Qualys Exposure Management Reviews

We use Qualys VMDR for daily vulnerability management, scanning vulnerabilities, identifying vulnerabilities, reporting, creating dashboards, and the whole vulnerability management process. We also use it for patch management.

What I find valuable about Qualys VMDR is the capability of the tool and its user-friendliness. It is easy to use and provides accurate results, which is exactly what we are looking for. The prioritization of vulnerabilities has improved our remediation efforts by around thirty to thirty-five percent. The tool's integration between Patch Management and other Qualys products is also indispensable.

They can tweak their UI since the new version seems a bit jumbled up, and the old UI was more user-friendly.

I have been using Qualys VMDR for three years.

We find Qualys VMDR quite stable and have not faced any performance issues with it.

I believe the solution is scalable.

We usually get on calls with tech support, and they are very helpful. I would rate the technical support a nine out of ten.

We worked with Nessus and Rapid7 before switching to Qualys VMDR. Qualys offers better pricing and more features compared to other tools. We did not find anything particularly missing from previous tools.

The setup is straightforward and easy. We deployed scanners and agents on all our devices, configured the network, whitelisted policy scanners, and public URLs. Testing was conducted before deploying, and it went smoothly.

We had a team of five to six people involved in the deployment aspect due to the large number of assets.

Qualys VMDR helps us be compliant, and vulnerability management is a crucial part of maintaining our organization's security, significantly contributing to ROI.

Qualys offers better pricing and is feature-packed compared to other tools.

We evaluated Nessus and Rapid7 before choosing Qualys VMDR.

I would recommend getting both VMDR and the Cloud Agent to ensure comprehensive asset coverage. Understanding the network architecture is crucial to ensure no segments are missed under Qualys. Overall, I rate Qualys a nine out of ten.

My main use cases for Qualys VMDR are for server vulnerability and missing patches.

The most helpful and useful features of Qualys VMDR are its user-friendly design.

Qualys VMDR is easy to understand and provides detailed reports.

It impacts my workflow overall, with the patch management features as it has the missing patches listed in detail, making it easier to get a comprehensive report and providing some dashboards that offer visual representation.

There were some issues later with Qualys VMDR regarding security, specifically with numerous false positive reports.

It doesn't take much time to deploy Qualys VMDR. There is a process mentioned already on the website about how to proceed with the installation, so we followed that process.

I am satisfied with the support of Qualys VMDR as they are supportive. However, there are sometimes issues where we cannot talk to customer support directly, and we have to raise tickets, which sometimes takes a lot of time to resolve issues because it goes through their own phase. We cannot change the SLA or the priority of the tickets, so that is an issue.

Positive

Our organization changed to something else due to a higher management decision, and that might be the reason for the change regarding the pricing.

We are not using any AI features with Qualys VMDR.

Overall, I would rate Qualys VMDR as good, giving it an eight.

We have multiple modules, including Qualys VMDR solution and Qualys TotalCloud solution. We use them in our organization, like VMDR, for vulnerability management, detection, and response, as well as policy compliance to amend policies according to CIA benchmarks and other frameworks. 

We also use the web application module and the Qualys Gateway module to ensure that scanner appliances are functioning properly. These modules allow us to check various scenarios and initiate scans, either on-demand or as per a scheduled plan.

My primary work is with VMDR module. In my previous organization, I worked with TotalCloud, but right now, I am focused only on VMDR and other modules.

Sometimes, we receive CVIDs from customers who require vulnerability scans, but they are not available in the Qualys knowledge base. This makes it complicated because we need to contact Qualys to add the required QID and CVID to their knowledge base and provide the corresponding vulnerability criteria. It affects our business since, without that information, we can't identify or notify our teams about the vulnerabilities.

Compared to other tools, VMDR provides a clearer view and is easy to understand. It's also highly customizable, allowing us to tailor it to our needs. I find it to be better than tools like Belwix, Rapid7, and Tenable.

For asset management, there's a feature that tracks unused machines and purging mechansim. It informs us if a machine hasn’t been used for 180 days, or if it’s been idle for 368 days, allowing us to segregate the data. This reduces our active vulnerability count, which improves tracking and helps us provide more accurate information to customers. It gives more active grip on the information.

