Microsoft Defender XDR Reviews

We're using it for our email filtering to check incoming emails and URLs. We're also using it for vulnerability management to see the status of our assets that are registered on the system. We also check it to see what kinds of threats and campaigns are currently being launched via emails.

It provides us with better insight into what's going on across our platform. It has also given us a very easy way to respond when threats or alerts come through. And when looking for someone in particular, it helps with that. It hugely improved our insight into what's going on inside the company's premises and environments.

365 Defender also helps find high-value alerts, but we haven't used it for complete automation. It has some automation features where it can try to block or quarantine things, but beyond the default automation configuration, we haven't explored deeper into using automation. The default settings work well.

And while we've always used one or two dashboards, this system has made it easier to have a quick overview on a single platform.

In addition, the threat intelligence helps prepare you for potential threats, to a certain limit, because it gives you insights into where your shortcomings are, your vulnerabilities. It also gives you some security recommendations to make improvements.

And the solution has decreased our time to respond because on high alerts you can get a quick response. The system will notify you very quickly if it detects something at a certain thread level or a custom threat level that you set.

Microsoft 365 Defender has a very great interface to help protect registered devices when it comes to web protection, which is very handy.

We also use the alert systems often. It's a great threat intelligence source for us, providing alerts for things it detects on the network and on the machines. We've used it often when there is a potential incident to see what was done on a computer. That works quite nicely because you can see everything that the user has done, including websites accessed, et cetera. And if something was on the machine, we can see what it was trying to do.

I use the alert system on a daily basis. It gives you a very good analysis of where something was found, which employee or which device. And it often gives you a good history on that. The alerts help me to monitor and check what is going on. That's a very valuable system to have.

We've also tried the attack simulation, which sends out phishing emails internally as a test to see how the users respond. We get feedback and use the training simulation as a result. We've only done that once, and it's something we want to work on a little more.

In addition, we're using the assets on the system as well as the inventory functionality. It checks all the machines to see what software is installed on them.

We've used a lot of the features on the cloud, although not everything to its full potential, but we've used 70 to 80 percent of all the features on the cloud.

In the beginning, it's difficult to navigate the system because it is quite large. Just trying to find your way and understand how the system works can be hard. After spending quite a lot of time searching it's a lot easier, but I wish it were a bit more user-friendly when you're trying to find things.

The information it provides is great, but for a newcomer, it is quite tedious and takes a long time to load. Here in South Africa, when you click, oftentimes you have to wait quite some time before you get to the next page. It's not necessarily internet-related. I think it's just that the service is a bit slow.

Also, while the solution does help to prioritize threats, unfortunately, it doesn't do so for the entire environment. The reason is that it only supports full integration from Windows 10 and up. It provides you certain information from your server environment, but when you start going with legacy services, it is a bit lacking.

Another issue that is sometimes a headache is that they constantly make changes. Things will be merged, they will get different names, or be moved around. Things will be added and other things go somewhere else. They do a lot of development to make the product better, but it's very frustrating having to search for stuff after they've moved it, because you don't always know that they have moved things. They might have little banners, but if you're just working and don't read them, you don't know where things have gone. 

I would also really like to see better integration with the server platforms for managing your server environment. That's something it currently doesn't do. For all the server environments, you either need to make use of group policies or SCCM to manage that independently. It can provide you information on the system, but it doesn't have control over your server line.

Also, I make use of 365 Defender on a business level and on a personal level. On the personal level, there is a lot less functionality. Something that would be very nice is that, for the level you are on, you would only see the product you are subscribed to. For instance, if you log on via the business, you have all your action areas, anything you can do and see, on the left. Because you're using it at a corporate level, you can see and do everything. On the personal level, or in a small business where you're only using some of the features, you still have all the same options, but when you click on them, it tells you that you need to upgrade or subscribe. They should only show you what you have access to, and not all the tabs and then say, "You need to subscribe to get access to this." It just clutters the whole area.

We have been using Microsoft 365 Defender for about two years.

Overall, it has 95 percent stability. We don't have any issues with it. It works well. Microsoft does provide frequent information when there are issues or delays. But the stability is very good.

We're still learning a lot about its capabilities. It's more capable than what we use it for. That is due to a restriction on our resources and availability to get to know the system even better.

We have contacted Microsoft tech support multiple times. They are quick to respond to the original request. Sometimes I have been quite surprised because they have replied within 15 minutes. Some of the questions we had were resolved quickly, on the order of 60 minutes. I had one that took almost two years to get resolved. But in general, they are quick to respond. Their support is very good and quick.

Before 365 Defender, we made use of Avast as our antivirus, which had its own web console. For malware protection, we used an on-prem Cisco IronPort system that was scanning all our emails. And most of our SIEM logging information was done manually. We had much less insight into what was going on in the company.

Because it was a new solution for us, we had a company that works with Microsoft assist us, to make sure that all the configurations were standard. But since then, we've maintained most of it ourselves. On our side there were no more than five people involved.

It's a very expensive product, but for any threat it has definitely stopped or protected us from, in that sense, it has saved money and time, by preventing things that could have happened. But is it affordable? No, it's expensive.

If you look at everything that the solution entails, and the big cost to companies, especially medium-sized companies, one would like to have a bit of a price decrease due to economic circumstances. The functionality is fantastic, but for medium and small-sized companies it's overpriced. It would be better if it were a little bit cheaper.

