Cisco Secure IPS (NGIPS) Reviews

We use the solution for cybersecurity purposes. The tool helps us to identify anomalies that come from internal or external networks. 

The attack patterns and payloads go undetected in Cisco. We would like to see a new solution with more effective detection of attack patterns. There should be more data analyzing patterns as well which provides useful information. 

I have been using the product for two years. 

I would rate the solution's stability an eight out of ten. 

The tool's scalability is not an issue. We have a lot of people using the product even in our subsidiaries. We have a couple of thousand users for the solution.

We have residence engineers for support. We mainly use level two support. Cisco's support in the local region is up to the level. However, we have issue with country-level support.  

I use Darktrace simultaneously. 

The product's setup was smooth and easy. The implementation was not a big deal and took two weeks to complete.

A Cisco consultant helped us with the tool's implementation. They were competent, helpful, and confident. 

We get cut in price since we use other Cisco products. We have the whole bundle of Cisco solutions. 

I would rate the product a six out of ten. The solution is easy to maintain. We are looking for a solution that is powered by AI which gives enhanced protection and detection. 

We predominantly use this solution to place the perimeter on the firewall, which helps us filter out inbound and outbound traffic.

Cisco is tightly engaged with threat defence called Talos, which has more threat intelligence. In addition, they are dedicated to working on updating their IPS signatures.

We have been using this solution for almost five years. It is deployed both on-premises and cloud, and we are using the latest version, Cisco 12.X.

It is a stable solution.

It is a scalable solution. We have over 100 clients.

The technical support is sound and clear.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward, and it's like a plug-and-play. The graphical user interface is understandable, and their documentations are clear. In addition, they have an SOP document that can be used as a guide.

There is an annual licensing cost. It is not a cheap solution, but it's cost-effective. Aside from costs, Cisco NGIPS provides great security. Cisco is providing more discounts to its end customers to survive in the security market.

I rate this solution a ten out of ten. I would recommend this solution. When you compare Cisco NGIPS to other solutions, it is salable and technically sound. Other solutions have very limited services and threat intelligence.

Regarding additional features, they should speed up their technology to the market because, compared with other security vendors, Cisco is a little behind on the Gartner and technical front. In addition, the integration can be more secure.

The NGIPS handles all of the IPS functionality for our security.

The most valuable feature for our cloud-based deployment is the autoscaling.

For our on-premises deployment, clustering is the most valuable.

I think their fingerprints are good in terms of how they whitelist and blacklist. This is because of Talos, which is really awesome. We use that a lot.

The anomaly detection capabilities are awesome.

The only thing I think they may need to improve on a little bit is identifying software more correctly when you do network discovery. You need that to really handle finding anomalies properly. In the past, I've noticed that some applications are not identified correctly, based on the OS and the fingerprints that they're pulling from the host.

In the future, we would like to see more involvement with the on-premises hybrid cloud. We want to see Cisco do more in the cloud space, and basically improving the connection between on-premises and the cloud. This including things such as automation.

I have been using Cisco NGIPS for almost seven years.

The code is well-stabled right now and we've never had issues upgrading from one version to another. We've had it since version 2.0 and for every time we upgrade, it gets better. We're currently on version 6.6 and we're expecting that when 6.7 comes out, it will get better.

This is a very scalable product. You can add multiple devices to the same policy and then push that out.

In the cloud space, scaling is done automatically based on the amount of traffic and the amount of bandwidth that's generated. It scales up and down, back and forth, as needed. For example, if there is not much traffic then it drops, whereas if there is a lot of traffic then it creates another FTD, and then it just shares the load with load balancing.

Everything is scaled properly both in the cloud and on-premises.

Cisco's technical support is really good. I would say that they are number one. They follow up on their calls and tags, as well.

I also have experience with Check Point and I find that the pricing is better with Cisco.

The initial setup is straightforward. With the Firepower Threat Defense (FTD), everything is in one box. You can do everything from firewalls to IPS and more. It also includes the next-generation firewall.

It is an easy upgrade process that is easy to understand. I would say that from version 3.0, it has improved.

The cost of the license depends on the level of support that you have with Cisco. 

My advice for anybody who is implementing Cisco NGIPS is to read and understand all of the documentation before you start. Whatever it is that you might need help with, reach out to Cisco support and let them help you. The documentation is available and it is very understandable so you may not need their help. I would say that if you take your time to read it then you shouldn't have any problems in deploying.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

We use Cisco as a firewall. It is an intrusion detection and prevention solution.

The malware detection, threat defense, sandboxing, VPN, and mail security have all been valuable features of Cisco NGIPS.

The performance of CISCO Firepower could be improved. 

