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Pros & Cons summary

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Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Microsoft Defender for Identity has advanced significantly in recent years, offering features that integrate seamlessly with the Microsoft ecosystem.
It provides excellent visibility into threats and utilizes artificial intelligence for real-time threat detection and behavioral analytics.
The security monitoring feature is valuable for detecting and investigating suspicious activities and providing insights into historical account activity.
Microsoft Defender for Identity offers easy integration with Microsoft packages, including Teams and Office, and supports creating customized detection rules.
The auto-remediation feature and ability to sync between cloud and on-premise environments enhance security by reducing investigation efforts on false positives.

CONS

When data leaves the cloud, security issues arise.
Group-managed access could be improved by replacing it with broad-based access controls, and there is no option to perform remediation directly from the platform.
The sensors have a significant impact on domain controllers, affecting load performance.
Many false positives occur, such as internal IPs being mislabeled as external, causing inaccuracies.
Technical support and documentation require significant improvement, as they are insufficient for resolving issues efficiently.
 

Microsoft Defender for Identity Pros review quotes

Sachin Vinay - PeerSpot reviewer
Dec 3, 2022
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.
reviewer1688547 - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 6, 2021
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.
DS
Sep 9, 2021
Defender for Identity has not affected the end-user experience.
Learn what your peers think about Microsoft Defender for Identity. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Matthew Bouwer - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 20, 2023
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.
BS
Apr 13, 2023
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.
BK
Mar 31, 2023
The solution offers excellent visibility into threats.
EN
Apr 18, 2023
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.
Dumebi Chukwuemeka - PeerSpot reviewer
Dec 21, 2023
Microsoft Defender for Identity provides excellent visibility into threats by leveraging real-time analytics and data intelligence.
Nagendra Nekkala. - PeerSpot reviewer
Dec 15, 2023
It automates routine testing and helps automate the finding of high-value alerts.
Iñaki Martinez Urricelqui - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 17, 2023
All the integration it has with different Microsoft packages, like Teams and Office, is good.
 

Microsoft Defender for Identity Cons review quotes

Sachin Vinay - PeerSpot reviewer
Dec 3, 2022
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.
reviewer1688547 - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 6, 2021
The impact of the sensors on the domain controllers can be quite high depending on your loads. I don't know if there's any room for improvement there, but that's one of the things that might be improved.
DS
Sep 9, 2021
The solution could be better at using group-managed access and they could replace it with broad-based access controls.
Learn what your peers think about Microsoft Defender for Identity. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Matthew Bouwer - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 20, 2023
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.
BS
Apr 13, 2023
We observe a lot of false positives. Sometimes, when we go for a coffee break, we lock our screens. Locking the screen has a separate Windows event ID and sometimes I see it is detected as a failed login.
BK
Mar 31, 2023
The technical support needs significant improvement. Documentation for more minor issues in the form of guides or walkthroughs could help to resolve this issue. The number of tickets raised would decrease, removing some pressure from the support team and making it easier to clear the remaining tickets.
EN
Apr 18, 2023
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.
Dumebi Chukwuemeka - PeerSpot reviewer
Dec 21, 2023
One potential area for improvement could be exploring flexibility in the installation of Microsoft Defender for Identity agents.
Nagendra Nekkala. - PeerSpot reviewer
Dec 15, 2023
The tracking instance needs to be configured appropriately.
Iñaki Martinez Urricelqui - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 17, 2023
And when you are working in a priority IP address, Identity is not able to know that those IPs are from the company. It sees that the IPs are from Taiwan or from Hong Kong or from India, even though they are internal IPs, resulting in a lot of false positives.