We did look at other solutions. In the end, we decided on 365 Defender because it was all integrated. It worked to our advantage because all the products that we needed were already on the machines. All the products that you get from the Defender area are part of the built-in Windows 10 features. It gave us a better way of controlling and managing things. Overall, it made more sense to have one central place to manage and control and be alerted.

My advice is don't be frightened when you start getting into the solution. If you are not used to the environment, it is a mouthful, and it can really scare your socks off. There's just so much to it that you won't really know where to start.

The best thing I can recommend to anybody who is starting is to get somebody who knows the system to give you a walkthrough. Also, look at the tutorials to see what the functionalities are. It will be beneficial for any person to get a good overview of what's going on in 365 Defender, the capabilities and how it looks. But getting in contact with somebody who has some experience already in using it will help you to ask where to find things. "Where do I go from here? Show me how you're set up, so I can at least see some of the functionalities."

My very first impression of 365 Defender was that I was looking for something, but I didn't even know where to start. It was too overwhelming. As I spoke to other people who knew about the system, they gave me an overview and that made it easier for me to understand and to know where to go.

365 Defender is our main deployment, but we've got the endpoints also connected on Intune. They work together to deliver coordinated detection and response in our environment. Our complete suite is pretty much all Microsoft. Our environment is a 50/50 hybrid. We use Intune for certain policy changes and some of the deployments. But because our environment has a lot of legacy systems, we make use of the normal, on-prem deployment services as well.

Sentinel is linked to our on-premises Active Directory. It helps identify things that are happening on-prem. For example, when a user's account instance gets locked out, it will show you, on Defender, from which local machine it was locked out. Or if certain things are accessed, it will show that information on the on-prem Active Directory. It works well. For investigating and responding to threats, it definitely helps by dumping the information in a centralized location with the alerts to identify a bit more flow pattern. If something happens that's not on the cloud area, but it's on-prem, it helps track and identify movement. The information from Sentinel is an added bonus.

Overall, Defender 365 has saved us time, compared to the old ways of doing things, but at the same time, I wish the site was faster. Sometimes it can be very slow.

Best-of-breed solutions versus a single vendor's suite comes down to personal experience. With best-of-breed, at least you know that they have been tested in the industry and have a lot of history behind them. Also, the redundancy would be a lot better. Going with a single vendor sometimes makes it a little bit difficult, especially if they are only focusing on one area. It's a difficult question. It might come down to the way someone was "brought up" in the security industry or the way that they trust these companies.

I give Microsoft 365 Defender a nine out of 10. Once you get to know the system, it's really awesome. It provides a lot of insights.

I'm a Security and Compliance consultant providing 365 Defender as a security solution for my clients.

All our solutions are Microsoft 365 products, including security, identity, etc., so we have better protection from advanced cyber attacks. It's also easier to ensure compliance with data regulations through the Microsoft Purview portal, which has templates for various regulations on medical privacy and personal data.

365 Defender helps us automate routine tasks and prioritize high-value alerts. Automation allows us to use time more efficiently. It makes functions easier by consolidating data from multiple Microsoft portals into a single dashboard. You can customize the playbook however you like and get a centralized view of the various components.  

The Threat Explorer feature helps us understand emerging threats in real-time and take steps to safeguard our environment. 365 Defenders saves us money because it's a bundle. If you purchased each of these solutions as a standalone product, it would cost you more than $60 per user per month, but you get them for $12 a month in a package. 

365 improved our detection and response times because we catch issues earlier in the chain of events. All the components of 365 Defender work together to provide instant detection. 

The most valuable feature depends on the scenario. For compliance, I like Microsoft Purview Information Protection and Data Loss Prevention. Sentinel is the most helpful feature for security. 365 Defender helps us prioritize threats across an enterprise. It's a crucial feature for the managed services team. 

I also have Defender for Cloud Apps and Defender for Office. Integrating other Microsoft solutions with 365 Defender is seamless. Microsoft has better documentation than some other solutions. I also work on AWS, but I feel more comfortable with Azure. There are some limitations with a standalone license, but integrating Microsoft products is a seamless experience that produces insightful analytics.

Sentinel enables us to ingest data from our ecosystem, giving us a complete picture of the entities associated with an incident. Those analytics are pretty helpful. We develop playbooks customized for any executive or developer-based summary. It depends on what we want to show and our creativity. 

365 Defender has multiple subsets, including Defender for Cloud Apps. When integrating Defender for Cloud Apps with apps on third-party cloud platforms like AWS or GCP, there are limitations on our ability to control user activities. If Microsoft added more control over third-party products, that would be a game-changer and help us quite a lot.

I have used 365 Defender for five years.

365 Defender is stable.

365 Defender is scalable. It's easy to create and manage groups, set policies, and add users. 

I rate 365 Defender support a seven out of ten. When I raise a ticket, I'm usually redirected to a third-party vendor like Convergence. I would prefer it if Microsoft India handled our tickets instead. That would be helpful. The third-party vendor sometimes doesn't have comprehensive knowledge of the product. 

Neutral

The deployment varies from client to client. Our implementation strategy is based on the client's business requirements and the RFP. You need at least two people to deploy 365 Defender, but you might need more support staff for larger jobs. 

