Microsoft Defender for Cloud Reviews

We use it to manage the overall compliance of our products.

It helps you to identify the gaps in your solution and remediate them. It produces a compliance checklist against known standards such as ISO 27001, HIPAA, iTrust, etc.

Customizing some of the compliance requirements based on individual needs seems like the biggest area of improvement. There should be an option to turn specific controls on and off based on how your solution is configured.

I have been using this solution for five or six years. We have been working with it pretty much since it came out.

It is a great product. The new security features that emerge in Microsoft products can sometimes be difficult to track. It automatically flags when you don't have what you probably should have.

It is very scalable. We are a small organization with less than 10 people, and at least half of those people are in the solution at any given point in time.

Microsoft's tech support is decent. I would rate them a four out of five. We're currently dealing with a ticket mostly on the billing side, and it has been open for over a month, so I'm not going to give them a stellar rating. I feel they should have figured this out a long time ago, but they've resolved technical issues relatively quickly.

It was very easy. It was there by default. It basically turned itself on, and then they gave you a default thing. 

In terms of maintenance, typically, there is one person in there, probably per week, looking at the compliance and things that they can do to improve the bar.

It was included with the product. We looked at other solutions, but this was the most comprehensive and cost-effective one.

I would rate Azure Security Center a nine out of 10.

My role is more on the FinOps side. My customers use it.

In specific contexts like finance or healthcare area, there are regulations requiring compliance. At this stage, we need to be able to prove we have state-of-the-art endpoint protection and the ability to show that all these tools are up-to-date with the latest updates and identified threats. This is very useful for my customers to be able to prove compliance.

Mainly, the ability to identify threats using signatures, analyze threat behavior, and integrate with other cloud services, specifically Azure Log Analytics and other logging projects. These are the features I like. 

Customers generally find it satisfactory for their needs. Most organizations struggle with the ability to handle this type of product. Sometimes, it's a lack of knowledge or expertise on Microsoft Defender, which leads to issues with certain tasks. That can be a bit difficult to figure out.

Most customer teams need more training on this type of product.

Due to the lack of expertise or hands-on experience with the product, it's sometimes difficult to determine whether the issue lies with Microsoft Defender or another related project. In the cloud, everything is tightly connected, making it challenging to pinpoint which part is failing. So, the lack of a deep understanding of the product leads to some difficulties.

In future releases, I would like to see integration of artificial intelligence to ease the administrative burden would help a lot, especially when it comes to deploying the product to fit specific contexts, architectures, or infrastructures. That would fill the gap caused by the lack of expertise or knowledge.

There are some promises that Microsoft has made, but I'm not aware if they've been fully implemented.

I have been using it for three years. 

I worked with Cybereason and other standard antivirus programs, but nothing as full-fledged as Microsoft Defender.

Overall, I would rate the solution as eight out of ten.

My recommendation heavily depends on the context, the customer's IT landscape, the maturity of the team working there, and many other factors that need to be taken into account when selecting a product. 

Microsoft Defender by itself is a good choice, but ultimately, the best option depends on the specific context.

We use the solution internally.

Azure Security Center works with Azure Defender. Azure Defender is used for identifying the vulnerabilities and loopholes inside our system that we can deploy on multiple layers either from the subscription level, the source level, or on the devices. You can connect multiple devices to this. That's not specific to only servers. You can connect with ER80 as well as SQL servers. Most of the services are covered within the Microsoft Defender.

We find two things inside the Azure Security Center to be quite valuable. One is the recommendations, and the second is the regulatory compliance. Both help to keep everything running smoothly. This will give you the security score as well. You can try to get the highest security score, which is 100%. You can get there just from the recommendations from Microsoft. Not all the recommendations will be applicable on the enrollment side.

Regulatory compliance is PCI compliance. There are multiple compliance options you can follow.

