Symantec Endpoint Encryption Reviews

We use it on laptops and desktops. We use it for email, file and folder, and command-line encryption depending upon the customer's needs. 

We are a service provider for Symantec products. We also use it in our company. We have around 50 to 60 users.

Disk encryption and file and folder encryption are the most valuable and used features.

It is also very well integrated with Symantec Messaging Gateway and Symantec DLP, which is helpful in protecting any kind of information that goes outside. Symantec DLP catches an email and sends it to the encryption server. The encryption server encrypts the email and intimates to the user that confidential information is being sent out. The administrator can then take appropriate action.

Its remote deployment should be improved. Currently, there is no remote deployment for Symantec Endpoint Encryption. You have to install it manually.

There are some issues with AD integration and the time taken to reflect a password on the Endpoint Encryption Manager when a new user has changed the password, but they are already working on these issues, and these will be resolved in the next release.

I have been working with this solution for 14 years.

Currently, their support is less and slow. If I open any case, it is handled after two or three days, but their support will improve in the next two or three months.

The initial setup is straightforward. The deployment duration depends on your hard drive. It can take 5 to 10 minutes, half a day, or one day depending on the size of the hard drive. For 80 GB of data, it will take 7 to 8 hours depending on the hard drive and the RPM of the hard drive. For an SSD, it will take less time to encrypt the data.

I would definitely recommend this solution. I have seen a lot of endpoint encryption products, and Symantec is the best because it doesn't hamper the performance of the machine. If you use McAfee, it hampers the performance of the machine.

I would rate Symantec Endpoint Encryption an eight out of ten. Right now, there is an issue going on with their support. That's why I'm not giving it a ten out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for endpoint security.

Symantec Endpoint is good. We have been using it for more than five years and haven't had any trouble with it. It protects us without any issues.

In India, I am based out of Bangalore and my corporate office is in Lucknow, and we never had any compromises on the security site. Our firewall is very strong and all the devices are protected by Symantec. It does a really great job.

The solution is great for large-scale deployments.

The solution is pretty low maintenance and you rarely need the assistance of technical support.

The solution does slow down the device a little bit, once it's installed.

The Windows 10 comes with Defender. It has its own security layer. It's supposed to protect desktops and laptops running Windows 10. Right now, our question is, what is the additional protection we get from using any other antivirus or other packages on these machines? Symantec isn't really making it clear how they add to or enhance the level of protection we'd get from them if we kept them with Defender already on Windows 10.

We've been using the solution for five years.

The stability is good in the sense that we've never been compromised. It just runs in the background and is scanning. However, when scans do happen, it can slow down the machine. That's typical, and it only does it a little bit.

The solution is deployed on a large scale as we operate 1,000 locations in India and it's at all of them. You can't just protect the branch office, you need to protect every device in every office.

I've never needed to contact technical support.

The corporate office is in Lucknow, and I'm the technical director of a corporate group. I operate from Bangalore. I don't actually deal with the vendors or with the technical support team. My corporate team in Lucknow may be talking to some technical person at Symantec, however, I'm not aware of that. My responsibility is to advise someone on the technology side, so I heavily depend upon the reports and all that's available in public domain. 

I'm not sure what was evaluated beforehand. However, we are evaluating other options currently.

In September, our Symantec license is expiring, so we are looking at if there's anything else in Symantec's product library that we should try or if there are any better options than we should consider. Currently, I'm trying to download some reports to compare Symantec with other solutions as part of some initial research.

We've looked at a few different solutions. We hear that end devices like laptops or desktops are a bit slow when you have Norton installed. AVG looks to have fewer resources although it looks to be a little bit quicker than Norton and doesn't bring your system speed down. Windows 10 also already comes with Defender, so protection would be built right in.

We only use the solution on our own endpoints for our own company and don't necessarily deploy it for clients.

There are a lot of companies in India who are promoting these types of products. They may have quite a good idea about the packages and so on, what you can do, what you can't do and so on. Everyone seems well educated on it. It is not a very complicated solution. It's basically solid. 

You don't need that much technical support. Whether it's Symantec or TrendMicro or AVG or any other package it's all pretty self-sustaining. You'll simply notice it when you have a compromise, at which point you get alerted and then you look at what went wrong. Until you are compromised, you're happy with the product.