It all depends on how a client wants to proceed, but we typically perform an audit before consulting to identify missing components or security controls. For example, if the client requires HIPAA compliance, we must control the data about specific patients. After following up on everything, we recommend the appropriate Microsoft product, and each has a separate timeline. 

I'm on the consulting side, so once we are done with the implementation, a managed services team takes over the maintenance on an SLA of one to three years. 

The price of 365 Defender is reasonable. 

I rate Microsoft 365 Defender a ten out of ten. Microsoft is a one-stop solution, and it has an answer for any problem you're facing. Before implementing 365 Defender, you should be clear about the problem you want to solve. Hiring a consultant can help, but typically, my clients know maybe three out of the five things they should know. 

We are yet to use Microsoft Defender XDR for ourselves as we are yet to procure the product.

Vulnerability assessment and just-in-time access are some valuable features of Defender for server plans. Additionally, the threat detection at the OS level is a very good feature of Defender.

Microsoft could improve on threat hunting and build more on threat detection and handling. The cybersecurity and cloud security posture features are a bit lesser than standard security products.

We have not yet used Microsoft Defender XDR as we are yet to procure the product.

I was working with CrowdStrike before Microsoft Defender XDR. CrowdStrike has advantages in terms of threat hunting.

We are doing it for the first time, so I have nothing to compare in terms of ROI.

The pricing is a little high, however, it is on par with other competitive tools in the market.

I have not evaluated other XDR solutions besides CrowdStrike.

I would recommend Microsoft Defender XDR to others as long as they are aligned with Microsoft products, cloud, or on-prem, especially if they are using Microsoft Windows architecture. I would rate Microsoft Defender XDR six out of ten overall.

We implement it on client endpoints and server endpoints. We also integrate it with Microsoft Entra ID for the identity part because the security part of Microsoft Defender is completely correlated to user activity.

Microsoft Defender XDR is important for the mitigation of threats, visibility of vulnerabilities, and identification of issues within the environment. It has been a leader in the market for consecutive years.

We have a single pane of glass for servers, endpoints, and mobile devices. It makes it very easy to identify which devices are at risk when you go to the vulnerability part. There are also recommendations. Especially for me, these recommendations are gold. You see exactly what you need. Microsoft Defender XDR is completely different from your antivirus solution. It detects based not only on signatures but also on the policies, so you are forced to harden your servers or client endpoints, which makes a much stronger solution.

Being a Microsoft solution, it integrates well with other Microsoft systems. The majority of the systems are Microsoft-based. This integration comes without the need to install a client on the local machine. It makes the life of the operators and whoever implements it way easier.

Microsoft has a range of Defender products. There is Defender XDR, Defender for Endpoint for clients and servers, and Defender for Office 365 which protects mailboxes, SharePoint, and OneDrive. Then you have Defender for Identity, which is integrated with Defender XDR. You also have Defender for Cloud Apps that is connected to Defender XDR. When integrated, you can get sources of threats, for example, from Defender for Identity connected directly on the endpoint. Defender for XDR protects the endpoint devices against ransomware and different threats. We need to see more holistically at all the Defender solutions instead of isolating them. There is an element of correlation of identity. For me, nowadays, it is much more important to protect the identity than the endpoint device itself because the majority of the vectors are coming from identity attacks. They are more than the viruses attacking the endpoints.

I do not have much experience with Linux as such. I am very focused on Microsoft solutions. I never focused on Linux, but I have worked with my peers, for example, on projects to enroll Linux devices. We needed to prepare simple scripts or puppet scripts to automate the process of pushing policies and automate the update of the antivirus. It is trickier. It is more complex to manage because of the nature of Linux itself. It is not as straightforward or integrated as Microsoft solutions, such as Microsoft Windows 11 or Windows Server, but Microsoft Defender still covers everything. There are some limitations regarding Linux servers and endpoints because you need to have the version of Linux that is supported by Defender, but at the same time, with whatever is supported, Microsoft Defender does the job. Linux and Windows operating systems work in different ways, and the way that antivirus interacts with the operating system is completely different. There is role-based access control in Windows. You have local administrators and domain administrators. On Azure, you define roles for users to access certain environments. On Linux, you have the root user, and as a core front operation system embedded in it, you do not have the least privileged access management solution. This comes with a price because you need to control much better to whom you give access. SSH keys, for example, are very important to be protected, which is a different protocol than the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). You need to protect Linux servers in different ways, which is very different from Windows. Defender or Defender XDR extends the protection, especially when you need to connect with Azure Ark, which is part of Microsoft services.

Microsoft Defender XDR has consolidated security solutions. Previously, you had an antivirus, and you had a different type of endpoint protection for servers, and then you had a web content filtering solution, which is part of Microsoft Defender XDR. It consolidates all the extra products that you require, but it does not give all the elements. It is not a firewall. It is not a web application firewall (WAF). It does not give you everything required as a security solution, but as an extended detection and response system, it gives a lot of leeway for you to meet your security objectives. If we compare it with other products, Defender XDR is much more complete than the competition.

The integration, visibility, vulnerability management, and device identification are valuable. You can automatically deploy the clients depending on how you are implementing the solution. 

The web filtering solution needs to be improved because currently, it is very simple. It is very important.