We moved from Sophos to Cisco before the pandemic. During the pandemic, there was an increase in VPN connections. We had a layer of security within CISCO Umbrella, and now with Cloud. The firewall protects the internal system, but we needed to add another layer of security for the endpoints that are outside the local area network. We needed another product to cover this lack of security.

We prefer to have integration with the points that are outside our local area networks using the same brand using one single console. Because the firewall only protects the people inside the network, we required another solution.

I would like to see Cisco NGIPS include home office support in one single product.

Our organization has been using Cisco NGIPS for two years.

Cisco NGIPS is stable most of the time.

This solution is not easily scaled. I would like Cisco NGIPS to be easier to scale. With the increase in work from home, we needed to add another layer of security to ensure we can meet the demand of stability, high availability, and connection.

Our company has two layers of support with Cisco. One is the local support, which is very good. The second support is directly from Cisco. They are quick to respond and have quick solutions to the problems.

We moved from Sophos to Cisco Firewall because we were looking for better integration between all the appliances and data center. All of our core switches, our wireless system, and other tools are the Cisco brand, meaning that all our monitoring options are integrated under Cisco.

We hired a professional service to install this solution.

With the increase in work from home, companies may need more than just a firewall. I recommend anyone considering Cisco NGIPS evaluate all the demands from their in-home offices and determine if their solution needs to be bigger, or wider, for security and performance.

I would rate this product a 9 out of 10, particularly if you work in a LAN environment.

Our primary use case is as a firewall segregating networks and defending the perimeter.

I would consider this to be a medium product in its field across the board.

Some features, for instance, are a way for the management console to be able to manage each specific firewall, for instance. Because if we have more than one firewall configured in the management center, we cannot delegate administration, just one of the equipment. I think the part of IPS and everything else needs to be better equated to the real needs or current needs of the business compared to the other manufacturer, because it is not straightforward, a way to configure it compared to the other competitors.

I have been using Cisco NGIPS for one year.

It is more or less stable. Sometimes I have some issues normally when we need to upgrade it to newer versions. I think it does the job. The hardware does the job, and the current models do the job.

We have around four thousand users and that would be an example of its scalability.

Technical support is good. If you open a case about the support, it is good. Compared to the other manufacturer, it is very good.

The initial setup was complex and the upgrade took a lot of time with a very big image to download and everything else. We had many versions and patches that had to be installed. The deployment took between two and three hours.

In this case, we did it in-house and I was the integrator.

I think we have to have a good knowledge of the product. It is not easy to set up from the beginning. And I am also using the comparison with the other manufacturer. You need to have very good training before managing the product. I would rate Cisco NGIPS a seven on a scale of one to ten.

We have a Cisco ASA firewall, which is like a standard firewall. We upgraded to Firepower Threat Defense, and it is like a next-generation capability, like NGIPS and NGAV, and has that kind of functionality. It also improves network security and threat defence.

It has helped to improve our cybersecurity and our network security posture.

The FTD has a GUI interface, which is very easy to work around with all the configurations. It is a client-based software based on Java. Now we have the GUI web interface, and it's very interactive and easy to navigate.

Cisco NGIPS runs the backend as a Snort engine, so it is like they customize it with Cisco. So they need to have an engine for threat defence.

We have been using this solution for two years and are using version 9.6. It is deployed on-premises.

It is a stable solution.

It is scalable. NGIPS is based on our user base, so we have around 2000 users. We require two network and security administrators for deployment and maintenance. We do not plan to increase usage because we have already upgraded.

I rate the technical support a ten out of ten.

Positive

We updated from Cisco ASA to NGIPS FTD.

The initial setup is a bit complex because it requires a lot of configuration, firewall and zoning. The deployment was done in-house. We just purchased a box and installed it on our own.

We have seen a return on investment in improving security and defending the threats in our network.

I do not have details about the licensing costs. It has a user-based license and a different model license because it is modular software.

I rate this solution an eight out of ten. From a recommendation perspective, before deploying the NGIPS solution, you need to work with your internal environment. It can minimize the load on the NGIPS, so you should do your IPS signature before moving to production.

It should have a network and content processor and a security process for additional features. Other OEMs have these capabilities to enhance the throughput and performance.

My company is a system integrator and we deploy Cisco NGIPS in various contexts, typically in the banking environment and in other high-level security scenarios, depending on our customer requirements. 

We normally work with the most current models of Cisco products such as the Catalyst 9000 Series switches and 1000 Series routers.

The top features of Cisco NGIPS, which have been working very well, include stateful inspection and the access list-based security configuration. But from my perspective, the best part of Cisco NGIPS is the licensing process, which is very easy and straightforward. It's essentially copy-paste licensing.

