Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Reviews

Our clients use it for antivirus and anti-malware purposes.

It depends on the licensing. Most of the customers have got at least a 365 E3 license, and they can use most of the features of Windows 10 Defender. So, anyone who has got an enterprise license can start using those features. Some of the customers have got E5 licenses, and they can use all advanced features. Customers with E5 licenses use the advanced site protection (ATP) features and web content filtering without going via a proxy, which gives the benefit of replacing the proxy. They can get the benefit of MCAS and integration with Intune and the endpoint manager. It is a kind of single platform for all 365 technologies. It helps customers in managing everything through a unified portal.

Normally, we implement the attack surface reduction (ASR) rules and exploit protections. We also use Microsoft Defender Application Guard and ad blocker. Instead of using the application control list, we use the ad blocker at most of the places.

What I've heard from the customers is that the anti-malware engine is not up to date. So, sometimes, it may not detect such threats. I, however, haven't got any data to show for this.

Its licensing can be better. Currently, customers with the E3 license cannot use many features, and they would like those features to be available. With Windows 10 E5, Microsoft is phasing out all the functionality. They have also made a lot of changes recently where you can also buy add-ons for Defender ATP, but for Office 365, ADT, and other stuff, you still require E5 licensing. If they can improve its licensing, it would definitely be helpful in implementing the features from the security point of view. E5 definitely has more features from the security point of view.

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.

We have been recommending Defender to customers for Windows 10 and helping them in implementing it for two years.

It is okay in terms of stability. I haven't seen any issues. Even if you go for a third-party vendor as your primary anti-malware software, you can get the benefit of Defender in a passive mode. 

I am an Azure engineer, and I work with an architect to design the solutions. I'm not a security person, and I don't know whether it catches all the new malware that comes into the IT world, and how quickly it gets updated because it is not my area of work as I'm not an SEC OP admin. I have read a few articles mentioning that the engine might only be 80% or 90% up to date. Obviously, no engine is 100% up to date, but it is still a little bit behind some of the third-party vendors. 

We haven't used their support much, but one of my colleagues has had some problems, and I think he didn't get good support from Microsoft. So, obviously, it depends on what kind of support engineer you have been assigned. Sometimes, it can be difficult. It is not only applicable to Defender; it could be with any of the products.

While implementing the ASR rules and other things, if you don't put it in the audit mode and don't do proper discovery, then it can definitely break lots of applications. You need to adhere to the implementation guidelines for ASR rules. So, proper analysis definitely needs to be done before implementing those rules because it can affect the business functionality.

Its deployment can take from few weeks to months depending on the size of the organization. In terms of the implementation strategy, we start with the pilot key users, and we deploy those policies. We also deploy ASR rules and other exploit protection rules in the audit mode, instead of directly enabling them. We then monitor the resources in terms of what can be blocked or what can get impacted by those rules. After that, we work with the users to implement it and see whether it breaks anything. If it breaks, then we look at the solutions. After we are happy with all those solutions and we know that enabling it won't break anything on a business side, we just roll it out.

Our clients are definitely seeing an ROI. Some of the clients have already got the licenses, and they can use lots of features of their Defender ATP. They are basically saving the cost of not going with a third-party solution.

Some of the clients who already had another third-party solution are also moving to Defender ATP because they already have the licenses, and they can save the cost on those. One of our clients is using ESET. They have the ESET standard version, so they are not getting any of the other features. They already have an E5 license to use all Defender ATP features. So, obviously, it would be beneficial for them to go with Defender ATP.

We did a little bit of comparison with Sophos. Sophos also offers cloud and network protection, but it would be an extra cost to buy it if you already have a license of Defender ATP. With Sophos, the USB features are a part of the cloud solution. So, you can configure USB restrictions and other things in the Sophos portal. With Defender, you will have to implement the USB security features via GPO or something else.

I would definitely recommend others to go with Defender ATP if they have got the licenses because it can give them a wide range of security controls. It is integrated with Office portals and Microsoft monitoring systems, so they get the sensors from different places. We haven't come across any security threats yet. From the point of view of its theory, implementation, and architecture, Defender ATP and other ATP integrations would definitely help customers in controlling their organization and implementing the best security rules and policies.