I approve of Symantec Endpoint. I've been happy with the solution for the last four or five years. There have been no issues and we have not been compromised until now. I'd definitely recommend Symantec.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. It does tend to slow down a machine when it does the scan. However, I've noticed the same slow down on competition like Norton or AVG and it doesn't slow anything down near as much as Norton.

We are currently working with companies in the financial sector which is why we are using this on-premises solution, because their compliance policies do not allow for cloud-based servers. Our clients are using the full encryptions. They're using Symantec Endpoint Encryption to secure their data. If someone loses their laptop, for example, they can wipe their disk and save their data from ending up with a third party.

I like all the features in Symantec Endpoint because they provide four or five features for end-users. They have three consoles for managing the data. Symantec also provides the licensing with the software. There is no need to enter the licensing or install files manually because it's bundled with the software. This is a good feature. Also, you get updates and other encrypted files easily. I also like the manage keys.

There is no need to add any features, because they are developing their own encryption methods.

Currently, all the software has been managed by BitLocker, but Windows does not suit every encryption management software. 

There are many apps that do that kind of thing. All the features are there so I don't think that needs to be on encryption software. I'm working with some end point management software and they are managing the software and connections, what can be installed and what is restricted, etc... But more features need to be included in the encryption software.

I have been using Symantec Endpoint Encryption for one year.

Their scalability is good. They are using three consoles and have full-consoling end point users for our solutions.

On a scale of one to ten I would rate Symantec Endpoint an eight.

Our primary use is implementing the solution for our clients. We are an official partner for Symantec and implement it for clients but we are also using that same solution. Most of the clients are on-premises installations although we do have some clients using cloud and hybrid-cloud deployments.  

So between our clients and their usage, we have experience with representatives who are using all the server deployment types. But the vast majority still stay with the on-premises deployment. This is especially true for banking customers who have stricter requirements for regulatory compliance.  

From the commercial side when I'm talking with our customers about Symantec, I talk about how it is a true enterprise-wide solution. Symantec Endpoint Encryption is an all-in-one solution that is completely expandable. With this product, Symantec addresses enterprise concepts. They developed an enterprise solution, they understand and have a good sense of enterprise requirements, they help you manage a huge number of users, they made solutions for the user to sync their enterprise databases and assign data policies, and they have features for blocking access. All the solutions for this Symantec product are integrated into one place. All of these features make it easier to help convince the customer about the quality and utility of this Symantec solution.  

From the technical side, I am fine with the features as they are, I am not sure where they might have the need for improvement, and I don't have a solid opinion about it. For the Symantec company and products, they need to engage in more marketing activities in the Middle East because they are not focusing on our needs.  

They need some stability in their own business structure because they have been buying a lot of companies that go out of the market. There are so many changes that Symantec makes that the ordering systems become affected. Sometimes it has been nightmarish to just finish transactions on Symantec systems because of all the product fluctuation. They need to review the channel procedures, their internal procedures from the distributor and have some activities with their consumers to be more aware of the market.  

I think in general that they need to be more conscious of the potential in the Middle East and have a better presence, but I don't know what else they can provide as far as functionality. From my standpoint, all that I need, I found in their solution. The product itself is very good but they have organizational issues.  

I've been working with Symantec Endpoint Encryption for longer than 10 years.  

There is no problem with product stability. The company stability is another issue. The parent company needs better organization. It does have some effect on the end-user, but that is not the stability of the product itself.  

I personally think that the pricing is fair. On the other hand, and I think it is because the company is not stable from the division perspective that there are some issues in the price list and with the distributor in Egypt. They have some workarounds for this to mitigate the issue. But in the past, the company and the pricing were more stable than nowadays.  

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate Symantec Endpoint Encryption as an eight out of ten. There is room for improvement and I think they need to make more effort here, but I would still totally recommend Symantec products and I'm a fan of Endpoint Encryption as a mature solution.  

We are using three of the product's modules. We are using encryption for messaging, we are using encryption for shared folders and we are using encryption for our hard drives.

The product has helped our organization by providing encryption options. For example, it is better to have encrypted messages because it is more secure. With the module for the shared folders, we can decide to use it as an addition to our active directory. So we can give users different rights within the active directory. The different set of rules we create in PGP is like an add-on to our active directory and again provides more secure access and restriction of access to some information.

The most valuable features are the messaging features and shared folders.

