Microsoft Defender for Cloud Reviews

We use Microsoft Defender for Cloud security, including endpoint detection and response, and user monitoring. We utilize every feature and functionality that Defender provides.

The threat detection capabilities of Microsoft Defender for Cloud have positively impacted our overall security posture. We can sleep soundly at night knowing that it is causing the system.

The most valuable features are the monitoring of users, endpoint detection and response, and the adaptability of the AI threat intelligence engine, which quickly adapts to customizations.

The pricing could be better. Additionally, while Microsoft Defender for Cloud adapts well to customizations, it does generate a lot of false positives if the agent is not running. We would also appreciate portion management specifically for Microsoft 365.

We have been working with Microsoft Defender for Cloud for three years.

Most of the features are in preview, which sometimes causes issues, but overall, it works well.

Microsoft Defender for Cloud is highly scalable. We have not faced any challenges with scalability.

Microsoft's documentation is very comprehensive, resolving 95% of issues. Thus, we haven't had much need to engage their support team. The documentation is sufficient for resolving most issues.

We handled the installation in-house with a team of two engineers.

The solution is subscription-based, and while it is generally affordable, there are often hidden costs. The overall pricing could be more competitive.

I highly recommend the product due to its comprehensive features and easy management, especially if your stack is on Microsoft. I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

We use Defender for network security.

Defender for Cloud is easy to use and enables us to automate routine security tasks. We save a few hours each week. Defender's single dashboard helps us centrally manage security operations and detect threats faster.

Defender is user-friendly and provides decent visibility into threats. We use multiple solutions in the Microsoft security suite, including Sentinel and Defender for Endpoint. They integrate smoothly to offer coordinated detection and response. 

Sentinel ingests data from our entire environment, allowing us to manage everything from one place. We don't need to go to multiple places to find information. Sentinel's capabilities are quite comprehensive.

Microsoft Defender could be more centralized. For example, I still need to go to another console to do policy management. 

I have used Defender for Cloud for two years. 

I rate Microsoft Defender an eight out of ten for stability. It's highly stable.

Microsoft Defender is scalable. 

I rate Microsoft support an eight out of ten. It isn't too bad. 

Positive

Setting up Microsoft Defender is straightforward. It took us around a month to get it fully deployed. Most of the implementation consisted of onboarding. It doesn't require much maintenance after deployment because it's a cloud solution.  

I don't think we've saved more money than we've spent. Defender is expensive, but we might see a return in the long run. 

I rate Microsoft Defender a three out of ten for affordability. The price could be a little lower. 

I rate Microsoft Defender for Cloud an eight out of ten. Getting all your security solutions from a single vendor makes things easier to manage. However, the Microsoft security suite is quite expensive.

There were many use cases. We were monitoring auto IT applications and creating internal processes to understand which ones were going to be allowed and which were going to be blocked. We created the policies internally. 

It's an IT tool to monitor employees' usage on the internet and of web apps. We created policies so that, for example, when employees reached certain websites, like games, they would be blocked. We created a message for the email that they would receive, and there were links for whom to contact if they needed to override it. We created all the processes behind it.

From a security perspective, it reduced the amount of risk for employees, contractors, and users who might try to go to dangerous sites, as we blocked them. It helped us to identify dangerous sites so that we could make decisions on blocking them or not.

The effect on time to detection using Microsoft Defender for Cloud was very positive. The policies we created were providing information as threats arrived. When someone clicked on a website or on a link that was dangerous, it detected that and our team was able to control the situation right away. It was very highly effective because they got a live notification as soon as it happened. It improved things very positively.

It also had a positive effect on time to respond. As soon as an alert was received or something potentially dangerous happened, a process behind the scenes that we created helped them to react immediately.

The first valuable feature was the fact that it gave us a list of everything that users were surfing on the web. Having the list, we could make decisions about those sites. 

Second, it tried to categorize the apps, from riskier to less risky, with a behind-the-scenes algorithm. Even though we didn't use that, it was a starting point for our first review of the applications. We started with the riskiest ones and decided whether each one should be blocked or not. The fact that it provided a risk rating was very valuable. 

And it's very easy to use. Those are the top three.

Six months to a year ago, which was the last time I used the solution, the algorithm that was designed to define whether or not a site is dangerous or not needed to be improved. It didn't have enough variables to make the decision. 

Another thing that could be improved was that they could recommend processes on how to react to alerts, or recommend best practices based on how other organizations do things if they receive an alert about XYZ. 

Also, the complexity in the amount of information for this process could be reduced to facilitate those of us who are implementing and using the system, and guide us as to exactly what is needed.

I used Microsoft Defender for Cloud for a year and a half.

The stability was very high. We never had any issues with it.

With Microsoft products, you can keep adding more information if needed. For the purposes of the tool, it covers everything.