Integrations with Linux should be done in a better way. With the AI world and the security part, things are going to be much simpler and easier to set up, configure, deploy, and maintain. I am looking forward to new releases of Microsoft Defender XDR to have better integrations, but the web filtering solution is the main pain point.

I have been working with Microsoft Defender since it was released. It has been about four years. I started working with it when it was not even called Defender. It was Advanced Threat Protection. It then changed to Defender for Endpoints and then to Defender XDR.

I have not experienced many bugs or issues. Sometimes, you have delays in the response, but that is due to connectivity issues. It is a cloud-based solution, so you cannot expect to have a real-time response, but this can be improved by Microsoft. I know that they are trying to improve. I would rate it a nine out of ten for stability.

It is ultra-scalable. I would rate it a ten out of ten for scalability. 

I love Microsoft, but due to its growth, the overall support quality has decreased a lot. My recent experience with support was not that good. For the Defender part, it was not that bad. I would rate their support a six out of ten. Their response time and knowledge could be better.

Neutral

I work with Trend Micro. I work with Kaspersky. Trend Micro has its own cloud-based solution similar to Microsoft Defender XDR, but it is not the same. It has some problems. It is not as effective as Microsoft Defender XDR. Especially whenever it comes to vulnerabilities and recommendations, Microsoft Defender XDR is amazing because of its integration with Microsoft operating systems. Microsoft is much ahead of the competition.

I would never touch Kaspersky again. It is not because it is a bad product. It has been a very good product for several years, but because of the Russia and Ukraine war, it has become a prohibitive product at least in Malta to use. A lot of customers moved from Kaspersky immediately to different products. The majority of them went to Microsoft Defender XDR, especially because it also comes integrated with some products. Microsoft is bundling its own products, and Microsoft Defender XDR is very attractive to implement as a cloud solution. It is a no-brainer for the customer. That is where Microsoft has an advantage over Trend Micro, Kaspersky, and other vendors.

With Cloud servers, it is easy and very straightforward. You can almost do it automated, but in a hybrid environment, you have the element of the on-prem servers, which becomes a little bit more complex. You also have the element of Azure that simplifies the deployment process.

It can be difficult to deploy in the beginning because you need to consider different products and elements, but the deployment is the simplest part of the onboarding process. The configuration process is much more difficult, especially because on servers, you need to deploy group policy objects (GPOs) and set all the policy options to protect from the vulnerabilities. You need to configure the antivirus to protect from exploits. There are so many features and configuration possibilities that it becomes more complex to implement on server endpoints. On the client side, it is easy, especially when you implement Defender through Intune, which is the mobile device management solution of Microsoft. With a platform like Intune, it becomes easy because you have policies that assist you already out of the box, such as security baseline policies. With Intune, it is much easier to set a policy. It is way less complex to implement. When you have a hybrid environment with endpoints joined on a local active directory, the complexity increases because you need to deploy GPOs as well if you do not have Intune involved. It is complex to implement.

The deployment takes a few weeks, but it also depends on the size of the customer. If you have just Windows 11 client endpoints, it is easier to implement. Client endpoints are easy to implement because you do not need to test that much. You configure the policies. The policies are all known because of our experience. When it comes to servers, it depends on the server's workload. It depends on what type of service you have installed on the server side. If it is the IIS web server, you need to test certain policies that can block that service. You cannot simply go and implement the best practices of the policies because then you are going to make the server unusable. You are going to generate downtime, which is not ideal and also not the objective, so you need to be very knowledgeable on the infrastructure side and the security side of all applications. You need to study. You need to create a test environment and start implementing server by server. You require details, and it is complex to implement because of this reason.

I am currently doing an implementation for a company with 300 people, and it would take around two months to implement because of the number of servers and endpoints. You need to go into each and every device and analyze the environment. It takes a while. In smaller companies, it is very quick. Within a week or two, you can manage to implement it.

In terms of maintenance, there is no maintenance of the product, but there is maintenance of the environment. Microsoft releases frequent recommendations, and they detect new vulnerabilities very frequently, which requires constant maintenance of policies.

I usually allocate two people. There is one person more focused on the client endpoints, and the other one is more focused on the servers because of his expertise. We split the roles and responsibilities within the team.

It has not saved us costs, but we have invested in a proper solution. We have a better return on investment. We now have better visibility. We are investing in a product that gives what we need instead of a product that does not fulfill our requirements and our customers' requirements.

As a service provider, it is very hard to calculate an ROI. For customers, it is more of a return on value rather than a return on investment. If you have not been under any threat after implementing the solution, it provides the value you need. This is my point of view on security because there is no perfect solution, but there is a solution that works better than the others where you have much more control. With Microsoft Defender XDR, in my experience, we have managed to give that to our customers. Our customers are satisfied with the product, and none of them have replaced or changed Microsoft Defender XDR.

There is the cost of the license, and there is the cost of implementation services. Only by enabling a license for your user, all the features are not going to be enabled and the policies are not going to be configured. It does not work like this. You need specialized people to implement, monitor, and maintain the systems. It comes as a package.

I would rate Microsoft Defender XDR a seven out of ten for pricing. It is costly, especially on the cloud part. There is also Defender for Cloud, which is part of Microsoft Defender XDR. It is 15 dollars per server per month. It is worth it, but it can be costly. It depends on the company's size. That is the big issue.

