What is our primary use case?
I use Airlock Digital Application Control as part of my role in the security team managing endpoint controls and broader defensive measures. I have been working with the product as part of strengthening our application control strategy, mainly around policy design, fine-tuning, and making sure it fits business requirements without causing too much disruption.
What is most valuable?
I appreciate several aspects of Airlock Digital Application Control. What I appreciate most is that it enforces discipline in the environment. It aligns well with least privilege principles because only approved software runs. That alone removes a large category of risk that traditional reactive tools still have to chase. The organization I am working with currently uses a variety of software and applications, and thus it becomes even more necessary to have a robust mechanism to safeguard our assets. Airlock works very well in this regard.
I feel that with respect to Airlock Digital Application Control, the upgrade process is very straightforward and simple. There is no downtime required. If they roll out a new version, it is easy to upgrade to the latest version without any reboot. There is no downtime required to upgrade Airlock Digital Application Control to the latest version. This is something I really appreciate.
Another aspect I can think about is clear audit visibility. In Airlock Digital Application Control console, you are able to get a log of everything. Even if I log into the console, there is an audit that a user, Mahesh, has logged in. If someone has added some hash or any kind of whitelisting has been done, everything is recorded. I have clear audit visibility.
The most valuable part is the centralized policy management. I can have a centralized policy in place to support a list of servers. For example, I have a policy in place to protect all my workstations. Then I have a separate policy to protect my UNIX workstations. Similarly, a separate policy for Windows Server. I have centralized policy management, and it becomes very easy with respect to Airlock Digital Application Control in this regard.
The proper governance and control that Airlock Digital Application Control provides helps to improve auditability and governance over our policies. I am working with a government organization. Here we have multiple teams using their own kind of software and applications. The problem is that without proper governance, there is a chance of data leakage or any threat entering into the network, as they all use their own kind of software and USB keys. With Airlock Digital Application Control, we have proper governance in place because by default, everything is blocked. We follow the policy of zero trust. Anything which is not known is completely blocked. We ensure that only the approved software is currently allowed. We also ensure that the baselining is in place. When we use different operating systems, like Windows workstations or any kind of Windows versions or Linux versions, we ensure that the operating system is baselined, which helps to stop a lot of unwanted noise. With this, we manage the entire infrastructure.
What needs improvement?
There are a few areas of Airlock Digital Application Control that I would like to see improved or enhanced in the future. The first thing is that the new version release schedule is quite repetitive, deploying a new agent within a couple of months. This makes it difficult for us to keep in touch because we have a controlled environment, and everything must be done via change management. We cannot upgrade the server or stay up to date with the latest version all the time. Airlock Digital Application Control should release updates but also provide ample time for organizations to adapt to the latest version.
The second area for improvement I think about is regarding the workflows. The workflows require careful tuning during initial rollout, especially in dynamic environments like what we have.
My impression of the granular policy control offered by Airlock Digital Application Control is that it can still be improved. Granular policy control is much better for control and application. For metadata rules to work, all endpoints must be on a particular version or higher. Unfortunately, in our environment, we do not have all machines using the same client version, which becomes a problem. If you go to Airlock Digital Application Control, they have an answer that the best thing you can do is use the granular policy if you have all agents and endpoints on the same version. That is something we need to work upon. Granular policy is much better to control and apply, and this is my experience.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using it for the past one and a half years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
When it comes to stability, I have experienced some issues with Airlock Digital Application Control in the initial versions. In the initial versions, there were issues with memory leaks. I am talking about the versions 4.8 to 5.1. Those versions had a known issue of memory leaks, which caused performance issues. However, after they rolled out 5.2.2, these issues were completely resolved, and since then, Airlock Digital Application Control is working quite well.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I find Airlock Digital Application Control very scalable. I have not seen any issues with the scalability because we have more than 20,000 endpoints, and it is working excellently. We have not faced any issues.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support and customer service teams of Airlock Digital Application Control are quite good. If you ask me to rate them between zero to five, five being the best, I would give them a rating of four. The reason being that the moment you log a case with them, they reach out to you within a short period. They are always happy to come on a call. When you speak and share the problem you are facing, you can troubleshoot things much faster than via chat or email. They are always available on call, which really helps. That is why my rating is four for the support team.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Before Airlock Digital Application Control, I worked on ThreatLocker for some time. Before this organization, I was working as a security analyst in one of the banks. I had the chance, as part of the job rotation, to work with the SOC for a few months. There, I had a chance to work on ThreatLocker. However, I did not get as much exposure to ThreatLocker as I am currently getting with Airlock Digital Application Control.