We never used their technical support.

We didn't replace anything with this solution. It was something we added to what was already in place. Our threat department continued to use all the products that it had been using. This one was additional and brought more alerts.

The initial setup was straightforward because the platform was already in place. It comes with the system and you just activate it.

The first phase was creating all of the policies. Then we did a total review of the more than 10,000 apps and we started categorizing them in a different way than the tool does. It was a challenge because what the tool recommended was different from what we wanted to implement. We created our own policies.

We used a security consultant to help us, but that was for the processes we put in place, not for the tool, per se. It was along the lines of, "Okay, when we receive this, what do we do?" They helped us create policies and told us what the best practices are; everything that the tool doesn't give you.

It's very expensive in terms of the need to maintain it actively. You need a group of people in the organization to do the job because if the tool is sending information, a bunch of alerts on policies that we created, and nobody is reviewing it, it is doing nothing. Once you create policies, you have to have a very established group that, based on the design of all of the policies, will follow a process to take action on each of them. Some of them were very complex and some of them were very simple. Some of them were automated and others were escalated, depending on the danger. So it can be very complex, depending on how you implement it in your organization.

The tool doesn't solve the problem, it just gives you the information so that you can solve the problem. Solving the problem takes a lot of resources, a lot of time and, it turns out, money. So it's expensive.

I don't think it saves time because it discovers things that would never have been discovered in any other way.

We use Microsoft Defender for Cloud as one of the sources for our Azure environment. We have a managed detection response solution, and we add data sources to it, like SOC, SIEM, and SOAR solutions. We also want to have data in our Azure cloud environment.

We deploy this solution in multiple regions like Europe and Oceania.

We have multiple solutions like our data analytics platform and our system development platform. Our web shops use it. Almost everything is in the cloud.

We have approximately 2,000 end users.

The solution is deployed on the Microsoft Azure cloud.

The solution helps our teams to be more aware of security and protects our environment.

Most importantly, it's an integrated solution. We also use Defender for Endpoint. For Office 365, we use Defender for Identity. 

We have integrated some of these products into our MDR solution. It's not a Microsoft Sentinel SOC, but we have a SOC/SIEM from a third party.

It's really easy to integrate because it's just an interface, a Microsoft Graph security API. We can collect all the data and forward it to our solution.

This solution is for detection and response, so it helps us prepare for potential threats. We have special teams for threat hunting the data.

We use this solution for extra security in our environment. We secured our Azure cloud environment with firewalls and application gateways, but we also want to have trust in our resource groups. That's an extra line of defense for our security.

We don't use the interface a lot because we use it as a data source for our MDR solution. The MDR solution is our main interface.

These solutions work natively together because we don't just use Microsoft products as a data source. We use all kinds of security products as data sources, like our firewalls, gateways, and event collections from Windows and Unix.

Threat protection is comprehensive and simple. We have an enterprise agreement with Microsoft itself, but we also have CSP contracts with several parties, so we can easily get the licenses we need. It's very easy to install.

Sometimes it's very difficult to determine when I need Microsoft Defender for Cloud for a special resource group or a special kind of product.

In Defender for Endpoint, the software is capable of acting immediately if something occurs. If an attacker wants to encrypt the disc, for instance, we're able to react immediately. I don't know if Defender for Cloud has the same capabilities.

I have used this solution for about a year and a half.

At the moment, I think it's a very stable solution. We haven't had any problems with it.

It's scalable.

From Microsoft's perspective, it's fine. We don't have any issues at the moment.

I would rate technical support an eight out of ten. 

The initial setup is straightforward. It took 10 seconds.

We have a Cloud Security Provider, so I don't know how much time they spent on deployment.

The solution hasn't required any maintenance yet. We are trying to innovate each solution. It's an ongoing business process to innovate.

We haven't seen ROI yet, but we plan to. The first sign is safety first. Safety will cost money, so it shouldn't be too much.

Pricing is difficult because each license has its own metrics and cost.

We evaluated other options. We have a lot of other products like McAfee, but we are changing everything to Microsoft Defender.

We decided to switch because we want to have an overall standard that's enterprise-wide so that everything is easier to manage and the data it delivers is all the same. We wanted to have one view of everything.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten because we don't use all of the capabilities yet. At the moment, we still only use the data sources. I'm happy with it so far.

Instead of a single vendor security suite, I like having at least two so that they can challenge each other.

Microsoft Defender helps us prioritize threats across our enterprise, but we only prioritize our high-risk resources with Defender products.

It's difficult to say if the solution saved us time because we use it for our Azure cloud environment, so we're working in the cloud.

At the moment, we're not saving money. The solution costs our company money. It's like having insurance: It doesn't save costs, but it might save us costs if something happens. It's about risk.

