Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway Reviews

Our customers' primary use case in the banking sector is for URL history.

Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway has a lot of issues like troubleshooting and massive troubleshooting which require technical support. A lot of the product is not accessible. You must ask the tech support to communicate to open the root of the product - so that's an issue. But with Cisco you can access the product and troubleshoot.

To access the root of the product for troubleshooting you must have a data engineer. This is the big issue with Forcepoint. The support community is not good. 

The management should be directed to the object itself. They have to make a more flexible management so you can access a device using a normal web browser or you can access a device using a management tool.

Our company has been working with this product for about four years.

Our company prefers Forcepoint, but I prefer Cisco.

There is one issue with Forcepoint that you can't communicate directly with the update. You must have something called the management center to communicate. For Cisco you can communicate directly. With Forcepoint you cannot communicate directly

Scaling is not good with Forcepoint. Even high availability with Forcepoint is not good.

We do have a lot of customers using Forcepoint.

Yes, we have a lot of plans to increase usage because it's the only product we have. There is no other.

The initial setup is not complex, but requires being setup from the beginning. There is no default setting, so you must go to the console and configure the product from the beginning. It takes about 10 days.

This product, especially Web Gateway, has only a small vendor working with it.

On a scale of one to ten, I would give Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway a five.

For the most part, the solution, when set up correctly, works fine.

Sometimes we find the solution behaves erratically. It may be related to our configuration, which may be incorrect. We are using desktops, laptops, and workstations and the laptops are set to mobile status. We do make connections outside the office premises as well, and desktops or workstations are predominantly located in the same place. 

Overall the software is occupying too much memory space. If they could remedy that, it would be a better experience, because today Windows is occupying too much memory space as well (in terms of the RAM), and this software has also started occupying all the memory. Due to this, I have less space for my other office products and data. I can't, for example, operate a huge Excel sheet or other datasets. 

Product grouping should be made more flexible. We should be in a position to define the product groupings. Also, sometimes the standard product grouping that they are using is not applicable in this part of the world. If they could move it, if they could make it more flexible, it would make our life easier. Otherwise, we are forced to use our own definitions a lot. This sometimes causes problems with performance. The product grouping really should concentrate more on this particular geographic region.

I've been using the solution for about five years.

In my opinion, it's a very stable product.

Companies really have to know how their organization will scale before purchasing the solution. Otherwise, they will be limited. In our case, we've grown far beyond our expectations, and are now facing issues. These products are not that scalable even though the company claims that they are.

The solution is used quite regularly. On average, we use it up to eight hours a day.

We've used technical support in the past. We are one of the major clients for most of these products in India, so we get proper attention from the company. We've been satisfied with the level of support we've received.

We didn't face any major issues at the time of implementation. We were using the facility management of both HP and IBM. They each have their own in-house capability to manage the software. Also, the OEM would have supported them well. As such, we didn't see major issues on any of the software implementation. There were just a few initial hiccups that can happen on any major project.

The version I'm currently using is about four years old.

My recommendation to other companies would be that they should spend more time analyzing their workload including access approvals and whitelisting/blacklisting. They should have a very clear way of defining the blacklist or whitelist.

Companies should also spend more time on sizing the product and considering how they will grow in the future when sizing it. That clarity is a must to decide the proper product size that will last over years as a company potentially grows. 

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.

Our primary use case is to control internet access based on security profiles. Users are restricted to legitimate sites and then, based on the business use case, we provide access to streaming sites and the like. We are customers and resellers of Secure Web Gateway and I'm a company director.

All the secure gateways are more or less the same. The value of Secure Web Gateway is the visibility it offers and the ease by which we can put controls in place. We enabled the cloud DLP so we can see what's happening to the data. The solution also provides good filtering features. 

One improvement I'd like to see would be to simplify managing the endpoint for both DLP and web security, so that endpoint management becomes easier. The dashboard is a little old so a new GUI would be helpful as well as updated reporting tools. It currently lacks some features that other solutions have. 

I've been using this solution for over eight years. 

It's reasonably stable but sometimes there are issues in the cloud. 

The scalability is good, our entire organization uses this product including engineers, marketing and administration. 