Azure Defender helps improve our security posture. You enable it for each and every server. It is a monthly-based subscription and about $15 per month per server. You can see right on there that the vulnerability is automatically run with the help of a Messages scanner. Messages is running behind Azure Defender. It automatically runs and scans, and that will show up on your portal. You do have to take any necessary steps to run recommendations. Either you can see if any energy port is open, for example, if RDP is open, it will realize, “Okay, just close RDP for outside work." These kinds of recommendations are very helpful from the Azure Security Center.

You have inventory on Azure Security Center, as well as Workbooks. You can create Workbooks. These are automatic playbooks where you can see the entire dashboard. If you prepare a monthly report, or a weekly report, it's better to create it in Azure Security Center instead of Workbooks with the help of JSON, or use drag and drop as an option. That will help you to keep updated more on things.

Inside Azure Security Center, with Workbooks, you can create your own workbooks according to your users. If you have a system update setting inside Azure, with the help of an automation account, if you click it, inside the system update Workbook, you can see all the systems which are taking updates. If that is updated, you can see whether the system is compliant with updates. All the reports are visible. You can see reports on the basis of subscriptions or on the basis of resources if you want.

Azure Security Center does not affect the end-user experience in any way. End users don't feel its presence in the organization.

The solution offers collaborative services. If you enable Azure Defender for servers or any services, basically, you can automatically subscribe for Azure Defender for Endpoints, which is easy.

You can install the EDR on each and every server. That will give you all of the process logs and what a user is doing. You can tell if a URL is open on your system, for example.

You can remediate with automation as well if you want to. That's for malware or any malicious files if they are present on the system. It will detect using the intelligence of the Defender Endpoint. You can take hybrid action on an alert, you can take a fully automated action, or you can take 100% manual action.

With Defender Endpoint, if you find out if one system is compromised, you can actually separate it from the network. If you have to deal with ransomware. If one system is affected by ransomware, you can remove the system from the network.

There is a security alert inside Defender that's per the recommendations and activities that happen inside your network. You will see security events there. If you do not have any other SIEM solution in your environment, you can leverage this. 

The team is already working on one of the latest features, which is having migration techniques right on the portal available. It's possible to use it now. That's one good new feature.

For MIM, they are still improving things on Azure Security Center. There are a few flaws in backend technologies. If you do not have the correct access to the system, you cannot access the files and most of the reported resources.

For example, a general huge storage account, which is exposed for public access. If there are ten storage accounts available, you can see the names. You can identify, those storage accounts that are supposed to be accessed from the outside, maybe, due to some feature happening behind the scenes on a storage account, and these are supposed to be exempt from the portal. You shouldn't see them again and again and this should not affect your security score overall. However, they are not easily exempted from the portal. There's no way to exempt them properly.

You cannot create custom use cases. You can use what is already present on the Microsoft side in terms of security alerts. You can, however, customize whitelisting for alerts.

I've been using the solution for four years now. For one year, I have been working as an architect on Azure Security Center.

The stability is 99.9%. I never have seen any failure. Sometimes you find the service is slow. However, that could be related to an internet connection or something else. Every service has downtime. There is very, very minimal downtime here. I haven't faced any challenges in four years.

The scalability is very good. You don't need to put any extra agent or anything from your side. Everything is automated. It's the easiest security feature, which you can get from Microsoft.

For every project, an architect from the Microsoft side is assigned to the team. You can directly connect with them. You can also create a technical ticket. They will respond immediately. If the issue requires a certain level of severity, you will get a call directly. If it's not as serious and they email you, however, you do not respond to their email, they will call you. Otherwise, they will keep communicating via emails.

I'm in India. When I open a ticket, it may be assigned to the Indian parties and they take time to remediate your problems. If I am routed to the senior team of Microsoft, they won't take much time. They give you new solutions quickly. It's a good thing. 