It hasn't decreased our time to detect and respond yet, but it should be because we have our data source on Endpoint and in the cloud. It's an integrated solution. When we find something anywhere, we can act everywhere. We have more possibilities.

We typically use Azure Defender for securing our infrastructure-based virtual machines and database solutions on the Azure subscription. We've integrated a couple of the Defender agents into our on-premise servers too.

Azure Defender has improved our overall security posture. In particular, Defender's exploit protection mechanism protects our servers from unseen threats like process memory attacks, hash theft, or any direct script-based attacks.

Defender is just one component because the organization also uses endpoint security solutions and firewalls. This product is not an endpoint solution. It usually operates at the server level, improving the posture of the Azure cloud environment. Our end-users never deal with Azure Defender. It's purely on the administrative level. The server administration team handles it, so the end-user has nothing to do with it.

Defender is a robust platform for dealing with many kinds of threats. We're protected from various threats, like viruses. Attacks can be easily minimized with this solution defending our infrastructure.

The entire Defender family requires a little bit of clarity. There is a lot of confusion in the market, especially on the end-user side but also on the consulting side. Microsoft has launched four or five Defender products, including Azure Defender, which Microsoft renamed Defender for Cloud. They also have Defender for Identity, Defender for Endpoints, and Defender ATP. It isn't very clear.

I would suggest building a single product that addresses endpoint server protection, attack surface, and everything else in one solution. That is the main disadvantage with the product. If we are incorporating some features, we end up in a situation where this solution is for the server, and that one is for the client, or this is for identity, and that is for our application. They're not bundling it. Commercially, we can charge for different licenses, but on the implementation side, it's tough to help our end-customer understand which product they're getting.

I've been using Defender for Cloud for more than a year.

It's hard for me to talk about the stability of Defender because, in my experience, "stability" is not a word that is relevant to security. A security product is either good or bad. It protects me, or it doesn't. There is no middle ground.

If we are talking about crashes or other issues, I don't see any problems, and the scalability is fine. We can protect storage, key vaults, SQL servers, etc. Defender can protect eight or nine Azure services, and it all works fine, but it would be great if all Azure services could come under the umbrella of Azure Defender. 

For example, we use Defender to protect our SQL databases, but not all of our databases are Microsoft. I have to search for another security solution for the same database vertical because it's not a Microsoft database.

I am a solution designer and architect, and I incorporated Defender for Cloud into three different projects. The smallest had more than 200 virtual machines and 20 database servers plus a couple of Kubernetes and container environments. The largest is around 600 virtual machines on-premises and on Azure, and around 10 web applications, a couple of key vaults and databases, and some storage.

I have contacted Microsoft support, but I haven't opened any tickets for Defender so far. Generally speaking, Microsoft Azure support is quite good. 

The time needed for the initial deployment phase depends on the requirements, but generally, the deployment is quite fast because it's a cloud-native tool. They have just upgraded the Azure Security Center to add Defender.

When talking about cost versus value, you have to consider Defender in the context of Microsoft's cloud solutions as a whole. It's a cloud-native tool, so why is Microsoft charging so much? 

The features are good, but Microsoft created Azure, and they provide monitoring and backup solutions. It's also Microsoft's responsibility to offer security solutions, so why do they charge so much? Why isn't it incorporated into the old security center products? It should typically come with the security center. 

Defender for Cloud is pretty costly for a single line. It's incredibly high to pay monthly for security per server. The cost is considerable for an enterprise with 500-plus virtual machines, and the monthly bill can spike. 

If we're just dealing with servers and Azure infrastructure, then Defender for Cloud is the way to go. But if we want to cover endpoints, emails, and other entry-exit points, then we need to think about another solution

Symantec and a few other tools have end-to-end solutions that protect everything in a single console. You can't do that with Defender for Cloud. Depending on the client's requirements, Defender might not be the best option because it might not cover all the use cases that a client needs.

It's good for clients who are mainly or entirely dependent on Azure resources. If a client's infrastructure is more than 70 percent Azure, it's a good product because it has native control by Microsoft only. In other cases, it's a challenge. The product is good if you're working entirely within a Microsoft, like Windows Server, Azure services, or Office 365 services, but you run into a problem the moment you start going into macOS, iOS, Android, Linux, etc. 

The agent installed there for Defender works differently. But on the flip side, a competitor's product never addresses the spatial bias on Windows. Every product line is the same. Their agents behave the same way on Linux, macOS, iOS, Android, and Windows. That is the fundamental difference I see.

I rate Defender for Cloud eight out of ten. I would recommend it depending on your use case. It's a single solution that can address mixed infrastructure that includes on-premises, AWS, GCP, or Azure. Defender can provide security for all four.