With continuous monitoring, we can customize dashboards according to customer needs. Whether they require reports on a daily, weekly, or quarterly basis, we can set up the dashboard to display the relevant data. It's essential to understand their requirements and adjust the Qualys Query Language (QQL) accordingly. A solid grasp of QQL is a plus when working with Qualys.

Sometimes, it can take more time than other tools to resolve certain issues. For example, if there's a problem with policy compliance, you might not get an immediate solution from Qualys' technical team. 

Occasionally, customers ask for RCA (Root Cause Analysis), and if Qualys doesn't provide it, we can't give a clear answer. This can be frustrating, but it doesn't happen in every case.

In terms of improvement for the web application console, in the older version, things were more segregated and presented in a brief format. However, in the latest version, you have to write a query to retrieve the kind of data you want. Sometimes, if you write the wrong query, you don't get the proper count or the right data, such as how many days a scan has been failing. This can be an issue if you're not familiar with the query language. So, they should offer an optional feature where, if someone isn't familiar with the query language, they can use tab buttons or other features to enable or disable options and get the correct data and information on time.

Qualys VMDR should enhance the EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response) part because there's a lack of information and features in Qualys EDR. Sometimes, organizations have to buy different EDR tools, like Carbon Black and others, to cover the gap.

From a learning perspective, Qualys VMDR needs to improve. Right now, they only provide information, but they don't offer any library or testing environment. Often, customers don't allow changes to be made in the live environment, and I don’t think it’s a good idea to make any changes directly there. It would be great if they could provide a lab environment for testing. That would be really useful.

Qualys is updating certain product modules. Sometimes, they need to provide clearer deadlines. Customers aren't always informed when Qualys updates a module from the backend, which can disrupt our work. For example, they recently updated the "Asset View" module and converted it to "Cybersecurity Asset Management." Customers weren’t aware of this change beforehand.

In situations like this, they need to ensure that they provide proper information, SOPs, or documents so we can share them with customers. Customers also have access to the tool, so they can use the SOPs to learn how the updates work. This would improve productivity because we wouldn't need to spend extra time learning how to use the updated tool.

I have been using it for around four years. 

It’s very stable. Qualys provides advisories faster than other tools when it comes to exploitable vulnerabilities. This helps ensure we can secure the environment promptly.

But, last year we did encounter an issue with the Qualys Gateway Console, where the gateway went down and it took around six hours to set up a new one. After that, we implemented two gateways to ensure we could switch to a secondary one if the primary failed.

Around 300 users work with Qualys, with different permission levels—leaders, managers, and regular users. We have over 50,000 hardware devices in total.

We have a dedicated person for support. She’s always available to help, or if she's on leave, she ensures someone else is aligned to handle our cases, so we don’t breach any timelines. I'd give the support a high rating.

Positive

In other tools, like Rapid7 and InsightVM, everything is done within a single module. In Qualys, we have separated modules with distinct functionalities. You can choose to purchase only the modules and licenses you need, which makes it cost-effective. You don’t have to pay for features you're not using, unlike other tools where everything is bundled.

It's not an issue with Qualys itself. We encountered some problems when migrating from physical scanners to virtual ones, but that was more on our network team’s side. Qualys provided excellent support in that scenario, which helped us identify and resolve the issue on time, and we provided the solution to our customer.

I work with the on-premises version. We updated from physical scanners to virtual scanners.

In my previous organization, I worked on deploying the solution. There, I customized the Windows OS image so that when you install the image on any machine, it prompts for a key that’s already embedded. Once the steps are completed, it automatically installs the Cloud Agent module on every machine. The agent syncs data every four hours, providing vulnerability data and security insights for each machine.

It’s not a one-person task. We had to coordinate with several teams, such as the network and system teams, for deployment. In total, we worked with about six teams during the process.

For about 1,400 machines, it took around three months to complete the deployment and resolve any issues. For example, sometimes policies weren't pushed properly from Ivanti or other tools, or users didn’t turn on their machines, which stopped Qualys services. We had to address these issues for each user, so it took some time. But we completed the deployment in about three months.