If you have a company with ten employees and ten servers because you have your own infrastructure hosted within virtual machines, you need to protect ten client endpoints. It is cheap if you get a business premium license. It costs around 17 euros per user. To protect the servers, you need to pay an extra 14 euros per server per month. For ten servers, it is 140 euros per month. Per year, it is around 1600 euros. Small companies or companies with a small budget would not go for it because they do not want to invest in IT. They do not see this value. In my opinion, big companies can justify this cost.

In the countryside of Malta, it is tricky to sell the solution. I have to give them all the advantages. I always have a test environment, so I show them how it works, how the automated detection works, how it behaves, and how it acts on the threats. I give them an overview, and they get amazed. When it comes to the pricing, they get a little bit scared, but ultimately, they go because they see value in it. Everything depends on the value that a product gives and how you sell a product as a solution provider. An XDR solution provides value because it protects your assets. Your data is your major asset. If you do not have it protected, you can get hacked or have a ransomware attack. Companies are now starting to understand the importance of it, and they are starting to invest more. It is still a long way for us to have the mindset where they say that it does not matter how much it costs, we need to invest in security.

I would recommend Microsoft Defender XDR. It is the best solution in the market.

For me, Microsoft Defender brought a career change. It made me go deeper into the security products. Previously, I was more of an infrastructure guy. I was more focused on on-prem and Windows servers, but then I moved away from infrastructure. I work for a data center company, and I am a presales solutions architect designing solutions for financial companies, banks, and gaming companies or companies with online casinos.

A lot of people did not like Microsoft Defender because Microsoft was not known as a security company, but Microsoft has been investing billions of dollars every year in security, and now, they provide cutting-edge technology, especially with AI.

I have been following Microsoft, and I go to Microsoft events. There is a new product called Security Copilot that is going to be completely connected to Defender XDR. It will give much faster feedback and response to threats by issuing reports. Today, a security analyst takes four to five hours to prepare a report. With Microsoft Security Copilot and Defender, it is going to change massively. Within five to ten minutes, you can prepare a report with the Security Copilot solution. It is going to be released very soon, and I am looking forward to it.

Overall, I would rate Microsoft Defender XDR a ten out of ten.

We use Microsoft Defender XDR to protect our endpoints, computers, mobile devices, and emails.

In part, Microsoft Defender XDR provides unified identity and access management.

Microsoft Defender XDR can protect 98 percent of devices.

With Microsoft Defender XDR we can now manage all of our non-critical computers from one console. The management level and implementation level are easy. Microsoft Defender XDR is also cost-effective.

We have been using Microsoft solutions for over 25 years so it didn't take much convincing to start using Microsoft Defender XDR.

Microsoft Defender XDR has enabled us to discontinue the use of Kaspersky in our safe computers.

Being able to reduce the number of solutions used has been helpful to our security team's operations. The discontinued use of other security products has reduced manual correlation. Using Microsoft has a lot of advantages, especially in management. The reduction in manual correlation is important for our organization.

Microsoft Defender XDR saves our security team around three hours a day.

The most valuable features are spam filtering, attachment filtering, and antivirus protection.

Microsoft Defender XDR is not a full-fledged EDR or XDR. Any true XDR should be more powerful than what Microsoft is currently providing. For some public-facing companies, computers, and endpoint computers, we need additional security from CrowdStrike or other third-party XDR.

Microsoft Defender XDR does not stop 100 percent of the lateral movement or advanced attacks. Our machines use both Microsoft Defender XDR and Crowdstrike and we have had instances where attacks were missed by Microsoft Defender XDR but caught by Crowdstrike.

I have been using Microsoft Defender XDR for four years.

Microsoft Defender XDR is stable.

Microsoft Defender XDR is scalable.

We previously used Kaspersky, Norton, and CrowdStrike. We switched to Microsoft Defender XDR because of its streamlined management capabilities.

The initial deployment was straightforward. We pushed Microsoft Defender XDR remotely across our system consisting of 300 computers. We are a team of seven people and each of us was involved in the deployment process.

The implementation was done in-house.

Microsoft Defender XDR is expensive.

We did not evaluate other security solutions because I have extensive knowledge of most products, their strengths and weaknesses, and their overall capabilities. Additionally, considering all our products are on Microsoft 365, a cloud-based platform, and we already utilize its various components like mail, documents, and more, integrating Microsoft Defender for threat detection and management was a natural choice due to existing ecosystem compatibility and streamlined administration.

I would rate Microsoft Defender XDR an eight out of ten.

Microsoft Defender XDR is deployed across multiple locations and departments.

Minimal maintenance is required for patching.

We use Microsoft Defender XDR for antivirus, threat intelligence, and email blocking.

Microsoft Defender's XDR platform provides unified identity and access management. It has improved significantly, although other products remain slightly ahead. I would rate it among the top four or five XDR platforms I've used, and Microsoft is continuously enhancing its capabilities. Overall, it's a fairly good solution.

Consolidating identity and access management under one umbrella within Defender 365 offers significant advantages. This unified approach simplifies control and visibility, eliminating the need to navigate through different screens from multiple vendors. With everything centralized, we gain a comprehensive overview of all IAM activities and can easily access specific details through subcategories. The main page provides a clear starting point, highlighting key information and granting quick access to deeper levels of detail when needed.