My client, a construction company, needed to replace their antivirus solution, including their Azure and on-prem services. They decided they wanted to use Defender for Cloud, so I started to implement it for them. The license for their antivirus software was about to expire, and they didn't want to spend much money. They opted for Defender for Cloud to replace Symantec. System Center (endpoint protection), Security Center and Advanced Threat Protection were all consolidated into one product called  Defender for Cloud. 

The company I worked for was divided into several teams. We had an Azure Infrastructure team and workplace teams providing local on-premise services. The client was the biggest construction company in the country, with multiple locations. 

The strong point of Defender, especially when using Azure Arc to bring in on-premises systems, is that it doesn't matter where these systems are. They're just resources in the portal. If you see them and can install agents on them, it's fine. It doesn't matter how it's distributed or where the locations are. 

I believe that Microsoft Defender for Cloud raised our client's Microsoft Security Score to around 79 percent. That includes other security components. It's not just antivirus. There are all sorts of things that contribute to the score, for instance, the use of public IP addresses on VMs.

Our clients also saw some financial benefits because they didn't need to renew the Symantec license, but the biggest benefit was the ability to install Defender on Azure and on-premises machines from a single point.

Defender lets you orchestrate the roll-out from a single pane. Using the Azure portal, you can roll it out over all the servers covered by the entire subscription. Having that unified portal was nice, but it was a challenge. We first implemented Azure Arc, which allowed us to incorporate our on-prem machines like they were actual Azure resources. The single-pane-of-glass management is highly practical. We are accustomed to managing systems across different portals or interfaces, so it's convenient to do it from one place. That's a bonus, although it's in no small part thanks to Azure Arc. Defender then takes all the services it finds in Azure Arc and it rolls them out seamlessly as long as they ause Server 2016 version or above.

It's a severe issue when you need to install Defender for Cloud on Microsoft operating systems older than 2016. Operating systems released after 2016 will seamlessly integrate with Defender with no problems. Older operating systems don't integrate smoothly. The 2012 operating systems will continue to be used for years. The 2008 systems will be phased out, so that won't be a problem for long, but you need some quick fixes to install on a 2012 OS.

The older the operating system, the more difficult it is to detect if the solution is working. That was a significant problem. It works fine on a newer OS. On the older ones, we had to do some tricks to determine if it was correctly deployed and working since the integration of Defender in the older OS is a lot less. Microsoft couldn't help us with that.

Another thing is that Defender for Cloud uses more resources than for instance, CrowdStrike, which my current company uses. Defender for Cloud has two or three processes running simultaneously that consume memory and processor time. I had the chance to compare that with CrowdStrike a few days ago, which was significantly less. It would be nice if Defender were a little lighter. It's a relatively large installation that consumes more resources than competitors do.

I have been implementing Microsoft Defender for a large construction company. We started the contract about three or four months ago. I was only responsible for the installation. We aren't the team that monitors or maintains the solution. That was not my task. We were just responsible for installing it and ensuring it worked on every machine.

Defender is relatively stable as far as I can tell. It works great except for the issues with older operating systems. In some cases, you may need to come up with a workaround. 

The solution is scalable if you activate the Defender plan for all servers and containers. When you deploy new ones, it automatically picks them up and installs the components. It's perfectly scalable in that sense.

I rate Microsoft support five out of ten. You can open up a support ticket and get into Microsoft's general support chain. You need to explain the issue, and they'll get back to you. Nine times out of ten, you will get someone new and need to explain the situation again. That doesn't help much. In the end, we had to fix it all ourselves.

We had a contact at Microsoft Amsterdam who was helpful. He was more of a sales contact. He told us the best approach and turned out to be correct.

Neutral

It wasn't my decision to go with Defender for Cloud.  That doesn't mean that I would've chosen anything else per se, but those decisions are made on the managerial level. 

Installing Defender was straightforward as long as you're dealing with a more current operating system. On a post-2016 operating system, it's only a few mouse clicks. That's the beauty of the cloud. It arranges everything for you. The on-premise solution usually works the same. It's seamless. You activate the plan, select for which resource types you want to enable Defender, (including on-prem machines using Azure Arc) then hit "go." All that changes on older operating systems.

We had to create a design, test it, and get approval from management. We first tried it on a 2019 operating system, which was a piece of cake, but we faced challenges deploying it on 2008 and 2012 systems. That's why it ultimately took us three weeks to complete the deployment. If you don't have any older operating systems, it's quite effortless. 

We had four people working on the implementation, including three technicians. I was the only one from our Azure team, and there was another person from the workplace team who had access to the on-premise servers. He could log in to run some scripts and see if everything worked. We also had a project manager and a person from the client's team to test as soon as we were ready. 

I rate Defender for Cloud eight out of ten. It uses more resources than competing solutions, but that's the only issue. If you plan to implement Defender for Cloud, I recommend considering the operating systems you use. 

