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Cyber & Cloud Security Leader at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Good integration, scalability, and support
Pros and Cons
- "It takes very little effort to integrate it. It also gives very good visibility into what exactly is happening."
- "It takes very little effort to integrate it, and it also gives very good visibility into what exactly is happening."
- "From a compliance standpoint, they can include some more metrics and some specific compliances such as GDPR."
- "From a compliance standpoint, they can include some more metrics and some specific compliances such as GDPR."
What is most valuable?
It takes very little effort to integrate it. It also gives very good visibility into what exactly is happening.
What needs improvement?
From a compliance standpoint, they can include some more metrics and some specific compliances such as GDPR.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Azure Security Center for one and a half years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We have seen a few big downtimes in Azure where Office 365 was disconnected. I do see challenges in terms of stability, not just for Azure Security Center but also for Azure.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Microsoft being a big provider, Azure Security Center is quite scalable.
How are customer service and technical support?
Microsoft's community support and technical support is very good. They are very quick in their response and very thorough.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
In my previous organization, I have used Palo Alto. It is a pretty cool vendor-agnostic tool.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward. It takes a few hours.
What about the implementation team?
We implemented it ourselves. We have ten members to deploy and manage it, and they all are admins. We use it monthly or weekly for reports, and we also monitor it for alerts.
We are using the latest version, and it is a part of Azure. We keep on updating to the latest version.
What other advice do I have?
I would highly recommend this solution. I would rate Azure Security Center an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. partner
Sr Cybersecurity Engineer at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Reliable and easy to scale, with good remote workforce capabilities
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable features of this solution are the remote workforce capabilities and the general experience of the remote workforce."
- "This solution is stable, it's 100% guaranteed and I've never had any problems with it other than some planned IT downtime."
- "Pricing could be improved. There are limited options based on pricing for the government."
- "Pricing could be improved. There are limited options based on pricing for the government."
What is our primary use case?
We are using Azure Security Center for software development.
It's a cloud service that includes the security center and tailoring certain options.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features of this solution are the remote workforce capabilities and the general experience of the remote workforce.
What needs improvement?
Pricing could be improved. There are limited options based on pricing for the government.
The initial setup could be simplified.
In the next release, I would like to see more development in the area of NECES scanning or Splunk, or Universal Forwarding.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with Azure Security Center for six months.
We are working with Microsoft Azure for the government version of the cloud.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
This solution is stable. It's 100% guaranteed and I've never had any problems with it other than some planned IT downtime.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Azure Security Center is scalable. We've been able to scale pretty well for a workforce that has over 400 developers.
How are customer service and technical support?
My experience with technical support was more like a consultation. "Tell us what you need and we'll see if we can do that for you."
In some cases, they had to develop on top of the commercial product just to conform to certain government regulations and cybersecurity requirements.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Previously, we did not use a different solution, this is the first option.
How was the initial setup?
It was pretty complex. We had to go back and negotiate with Azure on a few of the options that were commercially available, but not in the government products.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I'm not privy to pricing information, but I know it's probably close to a million dollars a year.
The pricing is comparable. The features that we're getting are tailored to what we need.
It was the best fit for us.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
In the future, we will be looking at government brands of the same thing that are part of the DISA.
After looking at DISA's product options, they usually select commercial versions and government versions of commercial products like Azure. For example, Amazon Web Services, and Google cloud.
This was our first option or our first go-to solution because we were considering not only Microsoft but Amazon and Google as well.
Microsoft seemed to have most of what we need.
What other advice do I have?
I am currently working on my Cloud Security Certification.
For anyone who is considering this solution, from a cybersecurity standpoint, if they are doing any kind of scanning, vulnerability scanning for software or systems and they're feeding into the cloud, make sure to check whether the security center doesn't offer adequate options for them to work with. If not, then look into other software like Spunk. They look into everything and they have plenty of conversations with the staff. That's the cloud security provider.
I would rate Azure Security Center an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
System Administrator at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
Very good dashboard and quite stable but needs more granularity
Pros and Cons
- "The dashboard is very good. It gives our clients a lot of information and allows them to have a complete overview of the system. Everything is visible in one glance."
- "The dashboard is very good; it gives our clients a lot of information and allows them to have a complete overview of the system, with everything visible in one glance."
- "The solution is quite complex. A lot of the different policies that actually get applied don't pertain to every client. If you need to have something open for a client application to work, then you get dinged for having a port open or having an older version of TLS available."
- "The solution is quite complex. A lot of the different policies that actually get applied don't pertain to every client."
What is most valuable?
The dashboard is very good. It gives our clients a lot of information and allows them to have a complete overview of the system. Everything is visible in one glance.
What needs improvement?
The solution is quite complex. A lot of the different policies that actually get applied don't pertain to every client. If you need to have something open for a client application to work, then you get dinged for having a port open or having an older version of TLS available.
Even though the TLS is only allotted for a single application, single box, and everything else is completely up to date, it just gives us an inaccurate reporting of how secure the environment actually is.
The solution could use a bit more granularity.
For how long have I used the solution?
I believe we've been using the solution for one and a half to two years at this point.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I haven't had any real problems with the solution's stability. I'm trying to think of any complaints that anybody may have had. It's always worked whenever we needed it to. I'd describe it as reliable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is actually easy to scale. You'd be surprised how many cloud solutions out there that aren't scalable. I don't even know why some are in the cloud. As far as this solution is concerned, I've taken it up to a higher medium-sized company. I've scaled as high as 4,500 users. I'm just not sure if it is infinitely scalable. I don't know if it would scale into the tens of thousands.
In terms of increasing usage in the future, we'll use it as required. It all depends on the client for us. We're solely dependent on what they want and which solution they want to go with.
How are customer service and technical support?
It's like with any vendor, it's hit and miss. Sometimes you get the new person, sometimes you get the person that's been there for five years. You have to go in asking exactly what you want and use probing questions, and if you work with them enough, you learn what the right answer is. However, you ask those same questions, anyway, upfront. It gives you a baseline at least of where their technical expertise is. Just because they're on the help desk doesn't mean that they know what they're doing.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We use Intune for a lot of the app security purposes with Office 365, and then once we actually get into the AD section, it's just that a lot of people are really getting Office Secure Scores right now.
How was the initial setup?
I've had both complex and straightforward implementations. Some of them can be extremely complex. It's all just tailored to what the client wants. I have other setups where everything is very basic ad easy and all the client wants is some basic reporting and a few easy policies.
If you utilize everything, then it might take a while for deployment, and also the implementation could be extended. It's all very client-specific.
We're an MSP, so we have massive teams all over the place and I couldn't accurately say how many people it takes to maintain the solution. I know that, generally, you have one project manager and then you would have the main admin who was setting up the portal, but then you have other security personnel that goes in there and does the work on the different sections. It takes a couple of people, but I couldn't give you a hard number as to how many people a typical setup would need for maintenance.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I don't have any idea what the cost of the solution is. That aspect of the product is handled by a separate department.
What other advice do I have?
We're a Microsoft partner.
The solution works for us, however, a client has its own needs and requirements. It's not a one-size-fits-all solution.
I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
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Product Categories
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