iboss Reviews

We use iboss primarily for web filtering and web protection. We have a two-stage approach. In the first stage, we rolled it out to get web filtering, and we'll implement complete zero trust in the second stage so that we can remove our legacy proxy. Many of our staff began working remotely during COVID, so we set up a VPN for them to connect to the office system securely. We hope to move from the legacy method of connecting. 

The web proxy we used before iboss was a nightmare. It always stopped working, and we spent hours with support troubleshooting the issue. The company we used was sold, and it was hard to get support from the company that bought them. Once we implemented iboss, we stopped having internal internet issues, which were a constant headache for our IT department. They were eliminated overnight. 

Using iboss helped us consolidate solutions. We removed three legacy applications. That's one reason we implemented iboss. The company underinvests in the IT department, so when they get money, they buy a new product that doesn't necessarily work with the others. We plan to get rid of our legacy proxy and VPN. While it's hard to say whether consolidating has reduced our costs, it has definitely reduced the associated admin work.

The solution has massively improved our security posture, giving us full visibility into what our staff does online. We manage critical national infrastructure, and the likelihood that we'll be attacked grows with our digital footprint. Having an extra layer of protection gives us peace of mind. 

It can help us stop security incidents because we can monitor our employees through the dashboard and prevent them from accessing malicious websites. Looking at the dashboard now, I can see the high number of phishing links it's blocking. I'm currently building a dashboard

We initially used iboss for our work-from-home workers, and eventually, we installed the client for office users as well. Now, almost all of our users have the iboss agent. We have installed this agent for almost 1,700 users.

Our services route is already configured in iboss, so we have different types of nodes through which our traffic goes through.

It has a graphical user interface, and it is very easy for any user. We have administrative access and non-administrative access to iboss. It is very easy to understand the process and the configuration. We can easily understand security policies, node management, and other things such as metadata. Everything is easy to use and understand because of this graphical user interface. CLI can be complicated for someone with no knowledge of Linux; GUI makes it easy for everyone.

We have several Internet Service Providers in our organization. For cost reduction, we transfer our main traffic to the US and other locations through the iboss node. Its impact is positive if I can get one IP line from my local area and distribute more nodes through iboss. It has been very beneficial for my organization so far.

It enhances our security. It is our primary solution for web filtering.

We purchased iboss for its SASE and ZTNA features. We're currently utilizing the SASE capabilities and have plans to deploy the ZTNA functionality in the future. We're also using the web browser sandboxing feature for some limited use cases. We currently have approximately 80,000 users on the platform.

iboss is primarily a cloud-based solution, but I tend to think of it more as a platform-as-a-service due to its deployment flexibility. In its most basic form, it utilizes distributed points of presence globally, and agents on our devices connect to the nearest one for seamless backend routing. However, for data center needs, they offer physical hardware for on-premises installation, bridging those environments into their network. They have similar solutions for cloud integration as well. So, while fundamentally a cloud service, iboss's adaptability has allowed us to address all our advanced deployment requirements.

iboss is easy to use despite its complexity. Multiple engineers manage it, but it's significantly more straightforward to administer than traditional VPNs and web proxies. This is mainly because iboss handles the back-end infrastructure, leaving us to focus on agent deployments and scheduling upgrades. The user interface is intuitive enough for junior engineers to grasp quickly, unlike some other tools we use. Overall, I'd give it a B+ or A- for ease of use. There are a few clunky areas, but they're not unique to iboss, so I don't hold them against it too much.

During the RFP process, their single console was a significant factor that inclined us toward iboss. At least two of their main competitors have multiple consoles, which creates unnecessary administrative overhead. As a result, we awarded iboss additional points for their streamlined approach.

So far, iboss has allowed us to remove the traditional web proxy and eliminate the endpoint DLP. If the roadmap continues as intended, we will use it to replace legacy VPN. The only reason we haven't done that yet is not a product issue; it's simply that we have a lot of internal network-level complexity to resolve first. However, we intend that it will also replace the traditional VPNs we use, including Checkpoint, Palo Alto, and others.

iboss has reached a breakeven point, but ultimately it will lead to cost reductions. While the previous design needed more staff to operate, it has enabled a leaner engineering team than would have been possible if the legacy systems were retained. Though an exact dollar amount cannot be given, it's either at a breakeven point or already saving money, and ultimately, it's expected to generate savings.

Having one console improves security, as it reduces the number of tools we need to monitor, which is crucial for managing overhead when dealing with large amounts of data that need to reach the SIM. More tools mean more data connectors to operate, which increases the engineering team's workload and impacts the operations team, which needs data quickly. Therefore, limiting the number of sources simplifies transferring data and minimizes potential issues. The setup process, from proof of concept to initial deployment, took only a few weeks, demonstrating its efficiency and enabling faster security implementation, as it served both as a replacement for legacy technology and a new addition.

The visibility iboss provides into our environment is comprehensive. As a large retailer with a complex environment, we have it deployed at 2,200 physical stores, 100 distribution center supply chain facilities, and all corporate employees. We are now starting to connect it to the cloud, which will give us transparent visibility across our entire infrastructure.

We use ChatGPT risk protection, which is crucial as we navigate our journey into AI, like most companies. We have approved use cases and sites that aren't, with ChatGPT being one of the latter. It was among the first sites we blocked. iboss's granularity allows us to specify which users can access ChatGPT if, for example, a development team gets approval, ensuring minimum access without opening it to everyone. This level of control wasn't possible with our previous legacy platform.

We are beginning to implement zero trust and have a few use cases deployed currently. My goal is to have it fully deployed within the next 12 to 18 months. Realistically, any delays are not due to the product itself but rather the politics of large organizations. Convincing other VPs takes time, and as a Fortune 50 company, we tend to move slower. However, we will ultimately deploy zero trust broadly across the organization.

We experienced benefits from iboss immediately. While it's a complex platform with extensive capabilities, the time it takes to fully realize its benefits depends on the organization's willingness to embrace change, as it significantly alters the user experience. We saw immediate benefits upon deployment and have continued to see incremental improvements since then. However, it's crucial to note that it's not a solution where you deploy it and wait months or years for results. The speed at which you gain benefits is largely up to you. As a slower-moving organization, we opted for a gradual rollout to avoid disrupting everyone. I advise anyone deploying this type of platform to be mindful of the user experience changes and communicate proactively. We were careful to inform the business about potential block pages and provide guidance on how to request access to necessary sites. iboss, the vendor, was extremely helpful in supporting our rollout and providing resources, leading to a surprisingly fast implementation compared to other projects I've managed.

iboss has generated cost savings by enabling us to consolidate some capabilities and eliminate the need to purchase additional tools that would have otherwise been necessary.

We used it for student and faculty filtering on campus.

We were a hybrid environment where we were not fully cloud or on-prem. That caused a lot of difficulty for us where we had to go into one system for some of the things we needed to do and then we had to go into another system for other things we needed to do. Because we needed to do inline filtering, we could not move their cloud-based service. That caused a lot of operability issues for us. For us, it was not a single pane of glass. If you are fully cloud-based, that portion is nice, but if you want on-prem inline filtering, it is not a single pane of glass.

Their visibility in cloud, web, and private applications is dependent on whether you have their client and their certificate on your device. For us, that did not work because we did not have that on there, so we had almost zero visibility into SSL traffic.

We use it for URL filtering to enforce our enterprise Internet use policy. We use it for our current initiatives in artificial intelligence. There's a module in iboss for artificial intelligence we're utilizing. 

We use it for forensics when our internal affairs investigators need historical information on website access. We use their cloud configuration to send our enterprise-owned devices anywhere in the world, and we've enabled the protections to travel with the end user. 

We also have some botnet and malware and other protections through that agent, and we are currently evaluating the iboss platform to see if their zero trust framework and legacy VPN solution will work in our environment. We've been fanning out. Iboss started out with us as just a simple URL filter, and it has moved on to be used in several key critical areas of our operation.

We immediately saw value from the moment we deployed it 15 years ago. The product did precisely what people told us it would do. Over the years, it has grown with us and our enterprise's security function. We have had an excellent, mutually beneficial relationship with this vendor.

The solution saves us costs associated with the aftermath of an incident. That's not to mention cyber insurance claims and everything would go through the roof if these attacks had been successful that we've thwarted with iboss. The benefits are clear. We are thrilled it may help us save money again because we are retiring our legacy VPN. The iboss VPN offers more competitive pricing than the other two vendors. 

Using iboss, we've reduced daily security incidents. We have people in and out of our environment left and right. When they leave the environment, they think it's okay to use an asset that belongs to the organization. The solution has prevented things that otherwise could have been a tremendous loss for us. 

Now, the thing to consider here is that money isn't the only loss we measure because we're a government agency. We measure the effect on our reputation. Elected officials run this place. If we have an incident, people believe elected officials are not doing their jobs, affecting our reputation. It has saved us in that area as well. 

We are a K–12 school district. We have an on-prem box. We use our on-prem box to filter the local traffic for our users, staff, teachers, and everybody on there as well as the students.

We also have a cloud instance. We use Chromebooks here in the district. We use their Chrome plug-in to filter the students' devices, both on-site and off-site. When they take the devices home, they are filtered at home as well.

In terms of day-to-day usage, it is very simplistic. You have a cloud interface. Everything is online. You could sign in, make any sort of changes, and view and do active monitoring to see if there is anything that needs to be done. The initial setup, like with any product, takes a long amount of time because you need to figure things out. You need to figure out what you want to block and what you do not want to block category-wise and weighting-wise, but once it is up and running and you have everything in there, there is not much to do. We are not in there every day. You kind of set it and forget it. Once everything is set up, you just leave it alone unless there is an issue, somebody cannot access a site, some site is blocked, or you want to actively block a new site because some kids found some new game site to get to or whatnot. Once it is up and running, you do not have to do much to maintain it.

The console is very good. You can access everything from it. I like the layout of it. It somewhat mirrored some of the older interfaces, but I definitely like the layout and the ease of use of it, and I never struggle to find what I am looking for.

It did help us a bit with consolidation. We removed the on-premise monitoring or filtering thing that was doing the logging. We removed the logging side of it that was on-premises. It did help us do that because that went to the cloud in association with the actual product to do the filtering itself. They have what they call the reporter and then the actual iboss appliance. Moving that reporter to the cloud helped push everything into a single pane of glass, which made everything a lot nicer to work with for sure.

The single-pane-of-glass console helped our organization improve security. We can get in there and see what sites are being attempted to be accessed a little bit more easily through that single pane of glass than before. Previously, we had multiple tabs open, and we were clicking back and forth. I like the real-time log being associated on the cloud, and I also like that it is accessible from anywhere. If I am off-site at a meeting and somebody contacts me about it, I do not have to VPN in. I can just log in to that site from wherever I am and do what is needed.

iboss gives you great visibility into what is being utilized inside the network. You can see the traffic flow, what sites the kids are accessing, and what sites the staff are accessing. It is a very good tool if you are looking to monitor bandwidth or try to figure out what is being utilized within the network. It would be a big tool if you are trying to do this sort of analysis of data traffic because it does log all that. You get to see top sites visited, top sites blocked, and some of that information, which definitely would give you some insight into what your Internet is being used for.

iboss definitely helped our organization reduce security incidents. It is stopping people from going to sites that could potentially be harmful or contain spyware or malware, or something that could potentially get into the network and cause us problems. It is doing its job and blocking out sites that are potentially hazardous. Our network is safer with it in place.

We could see its benefits immediately. Prior to going to iboss, we were using another filtering product. I was very unhappy with it. It was very clunky. I struggled to get things unblocked and manage it. It became very cumbersome. I was new here at the time, so we started to look at different products. We demoed quite a few products. We demoed Lightspeed. We demoed iboss. We demoed a couple of others. We liked the interface of iboss the most, and we all made that decision. Once we got it in and up and running, I was so much happier because I went from such a terrible product to a good product. I felt like it was easy to manage. The iboss team was very good at helping us get everything implemented and get us going in the right direction to get everything in there. I was immediately happy with it after the switchover. 

We are a PreK-12 public school district, and we use iboss to filter internet content for our students at home and staff member devices to ensure they do not access inappropriate sites.

iboss alerts us to activities that we would not necessarily know or monitor, such as attempts by users to access proxies to bypass filtering. 

I am sure it saves us costs because it prevents students from loading malware. It saves the amount of time it would take to bring these computers back, rebuild their operating system, and send them out. 

We cut down on staff issues or malware because we are blocking that actively. We let it block things by category. We are preventing all installs of things that would cause work for us. It has cut down about 15% of our time in managing workstations. iboss has reduced security incidents by 25%.

We use iboss for cloud proxy, CASB, and SSL inspection. I am gradually evaluating the zero trust feature of it.

iboss helped us consolidate our security solutions that were previously scattered across different platforms. Previously, we had different solutions for CASB, SSL inspection, proxy, and other functions. This consolidation did not significantly reduce the costs, but it did help.

iboss has significantly lowered the number of security incidents. It is crazy how much it blocks and how much it is aware of the outside dangers. It has been helping us a lot.

We were able to realize its benefits within a month and a half. In the beginning, I had to work hard to get it up and running and ensure that people other than me could also run it. From the users' perspective, the benefits were seen right away, but from an admin perspective, it took us about a month and a half to get going and see its benefits.