Maintenance isn't difficult, especially when working with the Cloud Agent. You just need to set up rules, like purging machines that haven’t connected to the network in three months. You write policies to manage this, which simplifies the decommissioning process and other tasks.

Qualys provides good value for the investment. Before using Qualys, we weren’t clear on how many assets needed purging or how many open vulnerabilities we had. Qualys gave us a clearer picture, so from a cost perspective, it’s been valuable.

I would recommend it. For enterprises, I’d suggest understanding how the tool works and which modules meet your needs. It’s important to coordinate with the customer team or Qualys technical team to figure out how many licenses you need and which modules will benefit your organization. Proper calculation and understanding are key before purchasing.

Overall, I would rate it a nine out of ten. 

It's primarily for vulnerability management. We use VMDR to deploy the cloud agents and scanners in our environment to cover everything holistically. We also use it for service integration so that vulnerabilities can be tracked through there. So, it's more or less vulnerability management.

We need to scan different kinds of assets. It could be our desktops, laptops, servers, and network devices. VMDR enables us with the sort of licensing where we can either deploy agents or scanners or both. So wherever we can deploy agents, we are deploying agents for scanning, for instance, on our workstations and servers. 

And then for network devices, we use just the scanner capabilities of Qualys. So that's why we use this VMDR solution across different sorts of assets in a wide environment.

When we use Qualys VMDR's agents, they usually scan or probably reconvene the vulnerabilities within four hours. So, anything that jumps its way immediately alerts us within a few minutes that something is wrong, and we can check on those terms. 

Other than that, I think it does have a module that can help us prioritize vulnerabilities, not only with vulnerabilities that have been attacked in the wild but also if any vulnerabilities have an exploit available. So those sorts of insights do provide us. It should really help us to prioritize vulnerabilities based on the threats that are out there.

It improved the visibility of the organization. It enables us to, first of all, identify all the assets and then scan them for the vulnerabilities. And then it also helps us to prioritize which vulnerabilities we have to fix first, and we can map out strategies. So, it is what it is meant for, and it is doing really, really good in that sense.

First of all, the licensing products itself is a great tool for VM because it's easy to use, and its reporting is excellent. It gives you a lot of ability and tweaking options to get what you want out of the reports. It gives you a lot of options, and it integrates with our ServiceNow for ticketing and all. So that is also a great feature. Then, the licensing that comes with VMDR enables us to scan different devices without getting any sort of extra license. So, it covers everything under one bundle.

It's the capability of scanning that has proven to be most effective in the risk management aspect. The less number of false positives and the authenticated basic scans are more concrete. So,  the reliable reports and the efficiency of scans are something that we appreciate with all of this.

So, it does reduce those false positives and gives us a more concrete report.

From the application security perspective, Qualys has a way to go. We probably use it for infrastructure scanning, but I feel that Qualys can do better in application scanning as well.

Infrastructure scanning is fine. It's doing good with that. However, there is room for improvement in application scanning.

I have been using it since the beginning, even before VMDR. I used Qualys for scanning. I've been continuously using Qualys for at least a decade. So it's almost ten years I've been working with Qualys.

I would rate the stability a nine out of ten. It has been stable for me. I didn't face any challenges. It worked fine for me.

I would rate the scalability a nine out of ten.

This is probably where Qualys can improve themselves a little bit and help us get a little bit quicker responses. So, that's where I think they can definitely spend some time.

Knowledge-sie the customer service and support are fine, I want them to improve the response time.

Neutral

I have used tools like Rapid7, Nessus. But overall, I feel that Qualys has better capabilities in terms of scanning and then in terms of reporting as well. 

So I can compare it with Rapid7 and Tenable Nessus, and Qualys is definitely way ahead from its competitors in that sense.

The initial setup is straightforward. It's nothing complicated. I think we just need to deploy agents and enable our scanner for the connectivity, and then it's all good.

It is in an hybrid environment. 

The deployment time depends upon the size of the infrastructure. It usually doesn't take much time. You just need to deploy the scanners and agents, which is also usually automated. I don't see it as very time-consuming. So, if I have to rate between one to ten, then I would rate around seven to eight, somewhere down to cover that.

