Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks Reviews

We are a solution provider and one of the Palo Alto products that we implement for our clients is Cortex XDR (Extended Detection and Response).

It is also known as Traps, and it is mostly used for endpoint protection. For example, when remote users want to connect to their organization using a VPN, they will be protected.

The protection offered by this product is good, as is the endpoint reporting.

Once installed, this product is easy to manage, whether it is on-premises or the cloud-based management system.

There are a lot of logs generated and an engineer has to go through all of the events to find out exactly what the bottleneck is. We do need to collect the events but this can be time-consuming. Being able to filter the events to see those that are related to the actual alert would save time spent by the engineer.

A better pricing plan would make this product more competitive.

We have been dealing with Palo Alto, including Cortex XDR for more than three years.

This is a stable product and it is good, but we will keep evaluating other products as we continue to offer this type of solution to our customers.

Cortex XDR is a scalable solution.

The technical support team is good, and we can reach them quickly and easily. However, finding a resolution might take time.

We have used Cylance in the past, although we stopped using it about three years ago.

We are currently using K7 Endpoint Protection. Unfortunately, it is not catching anything, whether it is malware or a virus.

When we first implemented this product, it was called Traps. However, I don't see any difference, other than the name. For new customers, it might be a bit difficult to install and set up. It takes perhaps eight hours to install.

I deployed this product, and I was also involved with the initial POC.

Only one admin is needed for deployment and a second person should be available to work with the users.

This is an expensive solution.

We are currently trying to evaluate ELK.

Overall, this is a good product and I can recommend it to others.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We mainly use it for endpoint protection, exploit prevention, and malware prevention. 

It can automatically correlate events and logs, which is very helpful for an IT administrator. It can correlate different kinds of malware activities over a network, agent, or host system. You do not need to do it manually. It is a good feature. 

It is also a user-friendly solution. We have deployed it on the cloud because our space does not provide any flexibility for on-premises deployment, but Palo Alto has added some flexibility to install it on-premises. It must be like the same Cortex XDR agent for all the VPN services, web filtering services, and everything else.

It is not a suitable solution if you are looking for a single product with multiple features such as DLP, encryption, rollback, etc.
this is good as an endpoint protection to prevent malware, exploits, zero days, ransomware, botnet etc. For features like Host DLP or encryption or patch management, or any such features which are available in basic anti-virus, you cannot expect it in Palo Alto Network's Cortex XDR solution. rest, all features work as expected, without any lagg or slowness observed in the system.

I have been using this solution for a year or something like that. We have been using it from the day they launched or released version 4.0. Currently, they are on version 7.

It is stable. I have never faced any kind of issues or never heard from any of my colleagues that they have faced any kind of issue.

There is no problem with scalability. Currently, we have around 150 users. In our company, it is compulsory to install this agent on all systems. If we want to scale it, we just need to install an agent. There is no upgrading the server or the hardware because it is a SaaS service provided by Palo Alto Networks.

We directly raise issues with Palo Alto Networks, and they support us. I've never directly created a support query because our IT team looks into support queries, but I think it's pretty easy. You'll never face any kind of issues or challenges in raising support queries.

It was straightforward. In earlier versions, such as version 4.0, it was a bit difficult to install the server and then upgrade the agents and servers. These processes were difficult. There are no complications now.

It took us more than a week to deploy because we were implementing it on the systems of various users who were working from home.

We are a partner of Palo Alto Networks, so we have deployed it directly.

We evaluated multiple products. We have evaluated Trend Micro, McAfee, Broadcom Symantec, Sophos, and many other products. Each product is good in its own field. We chose Cortex because we already had a Palo Alto Networks firewall. It got integrated easily, and the co-relation part and the co-relation engine worked very well.

If you are looking for security, mainly for advanced threat prevention from ransomware and malware attacks, I would recommend Cortex. Even if you want to integrate your firewall, I would recommend Cortex, but if you are looking for a single product with multiple options or features, such as DLP, encryption, rollback, and other features, I would not recommend Cortex.

I would rate Cortex XDR a nine out of ten.

We had firewalls set up and it integrated but didn't meet with our regulations.

We were using this solution for endpoint protection.

It's a perfect solution. 

It integrates well into the environment.