It hasn't affected the user experience much for our customers. Customers only see the notification pop up saying that Defender hasn't found anything and things like that.

I would rate Microsoft Defender for Endpoint a seven out of 10.

We use Microsoft Defender for Endpoint for protection, asset onboarding, and service onboarding. We primarily focus on Microsoft-based endpoints. Specifically, we look for processes to determine if malware, viruses, or adware have been installed.

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint helps prioritize threats across our enterprise. The solution notifies us of new vulnerabilities, including those that have been published, exploited, or are being exploited, and it provides some visibility into these threats.

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint has a significant impact on reducing the number of affected machines. I personally write custom detection rules to analyze the environment and look for specific patterns, such as ransomware. Although some of the pre-built detection rules in Azure on GitHub are useful, they are not as flexible in terms of use cases. Therefore, it makes sense to write custom rules instead of importing the pre-built ones.

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint helps automate routine tasks and helps automate the finding of high-value alerts.

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint improved our security posture and operations by automating some of the mundane tasks, such as analyzing alerts. This allows us to focus on incidents that were created from specific individual alerts.

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint saved us time in terms of operational and C- CERT security. It reduced the amount of time we spend analyzing what happened on a particular endpoint, which processes were started, and which ones were suspicious. For example, it helped us to quickly identify suspicious installation protocols.

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint reduced our time to detect and respond by 25 percent.

Endpoint's most valuable feature is deep analysis. It provides a lot more in-depth findings. However, it only analyzes portable files with the .exe and .drl extensions. It does not analyze other file extensions. Additionally, it does not provide all the necessary information about the file's memory usage or size. I have to download the file to my computer to do further analysis. Therefore, the size of the application that the deep analysis analyzes is the only other red flag I can think of.

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint does not provide much flexibility in terms of threats. It only looks at what is currently in the environment. It does not provide flexibility like threat modeling, where we can provide our own threat model within the environment. This would allow Defender to provide us with feedback on threat intelligence that is tailored to our organization's needs and threat landscape.

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint's deep analysis shows that it works well with Microsoft's standard applications. However, it does not function as intended when used with Unix or Linux distributions. Therefore, it would be beneficial to improve support for other systems.

I have been using Microsoft Defender for Endpoint for one and a half years.

In terms of resources, I believe the solution is more resource-intensive because I can initiate multiple automated investigations, which will likely take a day or two to complete.

Our organization has thousands of people using the solution.

I give Microsoft Defender for Endpoint an eight out of ten.

No maintenance is required from our end.

I believe a best-of-breed solution is better because it eliminates some of the limitations of applications that do not provide solid stability in terms of detection time, response time, and eradication. This is because a best-of-breed solution is designed to be the best in its class at each of these tasks. As a result, it can identify threats more quickly, respond to them more effectively, and eradicate them more completely.

When evaluating the solution, we must understand how our environment is structured. Is it a hybrid environment? Does it have Unix, Linux, or Microsoft distributions? And within those distributions, do we plan to purchase multiple enterprise systems to cater to each individual distribution?

Our use case is for financial groups and we use it to control malware, as well as for antivirus. Our focus is on using it as an endpoint solution, but we cover the older servers too.

Of course, we integrate Defender with Microsoft Defender Security Center and the Microsoft compliance score. We use these tools to check the maturity and to guide our clients in using the solution better. The result is that we see growth in security maturity.

When we need to create a new server, we follow certain steps. One step is activating the extension from within the server and using that to check and monitor, in a centralized console, the health of the server. Defender also provides additional information about vulnerabilities and opportunities to increase the overall security.

For example, it will tell us if a library being used has any vulnerabilities. This information is very important for us and for our clients. They use this information to go back to their developers and request fixes. Or it may identify a problem with something in a client's application, where they need another version to mitigate it. And again, when they apply the new version, we can check it using Defender to see if the vulnerability has been resolved.

The anti-malware feature is mandatory for us.

Also, we use policies to mitigate vulnerabilities, but the final compliance score from Microsoft shows us what level the client is at and what level is needed to achieve better results and increase security policy maturity. The integration of Defender, Security Center, and the Microsoft compliance score, is the feature we use most to share the results with our clients and to create a roadmap together.