It does require maintenance because it keeps updating its agent version as well, but I see that this is also automated. And then, if we have deployed this on hardware as well, like Windows and all, those also need to be updated online. But, the maintenance is required for sure.

From the security side, we have seven to eight people who are managing Qualys. But then we have people from IT as well who are supposed to see the vulnerabilities and remediate those. So such roles, we also have in Qualys that need the access and also on the vulnerabilities.

I can see the time-to-value benefits of Qualys. It's more of a time and resource. Security is always an expense. We don't get active revenue out of it, so it's more of an expense. 

So returns in terms of risk reduction. It helps us to identify those potential vulnerabilities on time and help facilitate those. So in those terms, it's a return on investment.

It saved us 20% of time because it is easy to use, and since it is integrated, we don't have to touch anything much. 

The pricing is a little expensive on that sense, but it also delivers the value. So, if anybody has the budget for Qualys, then, they should go with Qualys for sure.

I would recommend Qualys VMDR to other users because it is efficient and reliable, and it does what it's supposed to.

Overall, I would rate it an eight out of ten. 

We use the product for enterprise network infrastructure scanning.

The product has multiple valuable areas. The process of defining and discovering scans is organized efficiently. It has an effective tagging system and authentication mechanism compared to other tools. Its integration with AD helps us a lot. Additionally, I like the report generation feature.

Qualys could improve the inbuilt dashboards. They could be advanced compared to competitors like Rapid7 and Tenable. They should include a faster reverse integration process. They could enhance its integration with ServiceNow CMDB to ensure that mapping IP addresses, domains, and net bias names is consistent and accurate.

We have been using Qualys VMDR for nearly two and a half years.

I rate the product's stability a nine out of ten. I have rarely seen any stability issues with Qualys.

I rate the product's scalability an eight out of ten. We only recommend some people use Qualys in our organization. It is a limited audience. It is used by the vulnerability management team and a few critical resources from different parts of the cybersecurity department. We have 50 users in total. They should provide role-based access for managers, reviewers, and scanners.

The initial setup process is simple as I have prior experience working on two full-time projects with it. I find it simple as I have enough background knowledge of it.

The product is more expensive than that of any other vendor.

I did work on Tenable's POC and some other vendors. It has some limitations in detecting different types of vulnerabilities or false positives. Qualys is on the higher side when compared to the other tools.

I rate the product an eight out of ten.

We are managing hundreds of AWS and several on-premises accounts using Qualys agents and scanners to provide data inputs for Qualys. We are using several of the Qualys modules, VMDR, Cloud Agents, Connectors along with Global Asset View (GAV).  GAV dynamic tagging is valuable for tracking owners of assets.   

Qualys' main function is to provide us with vulnerability management information for our end users and is a major input to our CMDB.  We rely on a combination of agents and scans to provide us with the system data.   

We are seeing more of the issues we suspected were there. Qualys is allowing us to get an overall picture of our Risk posture. It has enabled us to identify assets we did not know existed.  

However, Qualys has not enabled us to get a complete picture of our risk posture, due to our own limitations in our deployments and limitations in the Qualys back end, dashboards, UI, connector reliability, and the limitations of the Qualys Scripting Language (QSL).  

Qualys implementation requires dedicated back-end support from various teams which was not clearly explained to us or planned for. 

Cloud Agents: lots of control available and very trouble-free. It pulls all systems information, including installed software and open ports. It's very configurable to adjust impact to systems.  

Connectors: Pulls all the cloud information per account and helps to build a CMDB.  Qualys connectors do some control evaluations to help manage these accounts. 

Global Asset View (GAV): With the ability to establish dynamic tagging and perform queries GAV has become a very valuable research tool to our teams. 

Support: It's often overseas and often following a script, basically asking us to redo what we opened the case with. 

Multiple APIs: There seems to be a lack of easy onboarding into Qualys. We had to use manual inputs and some API calls to get items in place. 

Dashboard: It is very rudimentary with very little customization. The Qualys Scripting Language (QSL) works differently in different Qualys modules, so when you get it working in one area you have to modify the syntax in others.  

User account management: We often have to give users more rights than needed just to give them what they need. 

Integration with the various Qualys Modules: You can tell the UI is different based on of the different teams that created them. 