While Microsoft Defender can effectively impede the lateral movement of advanced ransomware, it cannot guarantee complete protection. No system is perfect, and vulnerabilities will always exist.

Defender's ability to stop attacks includes its adaptability to evolving threats. Microsoft has been steadily improving Defender over the past few years, and they continue to do so. Several updates in recent months have changed Defender's functionality, making it more effective. While technology advances and tools like Defender improve, the skills of hackers and their tools also evolve. This necessitates continuous improvement to keep pace.

Adaptability to evolving threats is crucial. A static system is vulnerable to attack. Its unchanging vulnerabilities can be readily identified and exploited, allowing unauthorized access and manipulation. Constant improvement is necessary to maintain security.

While we have reduced our reliance on other products, we haven't eliminated them at this time. We are actively reducing our use of other products as we progress. Once we have completed the configuration and setup process for Defender XDR, we can then fully transition to using it as our primary product.

Defender XDR has saved our security team approximately two hours per day. Automation is improving steadily, allowing us to automate audit file processing and scheduling. This provides us with continuous insight into our environment. The main page offers a high-level overview of current activity, enabling us to quickly identify any anomalies. Our security team can then address these anomalies promptly.

The threat intelligence is excellent. Email collaboration is very good. Device protection is useful. Overall, 90 percent of Microsoft Defender XDR is used weekly, primarily for email collaboration.

Advanced attacks could use an improvement.

I have been using Microsoft Defender XDR for almost four years.

I would rate the stability of Microsoft Defender XDR a nine out of ten.

Microsoft Defender XDR is scalable and we are planning to increase the usage.

The Microsoft technical support I used in the past was quite good. They were typically responsive and efficient, providing solutions quickly. However, I haven't needed their assistance in the last year, so I can't offer an updated assessment.

Our past experience includes Sophos, Check Point, and ESET. We briefly utilized SentinelOne as well, but ultimately opted for Microsoft Defender XDR. We had Defender included in our purchases but it wasn't being utilized fully until I fine-tuned and set it up to work more efficiently.

I would rate Microsoft Defender XDR an eight out of ten.

We require three people for maintenance.

We have Microsoft Defender XDR deployed across multiple locations, roles, and teams.

Before implementing Microsoft Defender XDR, ensure that all the features will be utilized otherwise it is more cost-effective to go with a smaller package that includes only the features needed by the organization.

We use 365 Defender with Outlook, Teams, and SharePoint. Our organization extensively uses these products as do the clients we serve. Our goal is to secure those email, SharePoint, and Teams environments.

Our Microsoft security solution has helped eliminate having to look at multiple dashboards. For a wholesale view over the entire infrastructure, Sentinel is the place to go. But M365 Defender alone only covers 30 to 40 percent of the infrastructure.

We have saved a lot of time compared to having to do tasks with other tools. With Microsoft, it's easier for us to manage and handle them. It saves us about 40 percent of the time it would have taken us. That includes the automating of detection and response.

The most valuable feature is the DLP because that's where we can have an added data protection layer and extend it not just to emails but to the documents that users are working on. We can make sure that sensitive data is tagged and flagged if unauthorized parties are using it.

The information that the solution provides is pretty clear because I have an overall picture from the compliance dashboard, which is now called the Azure Purview Compliance dashboard or manager. It has all the information, including the DLP information, sensitive data being shared, threat protection, and attacks. All of that is on a single dashboard where I see what the state of security is.

We use the entire suite of Purview features, including Sentinel, Defender for Cloud Apps, Defender for Endpoint, and even new features like Microsoft Defender for DevOps. Sentinel is the out-of-the-box SIEM tool that should definitely be used for more visibility on the M365 side. Of course, we have the compliance dashboard, but Sentinel acts as the single point of contact for visibility into all devices. That way we can see, if there are any threats or vulnerabilities, what the dependent resources are. Sentinel helps give us that bigger picture. We also use Defender for Identity and Defender for Cloud, with different features for the different aspects within the cloud, such as various servers and DNS, et cetera.

With its different connectors, Sentinel enables us to collect data from our entire ecosystem. All the logs are injected into a workspace in Sentinel where Sentinel can analyze them. If we unlock the Microsoft threat intelligence program, which is part of Sentinel, we can investigate threats and respond holistically from one.

Integrating these products is pretty simple. Microsoft Sentinel integrates really fast. Obviously, it's from the same stack so it's easy for us to integrate with just the click of a button. The connectors then help us integrate these services.

If we have all these products in use, we can achieve a 90 to 95 percent security maturity model, without requiring any other vendors' solutions to protect resources.

There are two areas where I feel there is no Microsoft solution. One is vulnerability management, where Microsoft is partnered with Qualys. The other is a penetration testing tool on the preventive side. That would be more for an ad hoc request and not for everyday functions. Apart from these, all the other areas can be covered with Microsoft solutions.

There is definitely scope for improvement in the automation area. Because the solution is a SaaS platform, we don't have the overall ability to automate stuff. By integrating Microsoft 365 Defender with Sentinel, we can definitely automate things. We can leverage playbooks, and execute Terraform scripts. But directly automating tasks in the 365 Defender is something we have to do with PowerShell, which is then connected to Exchange Online. There is no direct way to go ahead because it's a SaaS platform. But if you integrate it with Sentinel, where all the alerts are created and action needs to be taken, it is pretty comfortable for automation.