We do use Azure Sentinel. I'm also familiar with Google Cloud Platform, GCP. It's a bit complex as the structure is not as good as Microsoft. Microsoft, from top-down, offers a management group, subscriptions, and tenants under one group. Inside that resource group, you will find resources. That is easy. On the other hand, inside GCP, there are folders inside folders. Then you can create multiple folders inside one folder. That makes things very complex. There are not too many security solutions available on GCP. I do not have too much experience with GCP, however, given the experience I have, according to that, GCP isn't as good.

You can handle many things on Azure with the UI. There's no need to go for the PowerShell if you don't know it. If you know PowerShell best, you can use it if you want to. If you want any report from the GCP, however, you'll have to first understand the shell scripting. It's hard to find projects due to the way GCP is laid out. There's too much complexity.

The solution is very easy to deploy. This is automatically installed on the Portal. There is no need to install anything on the Portal. There are just a few buttons inside the settings if you want to enable the Defender, et cetera. That will automatically install on all the servers. The agents are already present.

The solution takes six seconds to deploy. If you are on the Portal, you can do it in seconds. The first remediation will show within 30 minutes due to the fact that the scan takes time. The message takes a little bit of time to scan the entire infrastructure. That completely depends on how big a company's infrastructure is.

If there is another service, such as Azure Sentinel, you need to install agents on all the machines. If there is a Linux machine, you have to install the OMS agents. However, that's not the case over here.

One person can easily handle maintenance. A single person handles both Azure and Sentinel. Ours is a small environment. 

In terms of ROI for Azure Security Center, the solution offers basic security features, which Microsoft is providing. That's the main thing. There's no need to go and get any technical team to handle anything. If you know a little bit about the security, you just go and toggle the button and you install it on all the servers and services. With this product, you will start getting recommendations and security alerts. 

In contrast, if you go on any other products, you need a specialized team for security, especially. You need a complete specialized team for different services and for different actions. It's better to use Azure Security Center. There's no need to go and install anything and it's offering good security.

The licensing cost per server is $15 per month. This is the same for SQL which is also $15 per server. It covers the Defender licensing as well. According to my experience, it's a good deal.

I worked on all the Defenders, ten now, and, right now, we are more focused on Azure Defender, which is a part of the Azure Security Center on the Azure Portal. Defender is actually deployed on servers including other staff services, second path services, servers and community, and SQL databases. On each of these, you can deploy Defender.

This product is a Saas solution that is automatically updated from the Microsoft side. Any clients will not need to update manually.

If you have a hybrid cloud network or hybrid environment inside your organization, this solution will still work for you.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

When it comes to Microsoft, the education surrounding Azure services and training is very easily available online without having to make any calls. If you want to join their webinars, you can join. If you want to get any certification, it is almost free for everyone. For a student they offer the training at 50% or 40% of the cost, or if you work at a good company. I did not pay anything for any certification. I have eight certifications from Microsoft. 

I use Microsoft Defender for Cloud mainly for cybersecurity, threat prevention and detection, and implementing zero trust principles. It serves as an endpoint security tool for securing our cloud services.

The tool's most valuable feature is its support for cloud-native services like Kubernetes, containers, managed storage, and databases. Protecting these without Microsoft Defender for Cloud would be extremely challenging. For threat protection specifically, I find the signature-based detection and heuristic detection features very effective.

The compliance management features integrate well with Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM), giving a full view of infrastructure compliance with regulations like HIPAA, PCI DSS, and ISO 27001.

For improvements, I'd like to see more use cases integrated with Microsoft Sentinel and support for multi-cloud environments beyond just Azure.

I have been working with the product for a year. 

Regarding the stability of Microsoft Defender for Cloud, I would rate it lower due to some issues. Sometimes, the portal is not easy to access as it's Internet-based. We face delays while accessing the portal, which can be challenging. This could be due to Internet latency or other issues. However, from the solution perspective, it is quite stable.

I rate the solution's scalability an eight out of ten. My company has 4000 users. 