QSL syntax same in all modules

Responsiveness of some of the components: They time out, you get a blank screen, etc.

Backend updates between the various modules: You update connectors and information takes a few minutes to show in VMDR or Global Asset View

Connectors: Connectors have a throttling issue with AWS which causes them to frequently fail unless you manually run them again. 

I've used the solution for three years.

Stability is not the issue. However, the reliably of the different modules is a concern. I have never seen all of Qualys go down. 

The solution is very scalable (with a matching cost, in that, it gets expensive as you grow). 

Our CSM has awesome, however, support is often overseas at conflicting hours.  Support seems to follow scripts and forces us to go through the same scripts. Some solutions required months from Qualys to implement. 

Negative

We used Tenable.IO which we found very limited. However, in our other cloud environment, we had to use Teanble.SC with which we were able to use a Lambda function and a few API calls to make it operate very well in the cloud. 

The setup is complex in many ways, from setting up agents and connectors to trying to create dashboards that fit our needs.  

We managed the setup in-house.

Management is very concerned about the cost of using Qualys; it keeps going up as we pursue 100% deployment. 

The price is very high and escalates quickly based on the number of appliances you need. 

We evaluated Tenable.SC and Rapid7.

If you're going to deploy Qualys it is key to have someone dedicated to supporting the back end, making sure all the components are working as expected.  This is not a fire-and-forget solution. 

The primary focus of this solution is to identify and detect vulnerabilities in real time and use that information to patch them using Qualys VMDR task management module. We have a variety of devices within our network, including network devices, firewalls, vCenters, VMs, web applications, and endpoints. We deploy cloud agents on workstations and servers where possible, and we scan network devices using a virtual scanner where we cannot deploy the cloud agent. Additionally, we perform web application scanning for our web apps. We also use the tool to manage our cloud security and container security.

With the help of Qualys VMDR, we were able to get real-time knowledge base updates from Qualys and perform scans on all devices to identify vulnerable devices. This allowed us to plan the next course of action for mitigating vulnerabilities. For example, during the zero-day events, such as the Log4j vulnerability, we received critical real-time information from Qualys, enabling us to identify and plan for mitigation while the rest of the world was still struggling. This capability has tremendously helped us maintain the cybersecurity posture within our organization.

The most valuable features of Qualys VMDR include CSAM, Qualys Gateway Service, Web Application Scanning, patch management and the use of virtual scanners to scan appliances and devices, especially those provided by vendors. 

The ability to run a map scan and identify all assets within our network is extremely beneficial for medium to large organizations. Real-time asset discovery and patch management have also been vital features for us.

One area for improvement is the simplification of the process to ignore certain vulnerabilities on specific devices. Currently, the process is quite long, requiring the creation of separate knowledge bases and lists. Simplifying this to one or two clicks would be beneficial. Additionally, enhancing patch management to support third-party tools and simplifying the creation of patch jobs would greatly improve usability. Improving the interconnection between multiple modules would also be helpful, making navigation and operations more straightforward.

I have been using Qualys VMDR for more than two - three years now.

I would rate the stability of Qualys VMDR as eight. It is a stable solution with minimal issues.

The scalability of Qualys VMDR is good. If we add additional resources, the tool can scale efficiently, ingesting new data seamlessly. Qualys has auto-scaling enabled for their cloud platform, which ensures performance remains high, even with increased resources.

Technical support from Qualys needs some improvement. There are instances where Level 2 support is not able to assist, requiring escalation, which can take time. Overall, basic troubleshooting and issue resolution are straightforward.

Neutral

I have worked with other vulnerability management solutions prior to Qualys. In my current organization, we selected Qualys after a POC. Other tools have not evolved well as Qualys has over the years, making Qualys the preferred solution.

The initial setup of Qualys VMDR is straightforward. The setup's complexity depends on the organization’s size and collaboration with various teams. For organizations with a clear device inventory, the deployment can be completed within a month.

In-house

We evaluated other tools available in the market during our POC process yet found Qualys to be the best solution.