The other aspect that I like is the technical support, who are highly capable. They were very good to us during the times that we used them and they tend to reply immediately to queries, even though you might not get the right engineer to help you right away. Tickets are usually assigned to junior staff at first but they do have escalation procedures, so if the support member can't solve the issue then they will immediately escalate it to higher management.

The feedback from some of our customers is that they weren't interested in Cisco because it was too complicated to deploy, especially in cloud-related areas.

Something else that our customers have commented on is that, in the current release of Cisco NGIPS that we are using, there have been some issues when they have tried to synchronize Cisco's hardware products with Cisco's management software.

If I recall correctly, the problems came from Cisco's Firepower Management software after we had proposed to our customers to use virtual machines as a cost-saving measure. After setting up the VMs, the software would start crashing, and it greatly disturbed the customers. It is possible that this was related to power issues because most of the time it would crash on power-on or power-off, but at other times it would crash due to incoming firewall traffic. I hope that in future releases, these problems will be solved.

In general, the ASA level features are working very well in Cisco products, but when it comes to the Next-Generation product, it has been somewhat unstable. To remedy this situation, Cisco needs to make the software more stable, easier to manage, and easier to update (possibly with an auto-updating mechanism). The small intricacies of the software product make the system more complicated than it needs to be for our engineers and our customers. 

I have used Cisco NGIPS for four years.

Cisco's stability issues have caused several of our customers to complain directly to the vendor, and if these issues persist into the future I will not be able to continue recommending Cisco NGIPS to our customers. In terms of cost, security, compatibility, and flexibility, there are a lot of products doing better than Cisco, so why would customers keep buying Cisco if they can get better products with more stability? Cisco has to think of their global market first and foremost and fix their issues based on their findings. In our country, Cisco has a good name because they got here first, but a lot of customers have shifted, in terms of security, to other products such as Fortinet and Palo Alto, which have their own Next-Generation firewalls.

Cisco NGIPS is not that easy to scale, in my opinion. However, it can be upgraded, depending on the design. When you propose a design to customers, you have to check their expansion capability in terms of various factors such as how much time and how much employees would have to be involved.

When it comes to the VM products, some of them might not be scalable unless you upgrade your product to the latest version, in which case you have to upgrade the versions one by one. For example, your current version might 5.1 and you are aiming to upgrade to version 10.1. In this case, you would have to upgrade each intermediate version until you reach 10.1.

Cisco's tech support is very good and it was a pleasant experience whenever we used them. They tend to reply immediately, although when it comes to the technical capability of the support you might not get an appropriately skilled engineer to help you right away. However, they do have escalation procedures such that the junior staff will escalate any unsolved issues to higher management.

The ease of installation depends on the engineer. If they aren't trained in Cisco NGIPS or they aren't skilled enough, it's not easy to implement. You have to implement with a highly skilled engineer because it's not simple to deploy Cisco products.

We had one project where we implemented Cisco NGIPS along with a few other products and it took perhaps a week to fully deploy. 

The annual licensing tends to be expensive, but in terms of implementing the licenses, it's a very uncomplicated process and as easy as copy-paste in its straightforwardness.

Regarding the affordability of the licensing, if you buy licenses on a yearly or quarterly basis, you might not find much return on investment, but at the same time you will have a better product with regular upgrades and less network interruptions, so this has to be weighed against the costs.

I have decided not to update our use of Cisco NGIPS unless they can solve their issues related to software stability, and thus I cannot fully recommend Cisco NGIPS to other customers at this time.

I would rate Cisco NGIPS a seven out of ten.

I use Cisco NGIPS as a firewall.

The most valuable features of Cisco NGIPS are protection and reporting.

We have a separate management controller for Cisco NGIPS. If they have not done it already they should integrate Cisco NGIPS with the Cloud Portal.

The solution has some bugs that sometimes take time to resolve.

I have been using Cisco NGIPS for approximately two years.

The stability of Cisco NGIPS has been good since we have been using it.

The scalability of Cisco NGIPS is good.

Cisco has better technical support than other competitors, such as Check Point IPS or Palo Alto. Cisco has very good support, they are always ready to help their customer if there are any production issues.

Cisco NGIPS should add a technical person to the chat support. They correctly do not have a specialist. The knowledge base of the chat agent should be better.

I have used Check Point IPS solutions.

The implementation of Cisco NGIPS is straightforward.

You have to do your own implementation of the Cisco NGIPS hardware, but for the configuration, Cisco support can be involved from day one. That's what I have experienced. There was some exception but I have involved the Cisco support team from day one when I started configuring my firewall.

We have seen a return on investment by using Cisco NGIPS.

There is a license required to use Cisco NGIPS and it can be a one or three-year license.

I would advise others to use the support from Cisco, they are helpful.

I rate Cisco NGIPS an eight out of ten.