The initial setup was somewhat challenging - I'd rate it a three out of ten in ease of setup. Understanding the solution and ensuring all use cases work with Microsoft Defender for Cloud was challenging, but once you get the hang of the cloud, it's straightforward to set up. It took about a month to deploy, with three to four people involved in the project phase. Now two people manage it.

The deployment process was quite simple, as we're using Microsoft Azure Cloud. It involved activating the subscription as part of the license.

Integration with our existing infrastructure was mostly smooth, with some resolved certificate signing challenges. Overall, it was quite smooth.

Regarding return on investment, Microsoft Defender for Cloud is fulfilling its purpose. There's always room for improvement, and Microsoft is working on it. They regularly introduce new features, and their business development team is active in engaging customers about new features and benefits.

We decided to go with Microsoft Defender for Cloud because of its ability to cover cloud applications. No other tool we've seen has such vast coverage for Azure Cloud applications. Also, since it's a Microsoft native tool, it's easier to implement in Azure cloud.

Overall, I would rate Microsoft Defender for Cloud eight out of ten.

My advice for other users using the tool is to first do a proper risk assessment around the cloud, develop use cases based on the protect-identify-detect-defend model, and then implement the solution accordingly.

We use Microsoft Defender to scan for vulnerabilities related to any container or server in the cloud environment in Azure. Microsoft Defender suggests recommendations and security alerts according to the default framework. We can also use other frameworks like ISO benchmarks to assess our infrastructure and get recommendations on what can be fixed.

The solution is deployed on a public cloud, and Azure is the cloud provider.

We use Microsoft Defender for Cloud to natively support Azure.

We are resellers. We customize the solution and sell it to clients.

The solution has improved our organization in terms of benchmarking. Our Secure Score has improved a lot, and we're compliant with particular benchmarks.

The single-pane-of-glass view gives us the Secure Score in a single dashboard. It shows us all of the collective resources we have, including what is on-premises and on the cloud. It's a single graphical representation and a unified view that we can customize according to the client. We can adjust the Secure Score dashboard to show whatever the client wants to see. It can show the Secure Score, security alerts, and compliance score. The compliance score shows how compliant the environment is.

Our current security posture is a combination of the benchmark plus Zero Trust. We have a set of policies in Zero Trust that covers all six layers of the cloud, like the identity network, infrastructure, applications, endpoint, and end data. It's structured to cover every aspect of the cloud using the customized policy in Microsoft Defender.

The solution has improved our Microsoft Security Score a lot. 

Microsoft Defender is set to scan the virtual machines, SQL databases, and private endpoints every 30 minutes. For some of them, we just clicked "quick fix" and it created a private endpoint instantly and showed that it was rectified. Those quick fixes were instantaneous.

For our response time, critical findings take approximately two days while medium findings take three to seven days.

The solution has increased our efficiency.

The security policy is the most valuable feature for us. We can go into the environment settings and attach any globally recognized framework like ISO or any benchmark. We can also use our customized benchmark, like Zero Trust, if we want to implement it.

We can deploy different net agents on the on-premises assets, and Defender will scan those on-premises resources and give us recommendations to fix them.

The solution gives us recommendations to enable a DDoS protection plan on our virtual network. Right now, the DDoS, enforcing MFA, and conditional access policies make our organization more secure.

It's a good tool for keeping multi-cloud infrastructure and cloud resources secure. It's a market leader right now.

Right now, the solution covers a limited set of resources. If taken into scope, it will improve more.

After getting a recommendation, it takes time for the solution to refresh properly to show that the problem has been eliminated. 

Sometimes we'll receive a recommendation, but the problem still won't be fixed. This could be due to end-of-life machines. If the solution isn't properly refreshed, we need to wait for two or three days to remove those recommendations. Sometimes we have to reach out to Microsoft to check why the problem hasn't been fixed after following the recommendations.

For example, after a recommendation about AML files, it didn't show that the fix had been applied even though it was. It took more than four days to show that the fix had been applied. 