I would recommend Qualys VMDR to other users if they want a comprehensive solution for real-time vulnerability detection and mitigation. The tool is easy to implement, backed by a reliable knowledge base, and offers quick updates during zero-day events. While there are areas for improvement, such as simplifications in handling certain features, the overall solution is robust and effective.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

Our primary use case of the product is comprehensive vulnerability management and asset inventory across a hybrid environment consisting of both cloud and on-premises deployments. We manage approximately 45,000 endpoints spread across multiple geographical locations.

The platform's most valuable features include its robust vulnerability detection capabilities and automated remediation workflows. These features not only help us identify vulnerabilities promptly but also enable us to prioritize and remediate them efficiently.

While Qualys VMDR is comprehensive, improvements in asset management functionality would be beneficial. Additionally, reducing dependency on multiple agents for data collection across different endpoints could simplify management and resource utilization.

In the next release, enhancements in reporting and analytics would be appreciated. Advanced analytics capabilities for trend analysis and predictive insights could further empower proactive decision-making in cybersecurity management.

I have been using Qualys VMDR for approximately two years now.

The product is stable. I rate the stability a seven. 

I rate the product scalability an eight. 

The technical support services are good. 

Positive

The initial setup was relatively straightforward. They provided comprehensive documentation and support during deployment, which helped streamline the process. 

I would rate the process a seven or eight. 

We implemented the product with the help of in-house resources and support from Qualys.

We evaluated other options such as Tenable and Rapid7.

I rate Qualys VMDR a nine out of ten. 

I primarily use Qualys VMDR for daily scans, onboarding assets, scanning, reporting, and managing the entire vulnerability management process, including test management.

VMDR has significantly improved our organization by simplifying asset discovery and management. We can easily identify and categorize assets, ensuring comprehensive scanning and reporting.

Qualys Patch Management is excellent for keeping our critical servers and third-party applications updated efficiently.

One area of the product that could be improved is the management of vulnerabilities detected on disabled applications. We currently face challenges with unnecessary alerts for Microsoft Defender, which we do not use. Additionally, enhancing the alerts for agent communication failures would be beneficial.

I have been using Qualys VMDR for approximately three years.

The product has been very reliable in our day-to-day operations.

I would rate the product scalability a ten. It easily scales with our organization's growth, allowing us to add new assets and expand our coverage seamlessly. We are considering expanding our deployment to include 500 assets next year.

The initial setup was straightforward, taking less than a week to configure and generate reports. The deployment process was smooth, and we were able to integrate it effectively into our hybrid environment.

Within three months of deployment, we began seeing improvements in vulnerability management. This helped us significantly reduce vulnerabilities and streamline our patch management processes, providing a notable return on investment.

The solution is reasonably priced for the value it provides. Our contract renewal was approximately 2.5 million ZAR for three years, including managed services.

Before selecting Qualys VMDR, we evaluated other options but ultimately chose Qualys due to its comprehensive features and effective proof of concept.

We integrate Qualys VMDR with our infrastructure, conducting weekly scans and generating reports based on the findings. This provides daily views of vulnerabilities, and we use Qualys' patch management to deploy patches promptly, starting with the most severe vulnerabilities, thus reducing our threat exposure. Conducting a thorough proof of concept is essential to evaluate its effectiveness in your environment and to see how it integrates with your existing systems and handles your specific security needs.

I rate it a ten out of ten. 

We use it for vulnerability management and report generation mostly. I am trying to solve the issue wherein the stakeholders can get automated vulnerability reports to their mailbox.

Using this product, we now have a vulnerability management cycle wherein VMDR plays a major role. It has greatly increased the capability on the detection aspect of the vulnerability and improved our scope and visibility on all other endpoints.

I like the automated report generation and vulnerability report generation.

I don't have any improvement requests on top of my mind right now. The response time of technical support takes a while.

It's been more than two years now.

I would rate the stability as nine out of ten. It's quite stable.

The solution is scalable.

My rating for the technical support for Qualys is six out of ten. The response time takes a while.

Neutral

I personally didn't use a different solution before Qualys.

Although I was not present during the initial deployment process, it's pretty straightforward. It's just an agent installation, which automatically connects it to the cloud platform, so the implementation won't take as long.

I would recommend Qualys VMDR to the other stakeholders because it already has its place in the market, and it's very reliable.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.