Also, I would like to see it be a lot less policy driven. On the M365 side, there are a lot of policies that we need to enable to achieve a certain task. There is no direct solution; rather, there are a lot of workarounds.

I understand that Microsoft is dealing with a lot of tools at once and having a direct solution is not viable. But I would hope that Microsoft can improve that side of it.

I have been using Microsoft 365 Defender for more than five years.

It's a pretty stable solution and in terms of the SLAs it is pretty good. When it comes to applying policies and the standard documentation that Microsoft provides, everything works according to that. I would rate the stability a nine out of 10.

It surely is a scalable solution, being a service that Microsoft offers.

The technical support is not great. I have been working with these Microsoft products for quite some time, and I have raised issues and contacted them. Every support case I have raised has needed escalation. From my experience, the first-line support team doesn't have anything other than out-of-the-box solutions. Everything with that level of support is pretty standard, SOP-driven, and documentation driven. That is nice, but only to a certain point. When we are talking about the SOP that a level-one engineer does, that's when the support is very poor.

Negative

We previously had on-prem solutions. For Exchange and for endpoints, we used to have McAfee, but that was more than five years ago. Previously, Defender for M365 used to be ATP, Advanced Threat Protection, and that's when we started using it.

Previously, we had many things on-prem, such as Exchange Servers, SharePoint, and database servers. But as Microsoft drove toward cloud-native solutions and moved Exchange, SharePoint, and Dynamics 365 online, moving to M365 was a part of the move.

There is no straightforward solution with Microsoft. There are definitely a few restrictions and limitations. We should go ahead and call that out and there were definitely challenges.

The major challenge was moving the mailboxes from on-prem Exchange to Exchange Online. That was not straightforward because the goal was not to lose any emails, and that certain format-related issues be taken care of.

We followed a waterfall method with a proper plan of action. We performed a PoC first, to make sure that the test users were migrated successfully. Once that was done, we did a proper plan in terms of department hierarchy for migrating our departments and detailed a plan of action in case there were any failures. We then did a proper pilot where we chose about 25 mailboxes for migration, and then we went ahead and migrated everyone. 

One of the reasons it took six months was there were only five of us involved.

Because it is a SaaS service, Microsoft promises three nines of uptime. There is no maintenance on our side.

We are seeing a return on investment compared to the same types of solutions that we used to have five years ago. We would have spent more than what we are spending right now. It's not just about the licensing, it's also about the team that manages it and the operations side of it. But compared to how things were, the return on investment has been positive.

I doubt that we are saving money with this solution because all the features are only available with a Microsoft 365 E5 license, which is the highest. And that doesn't come cheap because it's on a per-user basis. If there are 1,000 users, you are investing a lot.

The pricing model of Sentinel is entirely different from any other standalone SIEM tool. Other tools work on a licensing model with a fixed price based on the different modules that are enabled. Sentinel is not a fixed price. It depends on how much data is injected into it. With Microsoft, if there are 100 GB per month, it's about $2.30 per GB, or around $2,000 on a monthly basis. Compared to a fixed licensing cost, where organizations know that there is a certain budget they need to put aside for the license, on the Microsoft side, we really can't anticipate the cost.

The pricing of Microsoft 365 Defender is definitely on the costly side, but with the features and services that Microsoft provides, such as the seamless integration of all the Defender tools, while the price is on the higher side, there is no alternative.

My advice would be to try out Microsoft and compare it with other vendors. If your vision for Microsoft includes needing customizations and a lot of use cases, I don't think Microsoft M365 would support that. Where Microsoft shines is the seamless integration and dealing with less configuration management. But at the same time, organizations are adopting other solutions, such as Linux, and they want customization and that is not possible on the Microsoft side.

Microsoft 365 Defender helps prioritize threats to the enterprise, but not alone. Rather, it is through combining it with other Defender products like Defender for Cloud Apps and Defender for Endpoint. All these, in combination, can provide really good security, visibility, and threat protection against any vulnerabilities or threats. But with just M365, our hands are tied with the scope, which is limited to emails, Teams, and SharePoint.

We can't 100 percent automate things, but we can automate about 80 percent of our tasks. It has made life easier. But, at the same time, if a scenario is not something that repeats, performing an activity automatically would reduce the time spent, but not by that much. We have automated a few areas for things that occur on a regular basis, but at the same time, we come across situations now and again that we think about automating, but we also think about the effort that we would have to put into doing so. Will it be a recurring solution or not?

There are also some advancements that Microsoft has launched to automate threat surface reduction, some features that we could try to help us analyze steps to be taken before an attack happens, but nothing that I have tried yet.

Hypothetically, when looking at whether a single vendor or a best-of-breed strategy is best, being an architect the last couple of years, what I've seen is that having a multi-vendor system is definitely a good approach rather than going with a single vendor solution. Even though Microsoft has all these tools, we can't achieve 100 percent security. There are the areas for improvement that I mentioned, where Microsoft doesn't have a single solution, like pen testing and vulnerability management. My suggestion is always to go with a multi-vendor solution. Microsoft might reach a level where, at a certain point, they will have 100 percent coverage, but my approach would still be multi-vendor.