I would like to see integrations with other products, such as Spunk and other CM solutions. That would create possibilities for me, and for a SOC, to consolidate all events in an older console, not one provided by Microsoft but provided by a third party, and use it to create more insights. Examples of such insights might be the need to create a new policy or the need to mitigate an attack happening now. This type of ability would create a new business case, one that doesn't only use Microsoft solutions.

I've been using Microsoft Defender for Endpoint for two years.

The scalability is amazing. Using Azure, the sky is the limit. You just need to understand the business case.

In some cases our clients have small environments, but in other cases they have big environments. Large clients may have 1,000 agents running. But as a consulting company, we work with many types of businesses and many environments of different sizes.

As I mentioned, if the client requests an integration with some third-party tool, we may need to use another tool or develop something to make this possible. But in most cases, you don't need to do so. You just activate it and check if your policy will apply or has already been applied to the server.

We have no problems with Microsoft's technical support. My team resolves level-one and level-two problems, but when we need to check something directly with Microsoft, when it's a level-three issue, we open a ticket and talk with the engineers.

Positive

It's so easy. All activity is in the cloud, for deploying the agents and policies. It's not complex.

You just click, one-two-three, and it's working. In some cases, the deployment takes minutes. If the client needs a particular window or has a critical application running on their machine, it takes more time because of that machine's situation. But in general, it just takes a few minutes.

The harder part, following this, is you need time, like with other tools, to check the events. The tool will provide some insights, but you need to understand them, and after that, share them with the client or with those responsible for taking action.

In addition to Azure, we have partnerships with AWS and Google. We focus on security and use Kaspersky as well. It's all according to the business case. We take the time to understand the business case and then build a draft solution, check it with the client, and after that, we choose the best tool, given the budget available from the client. We create one, two, or three options and the client selects what is best for them.

The main difference between Defender and Kaspersky is the scalability and the installation and deployment process which, with Defender, is so easy.

My advice regarding Defender is the same for any other security solution: Check what you need, what types of logs and whether you will consolidate these logs in another tool. What type of knowledge will you bring from those tools to create and apply new policies and anticipate security problems?

Always check your needs with the business case. Aligning them will help determine what you need to buy. Check inside Defender to see what you need to activate. Every new feature you activate inside the cloud is billed and you need to understand if you really need each feature.

Defender has some effect on the endpoint itself but it does not change the user's work processes. It is a single tool on the endpoint to monitor the activities that happen there, but it does not affect the end-user.

But you need to understand the limitations. There are some limitations with Defender when it comes to non-Microsoft solutions. But that's not unique to Defender. It's the same with every tool. You need to understand its limitations.

Normally, we use the solution for our workstations.

The solution is quite stable.

You get online privacy. It also protects the machines from malware and trojans.

It's a scalable product.

It is a straightforward setup.

There is always room for improvement. They can improve it on the online protection front since people nowadays are moving online and working from home. That would be a good thing to focus on. 

I've been using the solution for one year. It hasn't been that long just yet.

The product is very stable and quite reliable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. The performance has been good. 

The product can scale well.

Around 15 people are using it in our organization. 

We may increase it in the future. 

I can't recall ever contacting support.

I'm also familiar with Kaspersky. We were previously using ESET.

The initial setup is quite simple and quite straightforward. It's not overly complex or difficult. 

The deployment is fast. It only takes a minute or so.

You only need one person - an engineer - to manage the product once it is up and running. 

We handled the initial setup on our own. We did not need any consultant or integrator help.

We pay annually for a license. 

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.

We are using Microsoft Defender for Endpoint with advanced threat production. Microsoft's enterprise mobility and security suite fulfills a large number of security strategy requirements for our organization. We are going to use this solution for identity production and for endpoint security.

It's a hybrid setup. The advanced threat protection only comes from the cloud intelligence engine. That's something of a new experience for us, but the rest of the components will be on-prem. We are using Microsoft's cloud. 

The whole suite of security enhancement doesn't just include Microsoft Defender. It also covers many of the features that come with the Windows Enterprise version. With this option, we are actually upgrading to the Enterprise version as well and unlocking those security features which are not available in Windows Professional. Microsoft Defender is a whole suite, which is simply not comparable with a usual anti-virus, anti-malware product.

