We performed a comparison between Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and Microsoft Entra ID based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Microsoft Security Suite solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."I enjoy using the live response feature, which allows me to remotely access different endpoints and investigate malicious files, such as malware that people may have downloaded, and other related issues."
"One of the main features is the solution is very light on resources and we do not have any problems with it."
"We have just started to implement it. It is useful for protection from malware and ransomware."
"There are some competitive products on the market, but the best is Microsoft Defender because it's very easy to integrate. That's one reason a lot of clients want Microsoft Defender. It's also very easy to implement compared to other solutions."
"It's stable."
"The ransomware and malware protection is the most valuable feature."
"Easy to understand and easy to set up endpoint security solution. It's a multifeatured product with web content filtering and automated investigation features. It also has a fantastic vulnerability management dashboard."
"Defender provides useful alerts and groups them. It sends an alert to your portal if it detects any malicious activity, and you can group multiple alerts to form an incident."
"User and device management is the most valuable feature."
"It is easy to manage. I can manage systems with policies and automate our systems. Any professional system can be easily integrated with Azure Active Directory. It is widely used with Windows versions."
"The single sign-on across multiple platforms is really the true advantage here. That gives you one ID and password for access to all your systems. You don't need to manage a plethora of different user IDs and passwords to all the systems that you're going to access."
"The most valuable feature is Conditional Access, and we use it extensively."
"Conditional Access is a helpful feature because it allows us to provide better security for our users."
"The solution has some great features, such as identity governance, and user self-service. The Outlook application is very good and is used by a lot of people even if they are using Google services."
"As an end-user, the access to shared resources that I get from using this product is very helpful."
"With Azure Active Directory we were able to manage with different options the access for different users."
"The solution can be more user-friendly."
"I would like Microsoft to have some kind of direct integration for USB controls. They have GPO and other controls to control the access of the USB drives on devices, but if there is something that can be directly implemented into the portal, it would be good. There should be a way to control via a cloud portal or something like that in a dynamic way. USB control for data exfiltration would be a good feature to implement. Currently, there are ways to do it, but it involves too many different things. You have to implement it via GPOs and other stuff, and then you move or copy those big files via Defender ATP. If there is a simple way of implementing those features, it would be great."
"Something that is unique to Microsoft is its licensing model. When you go out and you buy McAfee or Symantec, you know what you're getting out of the box, but with Microsoft, often, when you're looking to achieve a certain set of capabilities, those capabilities are spread across different products. You might try to do something you could do with CrowdStrike, but then find out that you also need to purchase Microsoft Defender for Identity or Microsoft Defender for Azure. You realize that when they talk about what they can offer within the Microsoft platform, it's really the suite of investments. So, sometimes, you may find yourself buying Defender for Endpoint thinking that it matches CrowdStrike, but then you find that Microsoft really needs to sell you something else. One plus one will equal three, but when you have a very concise platform, such as CrowdStrike, you know what you're going to get."
"One thing that was lacking in Defender was web filtering. Its web filtering wasn't as comprehensive. Sophos was a little bit better than Defender for blocking URLs or installing programs."
"Microsoft Defender for Endpoint can use more advertising to promote their features."
"I personally haven't experienced any pain points, but some of my coworkers feel that it isn't secure enough."
"The solution could be even more secure and provide an even higher level of security."
"It needs to improve the cybersecurity for lateral movements. For example, when a hacker tries to enter a machine, they try to get the password by doing a lateral movement."
"The onboarding process for new users can be improved. It can be made simpler for people who have never registered to Azure AD previously and need to create an account and enable the MFA. The initial setup can be made simpler for non-IT people. It should be a bit simpler to use. Unless you get certifications, such as AZ-300 and AZ-301, it is not a simple thing to use at the enterprise scale."
"The solution could be cheaper."
"Customers should be informed that public review features are not intended for production use."
"I think the solution can improve by making the consumption of that data easier for our customers."
"It would be awesome to have a feature where you can see the permissions of a user in all their Azure subscriptions. Right now, you have to select a user, then you have to select the subscription to see which permissions the user has in their selected subscriptions. Sometimes, you just want to know, "Does that user have any permissions in any subscriptions?" That would be awesome if that would be available via the portal."
"Microsoft has so many different requirements and priorities that sometimes they don't invest all their energy into the products that you have expectations to investigate."
