What is our primary use case?
Microsoft Sentinel is basically a major log, on top of which you can build queries that can analyze the data you get. It's used to build up security operations centers. In addition, it is a SIEM and SOAR solution.
How has it helped my organization?
The first benefit is that you have one place to close incidents. That's definitely an advantage.
Another benefit is KQL, Kusto Query Language, and the analytic rules with which you can spot suspicious behavior of all kinds. It's definitely a step up when it comes to security. You see the benefits almost instantly.
In addition, automation helps prioritize what needs to be looked at, and what can just be closed and forgotten.
And when you combine the threat intelligence with Defender for Endpoint's recommendations, it's a really strong way to protect things or be proactive when it comes to security, with the CVEs, et cetera.
Overall, our Microsoft solution saves time. Without it, you might have to navigate six or seven portals, but with it, you only have to look at one place, and that saves some time. Most of the time, it eliminates having to look at multiple dashboards and gives you one XDR dashboard. Ideally, that should make working with IT security easier. It also decreases the time it takes to detect and respond.
As a consultant, none of the customers I work for has been hacked or has been close to being hacked. That would be the best way to judge if it saves money because just putting Sentinel on top of all these security products doesn't save you money. It's possible it saves you money.
What is most valuable?
I like the unified security console. You can close incidents using Sentinel in all other Microsoft Security portals when it comes to incident response.
The solution helps prioritize threats across your enterprise and that is quite important. There is a concept called "alert fatigue," and Sentinel can also cause that because it detects so many false positives. But usually, the high and medium risks it identifies are things you need to take a look at. So prioritization is quite important.
We also use Defender for Cloud, Defender for Endpoint, and Defender for Cloud Apps. It's quite easy to integrate these Microsoft products because they can easily communicate with other Microsoft products. The tricky part is to integrate other vendors' products, like Cisco or Linux, with Microsoft Sentinel. The actual integration is easy, but they generate a lot of data. But with its entire Defender suite, Microsoft is trying to cover everything in Azure and that is a really strong point.
Sentinel enables you to ingest data from your entire ecosystem and that is vital, but sometimes it's a bit hard to figure out what data you actually need.
Also, the UEBA is a neat feature.
What needs improvement?
The built-in SOAR is not really good out-of-the-box. The SOAR relies on logic apps and you almost need to have some kind of developer background to be able to make these logic apps. Most security people cannot develop anything, but if you want to make full use of the SOAR part of Microsoft Sentinel, you need to be able to develop these logic apps. You can say, "Okay, that's simple," but it's not simple for someone who doesn't develop.
Also, the bi-directional sync in Microsoft Defender for Cloud should be enabled out-of-the-box. Otherwise, while you can close incidents in Sentinel, they will not be closed in all the other portals. That is really important.
In addition, the watch list could be improved. Microsoft could develop some analytic templates based on these watch lists, for example.
And if you don't have any KQL knowledge, Sentinel is actually quite hard to use or to get the most out of.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with Microsoft Sentinel for approximately one year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
My clients are looking to increase their usage of Sentinel. Every time I look, there is a new data connector, so it seems like it's a product that is constantly in development.
How are customer service and support?
I haven't used their technical support.
How was the initial setup?
The initial deployment, for me, is not really complex. It takes one hour or less. But to be able to use Sentinel to its full capabilities, you must definitely know something.
In terms of an implementation strategy, you need to really think ahead about who should be able to do this, and who should be able to do that, and respond to that, et cetera. A proof of concept would include dealing with the architecture, gathering initial data sources and/or automation, and then learning how to navigate in Sentinel. One person can do it.
My clients are enterprise-level companies and the solution requires maintenance. It includes updating analytics, importing, and creating new analytics. It depends on the company. If you have 100 employees, one employee might be enough to maintain things, but if you have 10,000 employees and 10,000 devices, you might need more employees.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
No license is required to make use of Sentinel, but you need to buy products to get the data. In general, the price of those products is comparable to similar products.
What other advice do I have?
My advice is to start out with a little bit of data and build on top of that. Don't enable too many data connectors in the beginning. Get familiar with the product, and remember to work with Sentinel every day. That's the only way the product gets better.
It comes with some out-of-the-box analytics, but to get the full and best usage out of it, you have to really keep developing it with hunting queries, analytics, et cetera. The visibility provided by the built-in analytics rules, what they detect, is rather good, but Microsoft Sentinel requires ongoing work. It helps automate routine tasks as well, but that's not something that comes "for free." It also requires ongoing work.
Threat intelligence is something that you must be more than just a novice in Sentinel to make use of.
Overall, I find Sentinel to be a really strong solution. Sentinel is where you can see the overall security status of your company. I really enjoy working with Microsoft Defender and the entire suite, combined with Microsoft Sentinel.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner