AlgoSec Reviews

Firewall rule base management and FCR processing is the main reason we use AlgoSec.

We also use it for troubleshooting purposes and reporting. In that sense, there are three instances that are the main consumers of it. Our infrastructure management uses reporting to get insights, our Network and Security team does all of the FCR processing and troubleshooting of network problems, and our security department that also uses reporting and is part of the approval process for FCRs that are placed in AlgoSec.       

AlgoSec provided a much easier way to process FCRs and get visibility into traffic. With previous vendors, we had to guess what was going on with our traffic and we were not able to act accordingly.

By automating some parts of the work, business pressure is also reduced since we now deliver much faster. I received feedback from our security department that their FCR approval process is also now much easier. The network team is also now able to process FCRs much faster and with more accuracy.

Most of all, Technical Reviews are now top-notch and AlgoSec does part of the job automatically that had been done manually with our previous vendor.

We now process FCRs much faster, which helps us to deliver faster and implement reworks at a quicker rate.

With Business Flow and Firewall Analyzer, it provides much better visibility into traffic and process flows. Visibility into traffic was our main problem in the past since we had no clue what was going on but now, we have all sorts of analyses and reports. This makes our decision process, firewall clean up, and troubleshooting much easier.

All of the search options needed are there but the search menu could be a bit more intuitive. In other words, I can perform any search I want without any problems but combining different search parameters can sometimes be a problem.

Creating more intuitive menus could be helpful, especially for the first-time users.

For example, it would be useful to be able to save searches with complex structure so they can be easily reused with simple change of parameter. Also, "contain" criteria sometimes misses just like ability to search using any value in basic search box, instead of reaching out to Advanced search (it would be great if simple typing IP address, or Project ID in basic search box lists all rules containing such a value).

We have been using AlgoSec in production for about one year. Before that, we used it as a PoC for around six months.

We have had no issues in the past year.

This solution is very scalable.

We used another vendor prior to AlgoSec but we were not satisfied with the "intelligence" of the product when it came to the processing of FCRs.

We also evaluated Skybox.

I have not seen any major issues with AlgoSec and it is better than the previous product we used. I am glad to have it now.

We use it to find unused objects and rule cleanup. However, we also found a use case by letting developers read access so they can see rules and open ports so they can request firewall changes as needed. This opened up time for our firewall engineers because they did not have to answer questions anymore to developers. 

By letting developers access AlgoSec, we cut down the questions and time we had to spend explaining what ports are open and where. They can now see in one panel. Since there are multiple firewall vendors, they can see what rules apply where using one tool.

I think finding the firewall's rules with the highest risk is valuable. In the old days, we had to run reports and look through rule bases trying to find risky rules and that can also lead to human error. Now we see it via AlgoSec. It also helps because we see those risks across multiple vendors. 

I would like to see more object-based reports on groups and object usage. When cleaning up old rules, it is easy to disable the rule and then delete after a while. Trying to find unused groups or used objects in groups gets a little harder and I would like to see an easier view into those objects. 

We have never had an issue with its stability.

This product does scale very well and we never had a problem with performance.

Whenever we did have a question on setup or changes, the tech support was very willing to work with us even on basic questions. 

We have used Tufin which does a good job looking at groups and objects but AlgoSec adds more of a risk approach to it. 

It was very easy to setup and easy to get firewalls working with the manager. 

We were able to set it up in-house without any help. That is how easy it was.

Our ROI was seen very quickly since we gave developers the option to look at rules. IT opened up so much time where our firewall engineers had to deal with questions and explanations. 

I would start with only a few firewalls and then grow. You can get your feet wet and add more firewalls in next year's budget. 

We evaluated Tufin. 

The solution is pretty solid and intuitive.

We use the solution for change control of policies on firewalls, for service desk integrations, and for the service desk rules of network users.

We use the firewall management solution. Our environment is on-premises only. Our company works with financial institutions and they require everything to be on-premises.

There is no question that AlgoSec has reduced the time it takes to implement firewall rules. That is also true because some of our clients use firewalls from various vendors and AlgoSec allows them to implement firewall rules on those firewalls simultaneously, even though they are from different vendors. Even so, when we receive a request for a rule exception, no one controls how long this exception is valid. As a result, these exceptions are valid for a long time and accumulate one by one. With the help of AlgoSec, it is very easy to eliminate this problem. A timer is set for a given firewall rule and, when the timer runs out, a security engineer is notified that the rule is set to expire at the specified time.

In addition, large deployment cases face a large problem due to the number of firewall rules, which can slow down the performance of a firewall and overload the firewall memory. This happens in part because of duplicate rules and rules that conflict with one another. With the help of AlgoSec, we reduce the number of rules, on average, by 30 to 35 percent. AlgoSec cleans duplicate rules and conflicting rules, freeing up memory.

At least two of our clients, when using AlgoSec extensively, have seen a reduction of at least 1.5 to two times what it would take them to implement firewall rules, by reusing predefined templates within AlgoSec. In addition, they find it extremely helpful that AlgoSec checks them for compliance. Before AlgoSec, they had to manually justify compliance of every single firewall rule, when being audited for compliance. They had to explain why it was created, which client and/or service was behind that rule, et cetera. In comparison, AlgoSec does the compliance check on each and every firewall rule making sure it is always compliant with the latest requirements and one can quickly create a report to prove it.

When it comes to preparing for audits and ensuring firewalls are in compliance, about 60 percent of our clients are financial institutions, like banks and insurance companies. They have to adhere to the strict compliance rules and AlgoSec allows us to ensure that the firewalls are in compliance with the normative requirements. IT departments are able to create PCI and DFS reports via AlgoSec that are acceptable for such audits.

In terms of working with multiple security vendors, we usually integrate AlgoSec with other service desk vendors, like ServiceNow and controllers like Cisco ACI. AlgoSec has resources on their website where we can find documentation about integrations with various systems. It was fairly easy to integrate AlgoSec with ServiceNow and Cisco ACI. Their API is understandable and very well described.

The major value, at least here in Ukraine, when integrating AlgoSec with Cisco ACI is that we see most of our clients prefer DSN systems, like Cisco ACI, for data processing. ACI contracts are treated similarly to firewall rules, i.e. permission is required for access. Some of our clients use over 400 such contracts for data processing. Implementing access rules for these systems is not easy. With the help of AlgoSec we can create a rule and AlgoSec checks it for compliance, for duplicate rules, and rule conflicts. That very much simplifies the implementation and deployment of contracts in ACI.

AlgoSec helps tremendously when it comes to reducing human errors, especially when the environment includes firewalls from disparate vendors. In that situation, the probability of human error is very high. It is difficult for me to approximate by what percent it has reduced human error but the reduction is very significant.

In addition, it has helped to simplify the job of security engineers. I’m very sure of that because, otherwise, our clients wouldn’t buy more AlgoSec user licenses.

For us, as well as for our customers, firewall management and change management are the most important features.

We see a very high demand for using containers and Dockers and therefore there is a need for managing access control to these platforms. I checked AlgoSec’s roadmap and, for now, there are no plans for developing these features.

We have worked with AlgoSec for two to three years, implementing the solution for our clients.

Everything works great. We have not seen any significant bugs.

Our deployments of AlgoSec are not large so we haven’t faced a scalability issue. The maximum AlgoSec deployment we’ve done is for about 100 endpoints and that is not a problem for AlgoSec.

We have never needed to use AlgoSec support.

To deploy AlgoSec properly it is important to understand the client's environment. To that end, we have a questionnaire that we send to our clients and that helps clarify what the client's requirements are. It also provides information on the architecture of their environments. Once we receive the questionnaire, we go over the project specifications with them to make sure they didn’t miss anything, such as integrations with other systems. 

Next, we usually do a PoC to test AlgoSec in their environment and that is when we calibrate the solution to the client’s specs and do the necessary customizations. Then we purchase the licenses and roll out AlgoSec into the client's production environment. We also provide technical support for the client for at least a year to make sure that they become familiar with the solution.

The amount of time it takes to deploy always depends on the complexity of the client’s requirements. For example, for firewall management setup without integration with other systems like a service desk or reporting systems, deployment generally takes up to one month. If we need to integrate AlgoSec with solutions like a service desk, then the deployment can take up to four months because there are major changes to the whole business process and these changes require planning, documentation, implementation, and training of end-users.

There are usually three people involved on our side: a salesperson and two engineers, with the latter actually implementing AlgoSec.

I can’t say that this is a cheap system. It's affordable for large enterprises and, in some cases, for mid-sized companies. For the majority of other companies, this solution is out of their price range.

I have hands-on experience with Tuffin and both of these products (Tuffin and AlgoSec) are equal in terms of functionality. In terms of main differences, it comes down to a personal preference.

My advice is to do a PoC. Many would simply read reviews about the solution, watch demos, and request price quotes. At that point they would note that it is not a cheap solution and stop there. That is why I strongly recommend doing a PoC. Only through using the solution can you see how easy it is to manage and implement security rules. It becomes very clear that you’ll see a return on investment in terms of the time saved by your security engineers.

Another recommendation would be to evaluate similar solutions to AlgoSec, especially for companies that are planning the implementation of DSN systems, like Cisco ACI. This is because it involves labor-intensive rules implementation, and with the help of AlgoSec it can be drastically simplified.

The overall visibility the solution provides into network security policies is not applicable to us because our clients are using AlgoSec for firewall only, for edge connectivity of their networks to the internet. We only have one client that used AlgoSec to control rules on the internal firewall, which is deployed into their data center.

We are using Firewall Analyzer (AFA) to compare configurations from multiple firewalls, such as Cisco ASA, Palo Alto, Check Point, and so on. It helps us to streamline our firewall rules, identify risks, and provide better visibility. This product has significantly saved the time and human efforts in creating and deploying firewall rules. It is now easier for our cybersecurity team to analyze firewalls rules and ACLs, using them in a more efficient manner. Other features are also very important for us.

With the help of this product, we can manage all the network security equipment in a centralized way. We are also able to make requests to our security team about quick and valid changes requests, helping to minimize the workload in documentation, troubleshooting and so on. This helps to identify any wrong or unnecessary changes in the network security perimeter, making sure that all security policies and best practices are followed in our network domain. During change implementation, and especially after completion, we can validate, make sure that everything is working fine, and is up-to-date per our expectations.

It’s capability to build and present entire network topology via map makes team members to easily investigate the entire domain. Whenever new applications and services get on boarded and traffic rules and policies being created it automatically discovered those Apps and services and makes life easy. Each and every performance report can be fully automated using this and saves time in audit and compliance requirement.It also helps us to clean old and obsolete rules or those rules which are not in use otherwise it could be very difficult without this product as team have to log into each firewall and remove rules and policies

We are running multiple hybrid cloud solutions, working with cloud providers, and looking for API integrations with cloud and related interoperability. Sometimes, when we are trying to delete or disable any rule, it takes more time than expected. 

Sometimes, the web browser has issues with slowness. It can be worked out with a click or two. 

We are using Algosec Firewall Analyzer referred to as (AFA) since 2018.

This is very stable, robust product. During extreme load in business hours, it works well without any issues. 

It provides interoperability with all vendor firewalls and the scalability is much easier.

Technical support is always good whenever we contact the support team. We always get an immediate response and a solution within defined timelines.

Earlier we are not using any solution but always planning to procure solution that have ability to integrate multi vendor firewalls into single platform and after assessments and evaluations with OEM products we finally select Algosec as approved solution.  

Initial setup was very simple. Using Quickstart help, any member can take part in deployment and administration from basic to advanced level. 

Only the firewall integration could take time due to some complex interactions. 

We implemented using our own internal team and with the help of AlgoSec technical support team. AlgoSec technical support was excellent and prompt.

It provides an improvement in the firewall process load. It also helps with increasing CPU and memory utilization.

When it comes to the cost of support and licensing, it is much cheaper than other competing products.

We have tried FireMon and Tufin under a non-production environment, but the overall features of AlgoSec were best. Therefore, we choose this product for our production environment.

Excellent product to use and has tremendous support from OEM.

We have not faced many problems or issues using this product.

We also have not tested AI or ML capabilities and are very keen to start working with it now. 

Overall, it is well-maintained, robust platform tool for firewall management.

Our primary use for AlgoSec is to automate our firewall configuration. We use the AlgoSec system to remotely configure the firewalls, making our life easier.

We are in a multisite environment with plenty of firewalls for perimeter security and LAN segregation for specific proposes. This solution helped us to make the process more dynamic.

It has reduced the workload for the firewall team thanks to the API integration with our ticketing system, handling the standard types of requests automatically. Before having it, we had to create a lot of standard rules that now can now be just pushed from the AlgoSec system.

It has also helped in terms of firewall monitoring. Automatic alerts are sent to the security team so we can react quicker in case something goes wrong or a thread is detected going through the firewall. This is made possible using the simple reports.

The most valuable feature of this solution from an operations perspective is the automation of the firewall rule deployment, working together with our ticketing system.

Any new needs are requested by a user using the internal webpage request. This request is automatically validated against a set of standard rules. If the request is compliant, the new rule sets are automatically configured in the specified firewalls without any human action. This reduces the firewall team's workload and improves efficiency.

It would be nice to have a good tool for network map discovery in the GUI to make it more user-friendly. I would also like to be able to check and modify network maps in a graphical and more intuitive way. This will improve our network overview for new deployments and troubleshooting.

An API to connect to Palo Alto Prisma and Zscaler to be used after SD-WAN deployment would be a helpful feature. We have discussed this with AlgoSec and are hoping to see it in the near future. 

We have been using the AlgoSec solution for four years.

We did not use a solution like this one previously. This is the first time.

I'm part of the team that uses the AlgoSec solution, not on the finance IT team.

First and mostly, as a large company, we had some issues regarding the main rating companies as they found some issues compromising our assets. There are different management systems and models with human interaction and sometimes with a different validation. This was impacting our business, so we put a lot of effort into solving problems, case by case, with manual operations. AlgoSec came into action in order to avoid this and streamline our process.

AlgoSec is one security management tool with the main target to find any rule that is not in compliance with our internal standards. New rules cannot be configured in any firewall unless it has been validated from security.

We were able to identify every rule configured on each firewall in our facilities with AlgoSec. This included every risky rule, shadow rule, and non-compliant rule. After this, we were working with a fully cleaned-up process.

Now, any rule is pushed automatically with AlgoSec. In fact, every user in the company is raising tickets through it to request a new open flow across firewalls. If AlgoSec detects that this flow has no risk, it is automatically pushed onto the firewall. If not, it goes to a dedicated approval process.

Among all of the different AlgoSec modules, I think that FireFlow is the most valuable and we have integrated it into our internal processes. This is something that increases business efficiency and helps avoid bottlenecks in our NOC team. Moreover, we have eliminated any human mistakes that we have dealt with in the past and now we want to avoid as we are moving toward a completely automated network.

There are a few things that we have already raised to AlgoSec in order to improve the tool. First, as the highest volume in our network is SaaS traffic, we need to secure this connection. To secure SaaS traffic there are a few vendors such as Palo Alto and Zscaler, but AlgoSec is not yet able to push rules onto these clouds. It’s in the roadmap but this is something that blocks our whole design.

The network map design is not very useful for the administrator as the information displayed is not user-friendly.

It's been almost two and a half years since when we were looking for a fully integrated Security Management tool and we decided to run this solution in our multi-vendor network.

Stability is good, but we are still debugging tiny things because we have to accommodate the solution to our large IT infrastructure.

It will be good as long as they can move this solution to hybrid or fully cloud deployments. 

All issues raised so far have had a good response SLA.

We didn't use any security managament tool prior to this one.

This initial setup was tough because of the network map configuration. There is no visibility on the provider (ISP) because they cannot grant access to us. So, the configuration was mostly set up manually.

AlgoSec was deployed with the support of professional services coming from the vendor. This made the implementation smooth for us. The expertise was good, as they had experience with this solution.

We were doing some workshops with both AlgoSec and Tufin. 

We are using AlogSec mainly for firewall compliance reporting as well analyzing and evaluating firewall policy. That, in turn, means we can actively work on firewall policy optimization and elimination of unused and risky rules. We also using it for compliance reporting. 

The solution has helped us a lot in improving our firewall security optimization as well in evaluating security policy to eliminate the risky rules or secure them. 

Its reporting modules solve all our monthly and quarterly compliance-related reporting requirements. 

Currently, we are using almost all the features of the product to take as much advantage as we can of what it offers. But our primary use is compliance reporting and the Firewall Analyzer helps us achieve our various IT compliance requirements, like ISO-27001.

There is huge scope for improvement in the level of support, especially around the issue of resolution time. That is the only negative point I find in the solution. I hope you guys will work on it and improve your resolution time which will help customers to keep their AlgoSec device healthy.

In the six years we have been using it, we have never seen an outage or failure of AlgoSec or any other software-related failure. 

The product is very scalable. We have never faced any issues related to the scalability of the product. 

As an individual, my experience has been good, but in terms of technical-issue resolution, I am not 100 percent satisfied because of time the AlgoSec team takes to fix issues, some of the time.

Previously, we were using Tufin but we found that solution more complicated when compared with AlgoSec. 

The initial setup was straightforward because of the well-defined GUI platform.

We implemented it in-house.

Given that we have been using this product for the last six years, there is no question about ROI. If we were not seeing ROI, per our expectations, we would not continue with the product. 

AlgoSec is not much more expensive compared to other products available in the market.

We evaluated FireMon but it was more complicated than AlgoSec and did not fulfill our basic requirements. 

Overall, AlgoSec is doing a good job.

We need less time to identify any risks in our firewalls, as we can detect changes in real-time.

We have obtained in easy way to do compliance reports for audit purposes. With this optimization reports, we can clean up unused rules, consolidate covered or redundant rules. We can also define trusted rules that apply.

Risky rules reports help to reduce manual work and identify the main risky configurations to remove. This give us some recommendations on how remediate and their importance.

• Identifying and removing risky rules
• Firewall rules cleanup (unused rules)
• Security compliance reports
• Security baseline settings

A vulnerability management module might be interesting, though not integrated with a third-party vendor. It should be an AlgoSec VM module.

I would like some server integration for vulnerability management.  

Some PDF reports are not so good. E.g., the graphics and reports are not so good. Sometimes, we need to create graphics and reports to compare security ratings across months and groups. 

I have been using AlgoSec for two years. 

Awesome.

Great.

Excellent and very kind technical support.

No.

Licensing is very easy to set up. The pricing is relative to how you want to expand and harden your network security. 

I did not evaluate another solution.

It is a great tool that makes work easier each day. I can't imagine working without AlgoSec and using it for my daily activities.