How was the initial setup?
I was indeed involved in the initial setup of Airlock Digital Application Control.
My experience with the initial setup of Airlock Digital Application Control was quite positive. With respect to the rollout, I would say there were not many challenges because we properly planned the entire deployment. We had apprised all stakeholders about what this product is going to do and what issues to expect once installed across all servers and endpoints. Since we took the right steps, the rollout was quite simple.
Once it was rolled out, the application team and the users faced issues, so we had to train them initially on what can be done and what needs to be done from their end. The first few months were a bit difficult for us due to many calls, tickets, and inquiries. However, once users understood the functionality and how Airlock Digital Application Control can work, things streamlined after a few months, and then everything became easy for us.
What other advice do I have?
Utilizing Airlock Digital Application Control does help to prevent malware within our systems to some degree. We have something called defense-in-depth. The good thing is that because Airlock Digital Application Control works on the principle of least privilege and it works on the principle of zero trust, any new hash or software is by default blocked. This definitely helps. Since we have defense-in-depth, in case something or a threat does enter into a network, we can control it. If Airlock Digital Application Control is not able to detect it, we have different measures in place to control the malware and protect our organization.
Airlock Digital Application Control brings many main benefits to the table that help improve the way the organization functions. One thing I have noticed is that because Airlock Digital Application Control blocks everything, we must keep all the different teams together and make them understand usability. When things are blocked, if they upgrade an application, it gets blocked by Airlock Digital Application Control. We have to tell them this is very important because anything unknown will be blocked. There is an option called OTP. Using OTP, you can block, enable, and allow Airlock Digital Application Control to work. This has been a pain point for us because if a user has the ability to enable OTP and bypasses it, that negates the use of Airlock Digital Application Control. Recently, as part of the improvement measure, we have disabled the feature of OTP for users, so they cannot enable OTP at all. If they want to test an application, definitely Airlock Digital Application Control is going to block it. We have integrated Airlock Digital Application Control with our ticketing tool, ServiceNow. When a user wants to enable OTP, they must submit a request that will by default go to the manager for approval. The request comes to us, and via automation, once the request is approved, the OTP is enabled from the console, allowing that particular machine to test and run the application without issue. This is something we have worked upon.
In terms of integration and automation with Airlock Digital Application Control, what we are doing here is in the case of automation. We rely on different infra teams, like the UNIX team and the Windows team for the upgrade of the agents. What has helped is that from the console, we can perform the entire upgrade of the endpoints. We do not have to rely on the UNIX team or the Windows team because that adds to the delay based on their availability. With this automation feature from the console, after having the change approved, I have the complete control to automate and select the list of servers or machines where I want to upgrade the agents, and this is how it goes about. Automation is really helping us with this.
Based on my experience with Airlock Digital Application Control, I would share a piece of advice with organizations considering it. The first thing I would say for any organization wanting to implement application control whitelisting is to understand the business requirements first and whether this product will meet their needs. Secondly, they must follow a proper governance mode and thorough change management process because you cannot just update or roll out on the fly. If you are going to deploy this particular product in your environment, have the plans in place, take all teams into confidence, and then definitely things will work fine. I would give Airlock Digital Application Control a rating of eight out of ten based on my overall experience.