If there are a lot of Server 2008 and 2012 VMs, it might not be the best solution. It is still possible, but it's harder to monitor and manage. It's tricky to check if everything works. These issues don't exist as long as you use the 2016 version or above. 

I have a highly specific use case for Azure Defender, so I don't think I've used most of its features. We primarily use it to secure Kubernetes clusters in other cloud environments. For example, I have Kubernetes in Amazon AWS, and we're trying out Azure Defender to protect those Kubernetes clusters.

We also use Defender to scan the image repositories held in Azure Container Repository or ACR. We use Defender plus Azure ARC and Windows Defender. All three products work in conjunction to give us some security insights into our cluster.

We haven't fully implemented Azure Defender yet. Right now, we're at the POC stage. However, if people have a genuine use case, they should see its value, especially because of its cross-cloud compatibility. I don't think any other tool provides the same cross-cloud compatibility as Azure Defender combined with Arc, so that's a significant selling point for this product.

The security scorecard is something I find helpful. It tells me what's missing and identifies new vulnerabilities inside my registries. Once I publish the image, the scorecards automatically update. I don't need to constantly run a security scan for my images because the scorecards are updated by Azure periodically. That makes my job easier.

I haven't been using Azure Defender for long. It's been around three months. 

Overall, Azure Defender's availability is excellent. However, the Kubernetes security is a new offering that is still under development, so the service's availability and support are not mature at this point and definitely need improvement.

I rate Defender's scalability about eight out of 10. If you compare Azure Defender to a similar product AWS offers, there isn't much difference in scalability. The solution is able to accommodate all your requirements. I don't think I have ever reached a point where the solution couldn't scale to meet my needs. 

I deduct two points because you incur more costs as you increase usage, so it's more expensive when you have lots of logs flowing into the system. That is why I rate it eight. Otherwise, I don't see any technical issues there.

Azure's system could be more on point like AWS support. For example, if I have an issue with AWS, I create a support ticket, then I get a call or a message. With Azure support, you raise a ticket, and somebody calls back depending on their availability and the priority, which might not align with your business priority. 

I can't talk about Microsoft support generally, but I can speak to my experience specifically with Azure Defender support. I would rate it five out of 10. Maybe it's because this is a product that Azure is still developing on the side. I don't think they have made Azure Defender for Kubernetes available to the general public yet, so that could be why their support is not up to par. I don't know the reason, but I haven't had a good experience with the support.

It is just a POC, so I don't have many endpoints. The whole setup took three days for around 10 endpoints. They have an agent-based security system. It's always complex because you need to deploy the agent to all endpoints which is a lot of work to get it set up. 

We have still have not decided to implement Azure Defender because we are also trying out other products in the same line. Once the RFP process is finished, we will know which one we'll implement.

Azure Defender is definitely pricey, but their competitors cost about the same. For example, a Palo Alto solution is the same price per endpoint, but the ground strikes cost a bit more than Azure Defender. Still, it's pricey for a company like ours. Maybe well-established organizations can afford it, but it might be too costly for a startup. They should try some open-source tools. That's how it is today.

Compared to other products, Azure Defender's main advantage is native integration with all Azure services. If your company uses Active Directory and builds everything on Azure, you get it as a complete package. There's no need to buy another tool and set it up in your cloud environment. 

Everything is built into Azure, and if we go for cross-cloud development with Azure Arc, we can use most of the features. While it's possible to deploy and convert third-party applications, it is difficult to maintain, whereas Azure deployments to the cloud are always easier. Also, Microsoft is a big company, so they always provide enough support, and we trust the Microsoft brand. 

I rate Azure Defender eight out of 10. If you're looking for standard Azure Defender services like cloud posture management or application security, these features are all highly mature. Defender also has newer capabilities that they recently introduced, such as endpoint security, cross-cloud integration with Azure Arc, and Kubernetes runtime security. 

These are all new services, so potential users need to think twice before buying into it solely for these features because I don't think the support is there to encourage customers to buy the product. I don't feel confident about Microsoft's support in these particular areas. I would exercise caution before buying Defender for these particular use cases. 

It is our main solution for our Azure cloud infrastructure. We do about 1.1 million dollars in cloud spending every year. It's a quite big infrastructure and pretty much in our main system and we are planning on integrating with Microsoft Sentinel, which is going to be our SIM solution. Right now we don't use a Microsoft solution, however, Microsoft Sentinel is very complete and we're excited to dive into a POC. Right after I joined the company, that was one of the first things that I advised them to do and a couple of weeks later, we caught at least two big vulnerabilities that could have caused a catastrophic problem for our business. That's a true testament to the power of the tool.