There are some policies that we're not able to use due to some business justifications. For instance, the storage account should be private, but it's public because a third party is interacting with that storage account and we can't limit the public access because there is no whitelisting available in terms of IPs.

I have used this solution for three years.

It's scalable, but it's an additional cost to increase the scalability.

I would rate the technical support a seven out of ten. They respond quickly and give us detailed information.

Neutral

We have also used CSPMs and other tools, but there were some limitations there. Defender gives us more customization in terms of frameworks, which is why we chose it.

The initial setup was straightforward. It took one day. We used two full-time team members for deployment. 

We deployed the solution in-house and designed the architecture.

This solution saved us money.

There are two different plans. We're using the secure basic plan, but we have used the end security plan as well. There are additional costs, but it gives us more functionalities compared to the basic plan. It provides threat detection and integration capabilities. We have not enabled that due to the cost, but it's a possibility.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten. Using this solution gave us confidence.

I work on micro-segmentation for my master's thesis, and I was looking for ways to implement micro-segmentation using Defender. I work on the assumption that small businesses can't implement expensive virtualization solutions, so I'm looking for alternatives to implement micro-segmentation for their network security.

I use the latest version of the solution.

It's a test deployment. I created the entire network. It's more like a laboratory setup.

The solution does what I want it to do. If you're already on Microsoft, this solution comes bundled with it. It's seamlessly integrated, and it improves security because I can determine who can access what applications and who or what my applications communicate with. It improves the transparency and visibility of the traffic in and out of the network of each workload on my system.

The benefits were realized almost immediately.

Compared to other products, it hasn't helped save SOC time or increase efficiency. I'm focused on micro-segmentation, so compared to other products, it wasn't built for that, but it can be adapted to it.

I'm not sure that the effect on my overall time for detection can be measured, but for non-threats, it's almost effective. The notification system is effective too. It lets me know as soon as there's a problem.

I use this solution to natively support Azure. It works seamlessly on the Azure platform because it's a Microsoft app. Its setup is similar, so if you already have a Microsoft account, it just flows into it.

It's very important to me that the solution has the ability to protect hybrid and multi-cloud environments. 

I'm looking to implement the solution in SMEs that might use different environments. Most SMEs don't have the resources to own their infrastructure entirely, so I can't really predict what environment they will be used in, therefore, I need a solution that is flexible enough to work in multiple environments, both online and offline. The only limiting factor is that I can not this solution use on platforms that aren't Microsoft.

The single pane of glass view is very important for me. It's great to be able to see everything at once and go where I need to very quickly. It's also easy to use if you've used any Microsoft product before. It allows me to see everything I want at a glance. I didn't think it was important until I started to use it, and then I realized how convenient it was.

For micro-segmentation, the unified portal has had an effect on my cloud security posture, but it's a lot of work because I have to configure the rules individually. It's difficult to compare this solution to a product like NSX or any other specialized micro-segmentation product, but because I'm trying to get a solution for small businesses that have about 10 PCs or 10 systems at the most.

It effectively defends against known threats. It also updates regularly, so the threat signatures are updated regularly, but I don't know how often the database is updated on Microsoft, so I can't really quantify its effectiveness against either zero-day threats or new threats.

I've only tried it on Azure cloud and it's effective. I've only used it on a single-cloud structure.

Right now, I'm setting rules for incoming and outgoing traffic for different applications.

From my own perspective, they just need a product that is tailored to micro-segmentation so I can configure rules for multiple systems at once and manage it. Instead of having to set up individual rules for individual applications, there should be a system that can allow me to set up multiple rules at once and can automatically update the rules as the infrastructure changes.

The solution is stable.

In general, the scalability is good. It wasn't built for my use case, which is micro-segmentation. If I had 100 systems, it would be a lot of work for me.

I have not had to call or get in touch with them, but there's a lot of documentation online. I've found a lot of what I need without having to contact anyone.

The documentation is excellent. There's a lot from Microsoft and other providers. I think it's a fairly popular system.