The hard drive encryption needs to be improved. There is an issue, for example, where we cannot easily do Microsoft updates. The updates stop before the PGP reboot is complete. So when PGP encryption from the hard drive is active, we can't update Microsoft Windows. As a work-around, we have to decrypt the encrypted hard drive, which takes an hour every time, and then do the updates and then encrypt again. It is time-consuming and there must be a better solution.

One other improvement I would like to see is the ability to get support directly from the seller. There should be a better way to open tickets directly from the seller to eliminate delays and have a better way that we can contact them and get help when we need it. Technical support is a problem.

We have been using Symantec Endpoint Encryption since 2013, or about six years.

It is not a very stable product based on our experience with how we use it. It is mostly the disk encryption issues and how long it takes to do Microsoft updates. So we actually open some tickets at technical support and also with the integrator who initially installed the system for us. So currently we are dissatisfied and we are looking at BitLocker instead of the PGP only for drive encryption. As it is a Microsoft product, it makes sense that it will work better with Microsoft updates.

The scalability of the product is fine. With PGP servers we can link the Windows account, active directory account with PGP so when I do an installation on a computer, all I have to do is open the profile of the new employee's machine and it is linked to a server. It doesn't matter how many people I link in. We currently have 40 people and the product is installed on all our computers. Most people in our company are consultants who work on the premises of our clients. They are not located within our offices.

We have contacted technical support in the past with specific issues but we haven't received any answer yet. So my impression is naturally that the technical support is not great.

We are currently looking at Kaspersky Endpoint Encryption for Business Events. I am actually doing testing with a free license that we have access to for 30 days. We are doing this in order to look at the value of the solution, functionalities of the software and if it can apply to our architecture.

Right now we are using Kaspersky but on individual bases. It's not centralized, so each computer has its own Kaspersky security model, but what we want is to be able to manage all the computers in our infrastructure from a central point entry. So that's why we are looking at that specific software. Symantec is not solving all our issues sufficiently.

We are also considering looking into BitLocker to perhaps replace the disk encryption module in Symantec Endpoint Encryption because it is not easy to use.

I wasn't with the company when the product was installed, but I presume the initial setup was complex. The deployment of the product usually takes very little time. I installed the software for new computers and I encrypt the disks. That is all that has to be done so the installation of the product is very quick. It is the encryption of the disk that takes time.

The installation was done by a consultant in 2013.

I am not sure of the licensing fees. I presume there are packages based on what you use. We have three modules (for messaging, disk encryption and shared folders). I believe there are five modules, but we have three out of five. The price scales depending on the number of modules that we use.

My advice to others who are considering this solution is to make sure that they do some testing if they are using disk encryption as we have had problems with updates. Our problem may depend on the version of Windows. So it may be different for other people. I didn't choose to use encryption before, so I learned a lot about the performance and the principle of encryption when it comes to messaging and share folders. So that part is good.

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate Symantec Endpoint Encryption as a six currently. The main problem for us is working with Microsoft updates within PGP. This should be possible because BitLocker is currently doing that which might be a reason we would switch. Updates for Microsoft OS are very complicated for us right now.

We are using this solution to be compliant with CSP.

After the cyberattacks, that impacted the Swift platform of the Bangladesh Bank, the Central Bank, and another bank in Africa. They created a custom security program that contains twenty-seven controls. One of those controls is to encrypt the infrastructure in the Swift platform.

For the Swift operation, we acquired this solution for the servers and the Endpoints.

We can extend it to all of the critical endpoints and the servers, and we can ensure the confidentiality of the data.

This is a pilot project, deployed to be tested. After all of the testing is complete, we can cover the infrastructure.

The most valuable feature of this solution is encryption.

The reporting is very important for us. 

It's a well-known solution and the PGP Solution is a good solution with good performance.

Symantec has SONAR for the antivirus and ransomware behavioral analysis in the endpoints.

We need to develop a process for this solution. We can't deploy the solution without being assisted by or followed by a process. Also, we need to define the process for administrative responsibilities, and the help desk to be notified for every issue with the solution by the users.

If for example, a user forgets the endpoint key, they cannot access their data. We need a support team that is a single point of contact for the IT entity to be trained and to have documentation for troubleshooting and managing the solution.

We would like the editors or solution providers to present us with a roadmap of the new features and their functionalities. If we were to have this roadmap, we could define our roadmap to integrate the new features.