The solution has improved how our organization functions. For example, the security score is the biggest improvement, as it's a compilation of all the results. That's where we have been doing established goals. When I joined the company and when we first implemented the product our secure score was about 35%. We are now sitting at 71%.

That gives us a clear direction as that's the most difficult issue. Azure is a complex solution. You have so many moving parts. If you say "I want to improve my security posture," it's hard to know where to start. That metric's going to give you an idea. You're going to take a look at your identity and access management strategy. You go there and you fix those issues.

Once that's done, you can take a look at your malware protection, so you see all the machines. You have the ability with this product. All of these actions compile percentages on a score and they drive up the score. That way, you know how good you're actually doing and how you can continue to progress.

We do a lot of mergers and acquisitions. One of the features that I like about the solution is it is both a hybrid cloud and also multi-cloud. We never know what company we're going to buy, and therefore we are ready to go. If they have GCP or AWS, we have support for that as well. It offers a single-panel blast across multiple clouds.

The most valuable aspect of the solution is visibility. You truly have visibility. That’s the first thing that you're going to have in the cloud.

The solution’s capabilities of assessment and real-time assessment is another big thing for us. In terms of remediation and capabilities, most of the time, I even have a quick fix, a quick button that I click and they're going to fix it for me, where they are going to provide me with everything that I need to do to fix that.

The main thing that I like about the tool is that Microsoft collects trillions of data points across their cloud and they leverage that threat intelligence to teach the machine learning AI-driven models to assess for security. We can even see across the cloud, and it’s so much better than going with a third-party product, where you don't have that advantage.

The solution has features that have helped improve our security posture. The security score is one of the biggest pluses. They do have a series of metrics that combine into a security posture score. Netsecure started giving me a good snapshot of where we are when it comes to security posture, and then we can drill down.

If you click on your secure score, you are going to be able to see why you have that calculated score. They have very good documentation surrounding how, for example, if you have 74%, why you do. You are going to be able to drill down and see where your weaknesses are and then you can address those items directly.

The compliance policy feature is great. They do offer support, such as PCIS. You have access and they can compare to your security posture and they can give you your score based on that, for example, how compliant you are with those tenders. That's another great aspect of the tool as well. That's all visual and on a dashboard.

The solution positively affected our end-user experience, however, not in any shape or even form that they can notice. They're getting all the benefits from it in the background. For example, security alerts are one of the main values about the users that I like. You have access to security alerts and those security alerts are giving you a real-time type of reading on how you are doing when it comes to threats. If there's something that can affect a user negatively, you have access to fix it before it becomes an issue. Therefore, while it has affected them positively, they never had to change anything that they're doing.

In the past, when you wanted to compile a list of resources that effected a vulnerability, it was kind of hard to do that. You had to use the graphic interface and write some queries for you to get that information from the Microsoft Graph API. Right now, with Microsoft Cloud Defender, they actually have that and you have access to that. Therefore, for me, it's pretty much a problem that has been solved. That was pretty much the only thing that I thought we could use. Then, yesterday, I saw that they included it. Therefore, as of now, I don't have any big issues with the product.

In the beginning, the score was shown using a points system. Now they made it into percentages, which is way better. It's hard to show you your C-level points. It required some explanation. For example, if you show them 2000 points, they're going to ask, "Okay, is this bad or good?" If you show them 75%, on the other hand, that they can understand. That's another thing that they made better as well.

Within this company, I've used the solution for about 10 months. I was also using the solution with my previous company for around a year and a half.

The product is pretty stable. The only thing that you've got to remember is that it takes some time. Some of the variabilities, for example, the remediation processes, when you apply them, it takes a bit. The remediation in order to count it has got to run the vulnerability assessment agent. Sometimes it takes a couple of hours for some resources. That said, it's pretty stable. I've never had any problems. It runs very well.

The scalability potential is one of the biggest aspects that I like, as it works with Microsoft, as an Azure back lane. As you add more subscriptions, all you have to do is just go and enable Azure Defender - in this case now, Azure Defender for all the consumer subscriptions that I have. That's it. It's free scale. It scales out very, very well. You don't have to do anything and you don't have to install anything on the Azure portal - it's already there. That said, you do have to deploy vulnerability agents, however, Azure does that for you due to the fact that the VMs are already being managed by Azure. You have all the security in place. It will deploy the agents and it's going to be seamless. You don't have any downtime either.

Right now, we have about 7,000 users. It's quite a good number, however, we are growing. We're adding companies every month. We're adding tons of companies and plan to expand usage as we grow.

I've been working with Microsoft technical support for more than 15 years. We have really good support, always. We do have an enterprise agreement with Microsoft, which makes support very easy. If you have Azure, you probably have an enterprise type of support. Every single interaction that I have had with them was pleasant. They were very, very precise and effective. We've had no problems.