In terms of the architecture of the management infrastructure, we found that other technologies are more simple. Microsoft Defender could be simpler too. Plus, Microsoft's philosophy is that they leverage the technology they have already built in Windows or any other services within Windows. So, it is good from that standpoint, but it also becomes a bit cumbersome when it comes to the dependency. Having dependency on many things can be a weakness sometimes because you add up more points of failure to the services. Whereas the other vendors are doing the limited thing, and that's why they're not comparable in prices, but their solutions basically aren't dependent on Microsoft's other services or anything else. They're more dependent on their agent. With Microsoft, it is not just the agent. It is the operating systems that aren't working well. The technology won't give you the desired output.

So, that's something that Microsoft may need to improve: making services more independent wherever possible. That's something of their philosophy. When they build something on their OS layer, they add on technologies, and then there's something for the ISV. That's their strategy, but we keep arguing with them that they have to compare the dependence as other vendors are doing.

From the Microsoft end, the design working depends on the health of other services and other components of the operating system. Whereas if you compare it with the Symantec technology, just the agent health has to be there. That's the case with McAfee as well. They build up their products on developed agents only.

We did the POC around 18 months ago, and then we consolidated our findings. As per the organization procedure, we proposed to the committee and then got the recommendation to move on with the pilot and decide the future roadmap.

Microsoft Defender is just one part of the advanced risk protection and advanced malware protection functionality that comes with the Microsoft product. It came with a lot of security, advisories, reviews, and consultancy during the last couple of years. There was a stack of 15-20 requirements that we had to fulfill, like mobile device management and identity protection. We found that Windows Defender meets most of our requirements.

We have had good experience with tech support so far.

We have a direct support agreement with Microsoft. One of the major reasons for moving from the current endpoint security is the support. The quality is not up to the mark. That's something incomparable with the kind of support Microsoft provides.

I would give Microsoft's support a 5 out of 5.

In terms of the technical aspect, I'm the lead of the area, which actually takes care of endpoint management, and we have been using Symantec products for that purpose. We have evaluated Microsoft Defender and Microsoft security products, and we are going to switch over to that product. We found that  because the endpoint devices are based on Microsoft Windows devices and Windows Defender is integrated with the foundation and the core layer, it makes it more integrated and more agile in terms of responding to any security threats or changes or development, whereas compared to the other vendors who develop anything on top of that platform, they're always lagging behind.

Symantec support is very pathetic. They are very methodical. They're very slow. We seldom find them providing solutions to any incident or issue in a reasonable time. It can take from days to weeks. In the case of Microsoft, their resolution time is reasonably faster than Symantec. Even in the case of VMware and Redhead, Microsoft stands on top of all those vendors.

I wouldn't say the setup is easier than other solutions but it's not bad. It's almost equivalent to what we have been using currently, but the strength comes in what it does and how it secures that part. The setup is similar to the other competitors. For Symantec, we use their endpoint manager deployment and then a deployment across the sites and branches.

We are doing deployment with Microsoft's tech support. But for the implementations and rollout of technologies, we have seldom used Microsoft. We have our own technical team who are trained and who keep on updating on their skills, and we continue to inject new resources to the team as well. When a new technology comes in, then we do a combo, whereby the in-house team actually learns with the local authorized partner.

Microsoft Defender is not comparable to a single endpoint security product, like Trend Micro, Symantec, or McAfee. Because of that, the price is higher than others because it is doing more than what the others are doing.

I would rate this solution 7 out of 10.

We use it to prevent malware attacks.

The automatic report is very good, and it is easy to see which user or device has a problem. The benefit we were able to realize immediately was protection.

I like the simplicity of the portal and the integration with Microsoft Intune. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is easy to use and implement.

It has helped automate routine tasks and the finding of high-value alerts. However, we have a small IT team, and we have not automated many tasks.

It has also helped us save a little time, but we have saved more time with email protection. We have saved money as well because of ransomware protection.

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint's threat intelligence has helped us prepare for potential threats before they hit and take proactive steps. We have a scoreboard of each device and can quickly see which device needs an upgrade.

This solution has made our threat detection and response time faster by a few hours.

Right now, there's a portal for Azure, portals for Microsoft Office, and portals for endpoints. It would be good to have only one portal and integrate everything.