It was straightforward. I was the only person that deployed and tested the solution.

Initial deployment took a day, but the initial configuration rule setting took a while because it was my first time using the system.

The first step was to set up the cloud, install some test applications that I needed to protect, and then configure rules for traffic between the applications, and then between the application and external networks.

The solution doesn't really require any maintenance. It's fairly automatic. Once it's up and running, it pretty much works.

The cost is fair. There aren't any costs in addition to the standard licensing fee.

I didn't evaluate other options because I use this solution for thesis research. I researched which solution was the most used cloud and picked Azure.

I would rate this solution six out of ten. 

As a perimeter defense system, I would rate the solution a seven. As a micro-segmentation system or application, I would rate it a four.

As a perimeter defense solution, it's excellent. As a micro-segmentation product, it's not so great, especially if you have a lot of systems. It's not the product's fault because I don't think that's what it was built for.

We use Microsoft Defender for Cloud primarily for cloud security management, which includes vulnerability management. In a security environment, managing vulnerabilities is a top priority. Defender for Cloud helps identify and mitigate these vulnerabilities and protect against threats like viruses, worms, and spyware.

It offers virus management and addresses threats such as viruses, worms, spyware, and other critical security concerns.

Support needs to be highly responsive, especially in large enterprise environments. When support is required, it must be immediate, as there could be urgent situations. For instance, prompt resolution is essential if there's a critical issue like a global cyber threat that impacts networks worldwide.

If our team encounters such a problem and needs assistance, we require a support team that can provide immediate, hands-on help to resolve the issue effectively. Quick and expert support is crucial for managing high-level emergencies and ensuring smooth operations.

I have been using Microsoft Defender for Cloud for 25 years.

It is useful for small companies as well. It provides robust security without requiring a dedicated, highly qualified team to manage it.

The solution is scalable. It is suitable for large enterprises. 

I rate the solution’s scalability a ten out of ten.

The solution is easy to setup and configure.

Deployment of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is typically based on the infrastructure size, including factors such as the footprint, network, and devices that need protection. When deploying Microsoft Defender for Cloud, agents must be installed on various devices within the network, including servers, desktops, and other appliances that require protection.

Specific government protocols and security standards must be followed in a secure environment. Microsoft Defender for Cloud helps manage vulnerabilities in your cloud infrastructure. It offers protection against threats such as worms, spyware, and viruses. The tool provides continuous monitoring and real-time threat detection, which is essential for maintaining a secure network environment.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

We use Defender for network security.

Defender for Cloud is easy to use and enables us to automate routine security tasks. We save a few hours each week. Defender's single dashboard helps us centrally manage security operations and detect threats faster.

Defender is user-friendly and provides decent visibility into threats. We use multiple solutions in the Microsoft security suite, including Sentinel and Defender for Endpoint. They integrate smoothly to offer coordinated detection and response. 

Sentinel ingests data from our entire environment, allowing us to manage everything from one place. We don't need to go to multiple places to find information. Sentinel's capabilities are quite comprehensive.

Microsoft Defender could be more centralized. For example, I still need to go to another console to do policy management. 

I have used Defender for Cloud for two years. 

I rate Microsoft Defender an eight out of ten for stability. It's highly stable.

Microsoft Defender is scalable. 

I rate Microsoft support an eight out of ten. It isn't too bad. 

Positive

Setting up Microsoft Defender is straightforward. It took us around a month to get it fully deployed. Most of the implementation consisted of onboarding. It doesn't require much maintenance after deployment because it's a cloud solution.  

I don't think we've saved more money than we've spent. Defender is expensive, but we might see a return in the long run. 

I rate Microsoft Defender a three out of ten for affordability. The price could be a little lower. 

I rate Microsoft Defender for Cloud an eight out of ten. Getting all your security solutions from a single vendor makes things easier to manage. However, the Microsoft security suite is quite expensive.