We never had a different cloud solution. For us, choosing this solution right off the bat was a no-brainer.

The initial setup is very straightforward. It comes with the free version. It's out-of-the-box and already enabled for users for the most part. It gives you just a little bit of visibility, so you have to go with the paid version and the cost is not that bad. 

It's pretty much diluted into your Azure bill. It is totally worth the price. You basically go to the portal and choose the option and just enable online subscriptions and give it some time so that it can gain visibility. After that, it's going to deploy the agents. It takes 24 to 48 hours. After that, you're going to have tons of visibility and data coming back. It's pretty straightforward, very simple to set up. For me to roll out was about an hour tops.

You do not need a big maintenance team. I'm an architect and I'm also a very hands-on type of engineer. In most cases, I would say it's good to have at least two people especially if you have a global infrastructure. That way, you can have people in different time zones, such as Europe central time, for example, and in US Eastern time. For most aspects you have auto-remediation and you have automation that you can implement, which is great. I would say that two people would be ideal to manage the solution, especially for the remediation process. With the remediation process, you can engage other people from other teams as you're going to have to talk to the operations guys to say, "Guys, you've got to fix this, this is a liability." Therefore, two people dedicated to Azure would do it. It doesn't need to be dedicated to security, to Defender in this case.

I was reading some studies that the ROI is 200%. It's really good, due to the risk prevention and threat remediation processes.

I like the licensing due to the fact that it's simple. In terms of pricing, there's a very good ROI. The ROI is pretty great, and everything is diluted into your overall Azure costs. It's not a product that you buy, it's a contract. If you want to stop using it, you can stop. It's an on-demand type of product. I like that as well. 

It's very cost-effective if you compare it to other products, especially if you want to combine other features from a licensing standpoint. You're going to spend a lot of money if you try to implement various other options.

We do have some security, other security that is still in place. For example, we work with CrowdStrike. We work with a team solution. We have another team solution, which is not an apples-to-apples comparison. What Azure center does is very specific. It's very large. For us to do the same thing with any other security solutions out there, would mean we're going to spend a lot of money. Azure does not have competition per se. You would have to onboard tons of other products to do the same thing that they do. It's also simpler than the other solutions. The orchestration features that you have access to are great. It doesn't make a lot of sense to combine several other solutions and try to protect all your resources.

I am just a customer and an end-user.

I'm using the latest version of the solution, which is now the Microsoft Cloud Defender. They just changed the name of the product. They combined Azure Security Center and Azure Defender into Microsoft Cloud Defender and that's the version that I'm using.

For now, we are cloud-only, however, we have plans to enroll our on-prem devices as well, including servers, especially through Azure Arc and we are also looking at Azure Sentinel. We are going to have a complete ecosystem, similar to a Microsoft XVR, truly for our Cloud environments.

I was working with Sentinel in the past with my previous company, however, I was not able to fully roll out the product. Here, we're planning on having a Microsoft partner that's going to help us to onboard our Azure infrastructure and Sentinel, however, we are going to be enrolling a POC first.

I would advise other potential users that they need this, absolutely. If they have Azure, they need this. It's going to give them the visibility and the remediation capabilities that they're looking for and it's going to make them aware of issues that they are not even seeing. 

If a company has resources exposed to the outside, chances are that people are trying to get in. I'm catching people every single day trying to get in. It's really amazing what you see when you have visibility. Businesses that bring this on really need to involve the team. It's got to be a team project. Everybody's got to be playing on the same team. That way, a company can make sure they have effective implementation.

I would say, a company has got to watch very carefully the recommendations and the security alerts, especially recommendations, which is pretty much what's going to drive the score up and increase the positive security posture.

The alerts are going to give them real-time insight, like a temperature reading on security, including what's happening, who's trying to get in, who reports or attacks you and weren't successful, and how many times did they try? What kind of accounts did they use? Recommendations are going to help you look for activity and the security alerts are going to help you with the reactivity. You can react to events that are happening, however, you can't remediate issues that haven't happened yet. 

Overall, I would rate the solution at a ten out of ten. I'm a big fan. It makes my life way easier and gives me some peace of mind so I can sleep at night better.

Our use case for the solution is focused on cost management and security in a multi-cloud environment. We use it alongside solutions like SIEM tools and deploy it as part of a broader security strategy.

The platform has improved our security posture by providing comprehensive threat detection and response capabilities. It helps in managing security across various environments effectively. However, we occasionally encounter issues when on-site products conflict with this solution.

The product's most valuable features offer the latest threat detection and response capabilities. These features are crucial for our SMB customers, especially given the high inflation in Turkey, which impacts cost considerations.

The product's advanced analytics and reporting features could be improved.

I have been using Microsoft Defender for Cloud for about three to four years.