I'd say that customer service is above average.

The initial setup is straightforward, we deployed in-house and implementation required one person. The initial setup takes two or three days, but rolling it out and making sure that everybody has the required access, and that business applications are accessible, can take a month or so. 

The ROI is like insurance, it's the knowledge that you're protected. The fact that it's taking care of my security needs, is a return.

I'm unaware of licensing costs but there is an extra cost for additional reporting.

It's important to test any solution before making a decision to purchase it. Evaluate your needs and expectations, and carry out a POC. 

I rate this solution eight out of 10. 

It protects against data leaks and offers us application security.

The solution is a combination of Gatsby web security and the LP. That is why we are pushing Forcepoint ONE. Forcepoint ONE is a product itself that Forcepoint has been recently pushing to the customers.

The product is simple.

It's stable and reliable.

They will require a combination of other brands and other products that actually caters to the data leak portion. Forcepoint ONE, for example, covers for the data leak itself, however, it's just data leaks. In order to have comprehensive security protection for your data, you will need other products, like data encryption. You will need privileged access management and endpoint security to make the Forcepoint product more robust. 

The initial setup can be complex.

I've used the solution for about three years. The company I work for has been working with it for about five years.

The solution is stable.

If you are looking for just data leaks and web security, the product itself should suffice, however, if you want to make your solution or your cyber portion more robust, then you will require other products to be embedded as well to work hand in hand, for your information to be more secure.

Being the distributor for Forcepoint, we have our own engineers to cover from day zero to day two in terms of engineering support for deployment and forming payments and also for troubleshooting. We do leverage Forcepoint, however, we have our own in-house engineers to assist Forcepoint to cover the clinical aspect.

In terms of the policy, the initial setup can be complex.

The solution is simple, however, the complexity comes when you are writing the policy for the data leak part. Even web security is all policy. You would need to translate your business requirements into cyber security requirements so that basically whatever policy that is being in place, covers your business requirements for your cyber footprint.

We help our customers or partners deploy the solution.

We are the authorized distributor for Forcepoint in Asia-Pacific.

Currently, we are pushing Forcepoint ONE into the market.

The thing to consider at the outset is, basically, what they want to protect. Are you protecting internal factors or are you looking at protecting from external factors? Forcepoint DLP covers the internal factor, meaning that you do not want your data to be compromised from internal leaks, and not external. If you're looking to protect against external anomalies, then basically it's Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway that you should be looking at.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

We are the implementation partner for Forcepoint, and then we configure and integrate Forcepoint into the customer enrollment.

We personally use cloud Websecurity and cloud Email security of Forcepoint.

The initial setup is easy. It's not difficult. 

They have well-integrated web security. They have the enterprise DLP included in the cloud as well.

Technical support has been okay.

The Bitglass part, right now, we are trying to learn it, and then trying to acquire skillsets around it. 

For cloud web security, there are definitely areas where it requires improvement, Policy changes take 20 to 30 minutes for enforcement.

Granular control based on applications can be further enhanced.

I've been dealing with the solution for six or seven years and Websense for the last 15 years.

It is stable. That said, at times we do get complaints from customers. Some of the government and banking sites not being accessible via cloud proxy. At times it is required to bypass them or route it through different data centers. Though Forcepoint has no say in some websites restricting the access if they can out with a solution to detect and bypass or redirect the traffic through a working data center it will add further value. 

We are integrators. We are supporting from 1,000 systems to somewhere around a 10,000 to 20,000 user base.

We have used technical support in the past. There are two aspects. How quickly they respond is one aspect. Then, whatever the answer that they provide, is it of any use. In terms of the response, it varies. Sometimes they will be able to solve it, and then sometimes it may have to be internally taken up to the next level.

Neutral

The initial setup is very simple and not overly difficult. 

I cannot speak to the exact pricing of the solution.

We are integrators. While we typically do cloud deployments off-late, for on-premises, we have deployed Hybrid and on-premises Websecurity deployments.

I'd advise users, if they want to make use of it, to learn the technology and then the approach the product is trying to take. I'd advise users only proceed once they understand it. That way, they'll be in a good position to manage it. As with any technology, learn the basics and building blocks of it.