This solution is stable.

This solution is scalable.

It's efficient and we discovered that we can extend the perimeters to cover the entire infrastructure.

We have ten people, but we need three more for the succession plan, and a back up for someone who is not available so that there is continuity when managing the solution.

We haven't had to contact technical support. The solution is very good for us and it responds to our needs.

I used Check Point while I was in Citibank, which was in 2009 and 2010.

The initial setup is not complex, it's easy.

The deployment is easy. You enroll the users and the server, then go to the user and deploy it, reboot the system, then clarify that it is running. From there, you will have an operator to access it.

When the system is rebooted you will be asked for an encryption key. Everyone in the organization has to enter an encryption key.

We have five operators for this platform with four servers.

It is an obligation to deploy it. The scope of compliance, with the goal being to cover all of the infrastructures.

Currently, we outsource the managing of our infrastructure to another company, and we have a dedicated team for our bank. We have the help desk, all of the infrastructure, the networking, the security, and the systems.

We had an integrator to assist us with the implementation and deployment.

Data protect, a Moroccan company that was created in 2009, are also data service providers in all of Africa. 

The created subsidiaries in France, Asia, and other countries. They're a good team that is very helpful and efficient.

The price is very good.

They have two solutions for encryption including Symantec Endpoint Encryption and PGP Endpoint Encryption. With one PGP license, you can deploy the two solutions. The PGP license gives you two options.

Checkpoint has better support. With Symantec, we have subsidiaries involved.

The performance is good and it's efficient.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

The primary use case of this solution is for endpoint Security for the Government of the Ministries that we are employed in.

Their cloud features such as Cloud Endpoint security, ransomware modules, malware, and other modules are very effective.

The main concentration has been on upgrading the cloud version with new features and cloud security. 

They are mostly providing the cloud version and stopping with the on-premises version. I think that they should improve the on-premises version to include the manageability and simplicity that is available on the cloud. This should all be included in the on-premises version.

Currently, the on-premises version is tricky and difficult. 

They should be looking at the on-premises deployment and simplifying it.

In the next release, I would like to see the uninstall feature be more advanced.

This is a stable solution. It is more stable than most solutions.

Even with other solutions, the PC slows down. All those things are there, but it needs to be worked out on a combination. The Endpoint security system always slows down the PC. For the most part, it has been good.

I can't comment on the scalability because I have not deployed on more than one thousand endpoints per customer.

We have five to six customers with each having six to seven hundred endpoints. Our customers' IT supporters have outsourced us.

The technical support is good. When you submit a tag, the support you receive is very good.

Previously were using Trend Micro Endpoint. We chose Symantec Endpoint because it is better.

Compared to cloud the initial setup is complex.

The cloud version is easy to set up. It's one gateway and you connect it and it's pretty much a configured service on the cloud.

Generally, the deployment takes a month for seven hundred endpoints per customer. This includes installing endpoints for customers.

To frame the policy and set up on-premises, it's approximately a week.

The cloud implementation is straightforward. We were able to implement it ourselves, but for the on-premises version, we needed support.

I would recommend cloud implementation, rather than on-premises if it is possible.

The on-premises deployment model will lead you to have errors.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

The encryption feature is very good.

As we're just in the testing phase, we haven't explored many other features in-depth yet.

When we started at that time, the engineers configured the solution only for our roaming users. Now, we have to reconfigure to SQL because we have almost 10,000 clients. We have to do this through SQL because we cannot keep a record of each client.

The agent can be improved on the solution. Right now, we have an Endpoint Protection agent as well as an encryption agent and another for the DLVs and other services. We would prefer a single agent for the entire product.

Endpoint Encryption should be the same as Endpoint Protection. However, for security purposes, we don't want to show to the client the hard drive encryption and all of those related features. If the solution could remove this visibility on the client level and keep it on the control level of the server, that would be better. We don't want to show to the user the security policies.

We haven't had any issues with the stability of the solution.

The scalability of the solution is fine.

We haven't had any issues with the solution yet, so we've never had to contact technical support.

The initial setup is not complex. It's very easy. Deployment time depends on the client and on the machine. Some machines take 24 hours, some machines take three days. Some machines even take up to a half-day. It depends on the hardware.

We had assistance with the integration.

We're using the on-premises deployment model.

I would rate the solution eight out of ten.