"We have a custom solution now running to tie all those Azure ADs together. We use the B2B functionality for that. Improvements are already on the roadmap for Azure AD in that area. I think they will make it easier to work together between two different tenants in Azure AD, because normally one tenant is a security boundary. For example, company one has a tenant and company two has a tenant, and then you can do B2B collaboration between those, but it is still quite limited. For our use case, it is enough currently. However, if we want to extend the collaboration even further, then we need an easier way to collaborate between two tenants, but I think that is already on the roadmap of Azure AD anyway."
"The Azure AD Application Proxy, which helps you publish applications in a secure way, has room for improvement. We are moving from another solution into the Application Proxy and it's quite detailed. Depending on the role you're signing in as, you can end up at different websites, which wasn't an issue with our old solution."
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Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is ranked 5th in Microsoft Security Suite with 182 reviews while Microsoft Entra ID is ranked 4th in Microsoft Security Suite with 190 reviews. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is rated 8.0, while Microsoft Entra ID is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint writes "Eliminates the need to look at multiple dashboards by automatically providing one XDR dashboard to show the security score of each subscription". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Entra ID writes "Saves us time and money and features Conditional Access policies, SSPR, and MFA". Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is most compared with Symantec Endpoint Security, Intercept X Endpoint, SentinelOne Singularity Complete, CrowdStrike Falcon and Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks, whereas Microsoft Entra ID is most compared with Microsoft Intune, Google Cloud Identity, CyberArk Privileged Access Manager, Okta Workforce Identity and Cisco Duo. See our Microsoft Defender for Endpoint vs. Microsoft Entra ID report.
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In recent years Microsoft has really upped its game with Defender and Intune. As core cyber-security for an SME, keeping just to Microsoft is now a real option. The challenge is understanding the gaps / cyber security service weaknesses (if they exist) in comparison with other vendors such as ESET, Malwarebytes, Trend Micro, etc.
Azure AD Services, Defender for Endpoint, and Intune are all Microsoft products, but it is important to understand how each product works as they may not be compatible and there may be some limitations.
Devices managed through Intune may not have all of the Defender for Endpoint features. Some advanced features such as automated investigation and remediation may only be available for devices that are enrolled in Defender for Endpoint standalone.
In addition, Azure AD and Intune have different requirements for device enrollment and management. Intune requires devices to be enrolled and managed through an MDM solution, while Azure AD provides basic device management capabilities but may not support all of the features available in Intune.
Lastly, there may be limitations to how user identities and access are managed between Azure AD and Intune. Some features that are available in Azure AD, such as conditional access policies, may not suit Intune, and additional configuration may be required to ensure that user identities and access are properly managed across both services.
If anyone out there has other experiences, please let me know!
It depends on your company's infrastructure. Check with your cyber team whether you can sync your endpoints to Cloud using Azure AD as Azure Registered/ Azure Hybrid AD join/ Azure AD join, etc.
1. So, if the ask is only to enroll them in Intune to leverage defender/BitLocker services - go directly to Azure AD's join approach.
2. If you still want to manage patch management/mcm BitLocker but Defender via cloud, the approach should be Azure Hybrid AD join.
3. You can still use autopilot using both of these approaches.
I believe it is a good first step, and I would say even a requirement, but in no way is it a comprehensive security solution, even for endpoints.
There are many things that need to be addressed for security. In addition to this, there is XDR, MDR, more comprehensive AV for endpoints & Servers that stop attacks, Threat Hunting, Mitigation, PEN Testing, Security Training for end users, Multi-Factor Authentication (Microsoft's MFA is good but only for Microsoft products), Patch Management for Endpoints, Servers and Cloud Workloads, Network Access Control, Firewalls for On-Premise and Cloud server workloads, Network Segmentation, Password Management, Data Backups (3-2-1-1 Rule) with Immutable Backups, Power Backups, Physical Security, Monitoring, NOC/SOC services, and working towards a Zero Trust architecture...
But there are no single-point solutions that will make you secure, so don't get complacent. And you can outspend your profits if you do everything. Just remember it's best to have a layered approach that works together and looks at everything from a security perspective and how it integrates with your overall security plans and objectives to help identify holes and possible mitigations.
Healthcare must do Risk Assessments by law, but I recommend that all companies of all sizes do at least annual risk assessments since there is so such thing as being too small or inconspicuous to be hit with malware or have a cyber security attack since much of the delivery is automated and not just by the script-kiddies of years gone by... Nation States are actively engaging in cyber warfare daily, along with terrorists, and opportunists looking to make big money from you...