At FileVine, we provide case management software for attorneys, so we have considerable SOC 2 compliance requirements. We need more than a firewall; we also need a solution that helps us upkeep and manage devices, laptops, etc. 365 Defender fulfills these requirements, and SOC 2 compliance is our primary use case.

We're a hybrid company using both Macs and Dells, deployed across multiple regions.

The solution helps us improve compliance regarding end users installing updates. It clarifies which users need to update and how they can go into Terminal or PowerShell to perform that process. We don't have to waste time looking for what needs to be done, which is a useful functionality. The product automatically informs us of high and low priorities, which is great; it allows us to deal with the most significant priorities first.

365 Defender helps us automate routine tasks, and we get updated daily. We can integrate Splunk to see what's going on and what needs to be updated. Automation significantly impacts our security operations; it feels like we have a vault around us that nobody can breach.  

The Endpoint Manager is incredible; it has a very straightforward interface and is exceedingly easy to use. Pulling out and deploying different tags or resources is a simple task across various departments with different levels of security. The notifications are also simple and satisfying; it's great to see the bubble informing us which devices are compliant and which are waiting to update.

The visibility into threats provided by the solution is excellent. When a threat triggers a response based on our set rules, it's stopped, and we are notified via email. We can then analyze the threat and make a decision; this entire process is straightforward and user-friendly. 

The product helps us prioritize threats across the enterprise, especially in the legal domain. It is very valuable, and one of the reasons we have been so successful at Filevine is the security measures we have in place. We use many tools, one of them being Microsoft 365 Defender, which significantly contributes to our IT team and company's success.   

Our integration of multiple solutions helps to deliver a coordinated detection and response in our environment. We integrate with Zscalar, which is very easy and manageable. We thought it might be difficult, but it works very well. Much like a car, our security system is composed of many moving parts working together, which helps us move forwards as a company and thrive in a relatively challenging economic time. 

The comprehensiveness of the threat protection provided by using multiple Microsoft security products is excellent. It's a simple system; we have incoming and outgoing traffic rules. When a rule is triggered, we are notified by email to look over the situation. For example, we can see viruses and malicious actors attempting to breach our security and respond by blacklisting the IP address. Sometimes, we gather information and pass it on to the FBI, as we have many SOC 2 clients.

365 Defender helped eliminate multiple dashboards, which is great because I like to be as minimalistic as possible regarding dashboards. Now, I only have to look at one or two at most, simplifying the security landscape, and I love that about the tool.  

The solution's threat intelligence helps us prepare for potential threats before they hit; most recently, we were protected from the August 2022 Apple hack. We had measures in place, so none of our devices were affected. We were spared any data compromise, and it's an excellent example of why we invest in security solutions. It builds our confidence and strengthens our case with the higher-ups for increasing and maintaining our cybersecurity budget. 

The product certainly saves us time. We trust in the protection and can focus on different projects, including automation, so we don't have to spend time dealing with issues and security breaches. I'd say we save four or five hours a week.  

365 Defender saves us a lot of money because we don't have to recover data or hire outside lawyers to help us with legal trouble. We don't need to invest in physical products or external security teams and solutions. We can keep our security operation within the company, so all our money is invested in people who care about our product and business.  

The solution quickly notifies us when a threat is detected, increasing our response speed. Other products I used in the past sometimes had significant delays with notifications, which is far from ideal when dealing with potential security threats. 

Correctly updated records are the most significant area for improvement. There have been times when we were notified of a required fix; we would carry out the fix and confirm it but still get the same notification a week later. This seems to be a delay in records being updated and leads to false reporting, which is something that needs to be fixed.

I have been using the solution for a few years. 

The solution is very stable with low latency. 

The product is highly scalable, which is fantastic because we have been expanding significantly. It's up and running and good to go very quickly, which has been excellent for our expansion in Florida, New York, Maine, and Canada.

I have yet to contact support. One thing that helps in this regard is that I have an AZ-900 handbook with Microsoft fundamentals. 

365 Defender was already in place when I was brought into the company, but they previously used Jamf Protect. They switched because it cost too much and wasn't fulfilling the requirements. It didn't perform as well as 365.

I can't speak to the setup as the solution was in place when I arrived at the company. However, 365 Defender is one of the most lightweight tools we use in terms of maintenance. We keep it up to date, and it works very well.

I would say the solution gives us a significant ROI, especially considering the issues in the industry recently. Russia and China hacked many companies, but we never had that problem, and that's a lot of money saved for us. That's not entirely because of 365 Defender, but also thanks to our excellent security team and the robust toolset at our disposal to protect our operation.

The solution is affordable, and we haven't been hit with any hidden costs. The subscription model is straightforward, and it's easy to understand how much additional features cost. If we need to cancel a license or feature, we do that well in advance to avoid being charged for it, but overall, the pricing and licensing are simple and easy.

I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. 

We use multiple Microsoft security products, including Defender for Endpoint, MFA as a standard on all work laptops and computers, and Endpoint Manager. We use additional tools to protect the Mac side of our operation. We use Microsoft Intune, some other MDMs, and some other assets from Defender for Cloud, and for cloud security, we use GCP, Azure, and AWS. 

Many of these products are integrated, and the integration was relatively straightforward. It was somewhat time-consuming as we previously used Jamf Protect for a long time, so switching our entire infrastructure over to the new products took some time.