I would like to see them include NDR (Network Detection Response). Then it would work well with SIEM Response. Also, if they could make an on-premises version we would definitely go with Cortes. At this time, they are not offering an on-premises solution.

We had it in our environment for two days.

It's a stable solution.

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is scalable.

The technical support was good.

We evaluated Fideles and are currently using it, as it meets the regulations and is on-premises.

We had to move away from working with Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks due to the regulations. They state that the logs have to be kept in Saudi Arabia. Also, the log is in the cloud, which is against the regulations. 

We chose Fidelis. They meet the regulations and they are on-premises.

We had no issues with Cortex. We were satisfied but it didn't meet with the regional regulations.

I would rate Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks an eight out of ten.

I primarily use this solution for my clients. I don't use the solution myself.

I can call the tweak responses or other items that the customer doesn't like very easily due to the fact that this solution is on the cloud

It collects and caches and the knowledge of machine learning from different customers to take to the cloud. It makes it better to use for everybody. It allows for quick learning and updates and can, therefore, offer zero-day malware security. This sharing of metadata helps make the solution very safe.

Even the firewalls have their signatures. It takes from different resources and takes note of everything. 

The exploits and malware technology are really good. 

It's my understanding that this solution is at end-of-life.

It's hard to use as a product. It's not easy or straightforward. Especially when I deal with a government sector or other sensitive industries. They do not accept that it's so easy to share metadata outside their organization. They prefer on-prem even if it is not as powerful due to the fact that they perceive it as being more secure.

The solution can never really be an on-premises solution based simply on the way it is set up. It needs metadata to run and improve. Having an on-premises solution would cut it off from making improvements.

The deployment is pretty hard. Competitors like Trend Micro or Symantec have features on their console that make them easier to use. This solution does not offer items that would increase its usability.

Before I moved to technical sales, I handled implementation, and I remember it being very difficult. They need to improve this aspect.

The solution provides a lot of false positives. The average amount of false positives you get is 5%. It would be great if this could be lowered.

I've been using the solution for a year and a half.

Security people usually think it's a very powerful solution. However, government teams always worry about the security of the cloud and always need to send approvals. Since this solution is not a normal endpoint, it can be a bit tricky for compliance purposes.

At the same time, it does its job. It's very good at vulnerability management.

That said, it is really not really flexible to make deployments on certain platforms. It's really complicated. Sometimes the solution falls off.

We've contacted technical support in the past and they are very good. They are usually quite capable of closing the issue for us. They're also great if we're working out a new configuration or doing a completely new implementation. We're satisfied with their level of service.

The initial setup is not straightforward. It's not that it's complex per se. It's difficult. 

The IVR needs to be reached on the outside. You need to make it to the server and that's connected to the database that communicates with the agent properly. You have to push the agents and put the sensors inside the network. 

We're an integrator; we implement this solution for our clients.

We have a partnership with Palo Alto. I'm a consultant, I'm pre-sales as a technical sales engineer. I try to show the value of any product for the customer. I don't actually use the solution myself.

The solution does not have an on-premises option. It's only available on the cloud.

For XDR new users just need to make sure they have the right policies in place. The solution does offer pre-configured policies. Organizations will want to make sure it is actually fitting them in the places where they will be working best. It's important as well that they don't make it a default selection. Users need to make sure that it's really configured and whitelisted and everything fits the organization. 

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. I'd rate it higher, however, the deployment process is poor even though the features are decent. Competitors like Carbon Black have much easier deployments.

We primarily use the solution for our endpoint server and endpoint protection.

There aren't many features we find valuable on the solution.

They have a new GUI which is just fantastic.

The solution eats memory of the computer, unlike anything I've ever seen. It eats more memory than Chrome. 

I have a lot of users that are eating my memory each hour every day and it's causing us problems. We have to go and buy more memory for each computer. When you have a lot of computers like we do, is not a very good situation.

Some of the computers are only using 4 GB of memory, so if you put aside the differences, most only have some Chrome, some internet, and Office and that's it. And yet, the memory is getting eaten.

If someone catches something like malware, or something else, I want to know if the file was spread to other machines and what the target was. I want to be able to get ahead of the spread. This solution doesn't do enough to protect us against these types of vulnerabilities or to give us much information about the spread. The tool really does need some more reverse engineering features.