I've been using this solution for five years.

Because it is in the cloud, the stability is good.

It is easy to scale and increase capacity.

We are at one location with multiple departments such as IT, marketing, sales, invoicing, etc. We are a small company and have 53 users of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint.

I have contacted Microsoft technical support a few times a year, and they have responded quickly. I'd give them a rating of nine out of ten.

Positive

We used a different solution and switched to Microsoft Defender for Endpoint because the integration and alignment with Microsoft was great. The previous solution was heavy, and it took a long time to update. 

The initial deployment was easy and took a few hours.

It is deployed to the cloud, and I don't have to spend time on maintenance.

I deployed it myself.

The ROI is very difficult to calculate, but it may be 20% ROI. We don't have any problems with ransomware or malware.

It is an expensive solution. It would be nice if it could be included with the Microsoft Office package.

In theory, the best-of-breed strategy is not secure, and practically, a single vendor's suite is better because there is only one contact.

I would recommend trying Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and would give it an overall rating of nine on a scale from one to ten.

Defender is basically a protective seal that is used to protect your Windows applications. Whenever you enable it your system is safe. You feel safe and your data and your security are verified by Defender and protected by the Defender seal. 

Defender is a part of Windows; you just need to enable it. There is no need to install anything. 

It's quite good for security. We are using Windows 11 and Windows 10. In Windows 11, Defender is very, very strong. They built in good features, good seals. Earlier, ransomware protection was not there. However, now, new ransomware protection is also available in Defender.

The solution is stable.

The solution could always be more secure. 

The solution is very stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze.

The scalability is totally based on your OS operating system as it's a part of the OS. You can't define it in a different way. If your Windows platform is working fine and is of a certain size, then you can say that it's quite good and it will cover that.

We have 200 to 300 people using the solution. Some of our employees use Windows and have Defender. Others use Mac devices. 

We've used technical support in the past and don't have anything negative to say about their services.

There isn't really an installation process. It's already a part of Windows and just needs to be activated. You can install Windows in home or business devices and have Defender at your fingertips immediately.

While you don't need a technical team to install it per se, every organization has an IT team that likely would be able to install Windows and everything else. We have a 40-plus IT team. Everybody has a defined role. 

We handled the implementation in-house using our IT team.

The solution is included with Microsoft Office 365 subscriptions.

New users who are leveraging Microsoft can decide if they want to use Defender. It's already there - you can either activate it or not, depending on your preference. It's nice that you have a choice. Many companies find Defender is enough for them, however, if you want more security, you may be able to add other firewalls or security features to your existing infrastructure.

I'd rate the solution at a seven out of ten.

We are using it for protection. We had a request from one of our customers, and we just started to implement it. We don't have any great idea about it. We are in the process of implementing it for the first time.

We are using its latest version. It is on-prem. The problem with going for a cloud version is that most of our customers prefer to work with on-prem solutions. So, we need all the features to be available on-prem as well as on the cloud.

We have just started to implement it. It is useful for protection from malware and ransomware. We are not exactly sure about zero-day, but we are trying to see if it will be effective for everyday antivirus purposes.

Auto recovery is the most important feature that we would need from this solution. For decryption, similar to Malwarebytes, there should be something to be able to recover the data up to the last normal status. Its ability to recover data to the last normal copy must not exceed 5 to 10 minutes.

We just started to use it.

We need to test its functionality in heavy environments.

Their support could be faster through the phone. The support through chat is very unuseful. It takes a lot of time and effort and but does not help in any way. We provide the first line of support to customers, so it is not a big issue for us.

We work on most of the protection products, such as Kaspersky, Malwarebytes. We normally use a lot of them. We had a request from one of our customers, so we started to implement Microsoft Defender for Endpoint.

Its initial setup is straightforward. The solution itself doesn't take more than 15 to 20 minutes, but the configuration duration depends on the environment, such as the number of policies, users, etc. It will vary according to the environment in which you are doing the implementation.

We implement it ourselves. Currently, we have only one customer of this solution.

Its price is fair. It has approximately the same price as the other products such as Kaspersky. It is much cheaper than Malwarebytes.

I would rate Microsoft Defender for Endpoint a seven out of 10.