I'd rate the solution a nine out of ten.

We use it for internal monitoring of internet access as well as for controlling internet access.

It has got a really good URL categorization database. It is simple to set up. It is also easy to use and quite intuitive. It has got a nice utility for troubleshooting.

We are using a V10000 G3 appliance. It is just a proxy. It is just HTTP, FTP, and HTTPS. Now, as our website has developed and we are using rich time-connectivity protocols, the proxy doesn't have the ability to work with these protocols. It would be nice if the UDP feature was there for it to filter UDP traffic. It needs firewall capabilities for UDP filtering.

Its upgrades can be quite complex, and they don't always go as per the plan. Its reporting could be a bit more granular. 

I have used it for quite some time.

I am satisfied with its stability. We have got a good network infrastructure.

It is easy to scale. You can just add another box to scale it up. 

We are using it for about 3000 users, but it can take a lot more. You have to look at the box you choose and use it as you require.

I have interacted with them. Nine out of ten times, their support is really good. There are different packages you can buy for support. The one we have is really good. We usually get a response within four hours, and they are available seven days a week. They have been helpful, and they do point you in the right direction. If they don't have a solution, they will go back and solve it through another team member.

I can't remember, but I think we used Blue Coat. We switched because at the time, most of the technology modules were embedded into one appliance in Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway, which is how you can reduce the number of boxes you would have in your server, which is really good. In terms of cost also, it was working out better for us.

The initial setup was straightforward. The upgrades, however, are not straightforward, and they don't always go as per the plan. It also depends on your environment and the configuration. The advantage of going for a cloud solution is that you don't have the overhead of managing upgrades and downtime. The advantage of an on-premises solution is that you have more control, which is really nice. You have ownership, and you have the chance to develop your own solution, which is fantastic.

We got help from a third-party vendor.

I would not recommend the version that we have, that is, V10000 G3. I would recommend the later versions. 

Its implementation depends on your working environment. You might want to go for a hybrid version where it is partly on the cloud and partly on-premises. You also have to look at deploying agents on your systems. So, it just depends on how you are planning on working. Are you working from an office or are you going to be working remotely? That would dictate how you implement the solution. It is a fine product for what it does. Going forward, it would need firewall capabilities for UDP filtering.

I would rate Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway an eight out of ten. It needs UDP support and a bit more granular filtering of reports, but all in all, it ticks most of the boxes.

Reporting and automatic updates of website categorization.

• Being able to have managers or department leads run their own reports has saved us an incredible amount of time.
• Web filtering of malicious sites has increased our security posture.

• The documentation is almost too much, it could be laid out in an easier to understand.
• Upgrades can be challenging. For us, it has required a third party to assist.

Seven years.

No, but a few major upgrades were bumpy.

Not once live in production, it seems to just work.

No.

Excellent! We always find ourselves paired with knowledgeable technicians who resolve most of our problems on the first call.

Excellent.

Yes, Blue Coat Systems.

Complex, only in it offers a huge amount of features.

A vendor team, which was very knowledge.

Hard to calculate, but definitely there.

Get a qualified third party to assist with the web implementation.

Yes. Cisco and Barracuda.

Email Sandbox, DLP and Proxy.

The Sandbox is a very useful solution for sand-boxing malware / phishing etc. from corporate email accounts. No matter whether it's on Office 365, Exchange (on-premise), or Google (or any other cloud). The Sandbox updates on a regular basis, and the flexibility of policy configuration, white-listing is pretty good.

Reports in the sand-boxing, ease of deployment of sensors to ready to go server with one click of a button.

I think there is room to improve the reporting area of the solution and also the investigation part, a basic section where you see the body and headers of each email and the reason it got blocked.

Six years.

If you implement it correctly you wont have an issue.

If you implement it correctly you wont have an issue.

Support by vendor is low-medium. You need to rely on yourself or your integrator.

Mcafee GW. Wasn't satisfied at all both in the general UI and ease of configuration.

Straightforward. Very easy to implement.

Expensive, but with a good reseller you can get a very good price.

I'm familiar with plenty of competitor solutions, tried most of the top solutions.

Get your self a good reseller, and good integrator (don't do it by yourself).