There's an overall lack of features.

The initial setup could use improvement. Currently, I must go to each machine and deploy everything manually. We are in 2020, not in 1980. It seems like such a dated way of doing large deployments.

I've been using the solution for a year and a half.

When I was experimenting with stability early on, I did run into issues when testing the solution in the sandbox.

Eventually, it catches one of the executive files and if you go to the management section of the solution and you release this file, it takes seven or eight tries to do it. You need to keep trying, again and again, using the same procedures to release the file for usage. That was in the beginning and we still have this issue, even though they made a new GUI for management. It's still not resolved.

We have several hundred users.

I had some issues initially in the sandbox when I was testing scalability.

I have reached out to technical support in the past. I find dealing with them is like talking to a wall. They aren't terrible, however, you don't really get any guidance. They ask over and over to get us to send them dump files and we do over and over. After all of the back and forth, nothing is really resolved to our satisfaction. You're paying for their services, and you don't get the level of service you would expect. It's a pain point.

The initial setup was not complex. It was very straightforward.

The deployment did take a lot of time due to the fact that we had seven hundred computers. 

We simply use the solution as a customer.

I would not recommend the solution. I'd advise other companies to rather go with Palo Alto's firewall as a better option. I've already advised others not to touch it. It's not worth it at all to even consider using it.

I'd rate the solution six out of ten. Their new GUI is very nice, however, as a professional service, it's lacking in a lot of areas.

We use Palo Alto Traps in our Windows-based environments. Currently, it only protects our desktops and we use it in conjunction with our Check Point firewall.

The product is very good, it has caught a lot of exploits that most products would not. The WildFire module is a great AI in detecting and preventing attacks. The only issues that we have are, one the cost, two the dashboard is not very intuitive, even though you can drill down within the dashboard, we usually have to gather information from other sources to determine locations and if its a false positive.

WildFire AI is the best option for this product.

The dashboard is the area that needs to improve so that we can have the ability to drill down without having to go elsewhere to verify results.

We have had this product for two years.

This is an expensive solution.

We use Palo Alto Networks Traps (Version 6) to protect our endpoints against NG malware via behavior analysis, artificial intelligence and machine learning. Both the PA Traps endpoint logs, our PA firewall traffic logs and the Wildfire sandbox are used to provide immediate threat response and feed this information to the PA Threat Intelligence cloud.

Palo Alto Networks Traps improves our security posture and lowers risk by providing next-gen methods to combat against modern threats on all the major platforms.

The one feature that our organization finds most valuable is being able to control the USB ports on the endpoints

The MAC agent is not as robust feature-wise as the PC version. I need to control USB ports on MAC laptops and cannot. This is a MUST so I opened a case with Palo Alto and requested this feature for an upcoming update.

I would like to see more automation and self-healing for incidents that can be easily classified as malware.

No issues

Palo Alto Networks Traps features excellent protection, cost and scalability. We are a small group of 4 employees and have 2 people dedicated to deployment and monitoring of 1400+ endpoints.

Palo Alto Network's technical support is excellent. 

Since we were a Fortinet shop, we previously used the FortiClient endpoint agent. We switched to Palo alto FWs and endpoint protection because it is a more mature product with advanced next-gen capabilities not available from the Fortinet solution.

The initial setup was done by a Palo Alto certified service provider.

This product pays for itself with only one ransomware denial!

Our license runs on a monthly basis with a recurring monthly charge. If you want additional options like secure remote access with policies, that requires an additional cost. 

Palo Alto Networks Traps does not apply secure remote access to devices without policies, which we are implementing. If you want to apply more policies, like an anti-virus program, anti-malware, or configurations for using a VPN on remote connections, that would also be an additional cost. We're not doing that.

Cylance, Carbon Black, Crowdstrike, Microsoft Windows Defender ATP, Sophos, SentinelONE

On a scale from 1-10, I would rate Palo Alto Networks Traps with an eight. It is great, but I have some issues with the cost of the product license.

The integration with other products, the firewall, and the IPS are good features.

The solution needs better reports. I think they should let the customer go in and customize the reports. 

It could also use better graphics and more information.

The stability of the solution is very good. We have about 100 users on it right now, and we use it twice a week.

Technical support has been very good.