The product performs reliably across various environments.

The platform's scalability is excellent. It is well-suited for both small and large organizations.

The support team is responsive and offers valuable assistance.

Positive

The initial setup can vary in complexity depending on the existing environment and the number of users. It's relatively straightforward for smaller setups, but larger deployments can be more complex.

We handle the deployment and integration ourselves.

The solution's ROI is positive, given its comprehensive security features and integration capabilities, which justify the investment.

The product's pricing policy is generally favorable.

We evaluated other options, but Microsoft Defender for Cloud was chosen for its strong integration with other Microsoft products and comprehensive feature set.

The solution is robust, but staying updated with the latest features and best practices is crucial to maximize its benefits.

Overall, I rate it a nine out of ten. 

We have a managed detection and response solution, a type of SOC/SIEM/SOAR product, and we are adding data sources to our solution. We want to have data for our Azure cloud environment as well, so we use Microsoft Defender for Cloud as one of the sources for our Azure environment.

We use it as an extra way to gain trust for our environment. We have purposely secured the total Azure cloud environment with firewalls, application gateways, et cetera, but we also want to have trust in our resource groups. That's an extra line of defense we have for our security.

It helps our teams to have more security awareness because, first of all, they have to think about setting up Defender for Cloud, and the cost of Defender for Cloud is borne by those teams. So they are more aware of protecting their own environments.

It also helps automate routine tasks and the finding of high-value alerts because the alerts sit in the data source itself. It's easier to prioritize alerts.

The main advantage is the detection and response. Threat intelligence helps you prepare for potential threats before they hit. If something is there, we will detect it. And there are special teams threat-hunting through the data.

We have our data sources everywhere, on endpoints and in the cloud. When we find something anywhere, we can act everywhere, because it's an integrated solution. It gives us more possibilities to take action automatically.

We like the security aspect. Most importantly, it's an integrated solution. We not only have Defender for Cloud, but we also have Defender for Endpoint, Defender for Office 365, and Defender for Identity. It's an integrated, holistic solution. In our MDR solution, it's not a Microsoft Sentinel SOC, rather we have a third-party SOC/SIEM and they also do threat hunting for us.

It's really easy to integrate these products. It's just an interface, the Microsoft Graph Security API. We can collect all the data and forward it to our solution. We don't only use Microsoft products as a data source, but all kinds of security products. We have data about our firewalls, our gateways, and our event collections from Windows, but also from Unix.

Sometimes, it's very difficult to determine when I need Microsoft Defender for Cloud for a special resource group or certain kinds of products. That's not an issue directly with the product, though.

I have been using Microsoft Defender for Cloud for less than a year.

It's a very stable solution. I haven't heard of any problems.

It is a scalable solution.

We use it across multiple regions including Europe and Oceania. We have multiple solutions for our data analysis and system development platforms. Our web shops are using it. It's used for almost everything in the cloud. We have about 2,000 endpoints.

Microsoft's technical support is fine. We don't have any issues with it.

Positive

We have a lot of other products, like McAfee, but we are changing everything to Microsoft Defender. We are switching because, enterprise-wide, we want to have one standard for everything to make everything easier to manage. And we want all the data it delivers to be the same. We want one view of the truth for everything.

It's very easy to deploy. That is the least of any problems. It's just a simple yes or no in the cloud. It took 10 seconds.

We have an Enterprise Agreement with Microsoft but we also have a Cloud Service Provider contract with several parties so we can easily get the licenses we need. It's very easy to install. It's almost by default.

The solution itself doesn't require maintenance in the traditional way, but everything we're doing with it is about innovation. We are trying to innovate each platform, and each solution. Innovation is an ongoing business process.

It hasn't saved us money, as it's a cost to our company, but we're safe. It's the same as insurance: If there are no burglars then you don't need it. So it doesn't save costs but it might save you costs if something happens. Safety will cost money, but it shouldn't be too much.

The pricing is very difficult because every type of Defender for Cloud has its own metrics and pricing. If you have a Cloud for Key Vault, the pricing is different than it is for storage. Every type has its own pricing list and rules.

We don't use the full capabilities of Defender for Cloud so I don't know if it is the same as Defender for Endpoint. That solution is autonomous and acts on incidents immediately, based on playbooks for a type of incident behavior. Defender for Endpoint is capable of acting immediately when an attacker wants to encrypt a disk, for instance. I don't know if Defender for Cloud has the same capabilities, but it should.

In the discussion about going with a best-of-breed strategy or a single vendor's security suite, we have a mix. My thought is that I would like to have at least two big vendors, rather than one for everything. That way they can challenge each other.

Overall, I'm happy with Defender for Cloud. We're just at the beginning of using it but we want to extend our own solutions with Defender for Cloud as much as possible.