I recommend using this solution and I would rate the solution an eight out of 10.

I've found the security protection modules there, have been the most valuable.

I started using it from 4.1, but it didn't change that much. Some features and some fixes have been added to 4.2, but not that much. They need to improve reporting, the end-point reporting. They could also enhance their notification statuses. In the current version, you will see some threat alerts, or if anything is executable, but you will not see behavioral analysis. You will see what was being blocked, and that's it. If Traps logs something, you will get a notification. Otherwise, you have to generate the dump file and investigate on your own.

In the next release, I would like to see more UI improvements. Their UI is a bit basic. When we are speaking about Palo Alto Networks they are a big company, so they can surely improve the UI a little bit. The UI, the reports, the log system can all be improved. But overall, when we speak about security and protection, they are one of the top providers.

It's very stable. I've never experienced downtime for the ASM console or ASM core. But we experienced this for the database, and it was not clear in Trap's interface. So, Trap's server stopped working, stopped getting jobs, stopped the enforcing policies because the database was full. We did not get any alert for that, so you will not see any alert on the ESM console that says that your database is about to fill up. It was not reachable and there was no warning or indication for this. You have to go to some tools internally and check in the command line, to see. You will see some errors for the DB, and you will realize that it's a DB issue. I've never experienced any issue with the Traps itself, but with the database.

It's very easy to scale if you have file availability. If it's more clear, we can do high availability, but it's a bit tricky. We deployed this for 4,000 endpoints, and it was very easy. Two ASM core servers were enough to deploy it for 4,000 plus endpoints. These are enterprises, not SMBs. They're government institutions.

I would not say that technical support is bad, but it's not that good. It could be better.

Basically, they don't provide customer support tools just to investigate the logs. From a reseller or authorized center for Palo Alto, I can't get that much information from the logs because it's a bit complicated. If they have support tools, for example, to analyze the logs as they have for the Palo Alto firewall. They don't have for this for Traps. They need to have some tools to analyze the logs. We can generate something called tech support files from Traps, but it's useless. Nothing's there. You will not get that much from the tech support file.

But for the firewall, if we get the tech support file and upload it to somewhere they have some tools, we can get many useful logs and alerts. For Traps, this is not possible.

The initial setup was straightforward. They are using MySQL database, and I think it's a disadvantage because you need to buy a license for MySQL also to deploy it. They don't have this concept of file availability between DS and core servers.

We are a reseller. We are implementing it on customer premises for our clients.

The main advice I can share is to watch out for your database and make sure to give it enough resources. That's it.

I would rate this solution eight out of 10.

We have a complete overview of all our PCs and it's very easy to handle and to use the interface. It has a lot of benefits for us.

The one area which should improve is not on the user side but on the product itself. Currently, if you use Palo Alto endpoint protection as the only solution it's very complicated to remove pre-existing threats. For example, if you had something that was not detected by the former solution, and you install Palo Alto, you will have some difficulty removing the virus with the Palo Alto tool. It would be helpful if they had a tool for removing a virus or threat in these cases.

The solution is very stable. We have about 350 licenses across all our PCs, and of course, only administrators are allowed to plug in.

Scalability is not an easy question. For us, Palo Alto traps is running on a good environment, so if we have a plan to expand we just adjust the environment and from the Palo Alto side, it is not a problem at all. The only thing I have to do is update the license file and it should work. But in the case of a bigger expansion, you have to separate the servers. For us, it is not a problem at all if we decide to scale Palo Alto traps.

Support response was very fast. I'm satisfied with the support.

If you have been educated in Palo Alto, the initial setup is very easy. Without an education it depends. It can be difficult, it depends on the knowledge of the installer.

We use the on-prem version, not the cloud version of Palo Alto.

We use it daily but we have logs. Normally, if we have an incident in detection from a wire system, there's more effort. But typically it would take about ten minutes in order to check the logs and it's not complex at all. But if you have some threats or viruses then, of course, maintenance takes longer.

In terms of advice, I'd say it depends on the usage of the PCs. For us to use in the main production, Palo Alto benefited us. It was easy to install and performance of the traps themselves are very good. In most cases, you don't have to worry about the performance of the PC at all. Palo Alto Traps takes up very few resources.

I would rate this solution 9 out of 10.