Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Reviews

We call the solution MDATP - Microsoft Defender Advanced Persistent Threat Protection. At the same time, we're using it more from an EDR point of view, as an Endpoint Detection Response. It can detect any threats, malware, or processor, which are illegitimate and being executed by the end-users or malicious actors. When it sees this, it detects and reports to us. 

Not only that, at the same time, it's detection, prevention, and response. Mostly what we were working on is detection. When I refer to detection, I mean that it can, with pinpoint accuracy, detect something and expose the threat. It can also map those threats with a MITRE, which is one of the great things that I love about it, on top of the accuracy and the threat description it provides.

There are a few different use cases. We return with a query language, which is provided by Microsoft. We are able to create some threat hunting queries. We can pinpoint, accurately detect, and run pain testing. When there’s a threat or issue, I am able to find it and track it with great accuracy in MDATP. MDATP is able to tell me that, for example, in my organization, if there was a guy who was doing pain testing, which is black listed, and if there was an attempt to exploit something or install some malicious code or try to hack into the system. I am able to find this and pinpoint its occurrence. Not only that, I’m able to map them onto a MITRE framework and tell which stage of the attack it was, where the attacker came from, et cetera. I can see if it was something that was planned in the organization. 

I can both detect internally and externally. I have full faith that the MDATP will detect behaviors and warn us of issues.

When you go to do a deep-dive or investigation as a SOC analyst or any security analyst, it gives three structures or processes, as well as the execution that it performs. I am able to perform a very deep-level investigation with MDATP - more than I can with any other tool.

It did increase our security posture. While we had an antivirus before, it would only detect or prevent certain types of attacks. However, based on that capability, you cannot respond to the threat directly. For example, if there was ransomware on a system, the antivirus will be able to identify, detect, and mitigate it. However, at the same time, even if the antivirus detects that and tries to prevent it, you need to contain that machine, or you need to isolate that machine from the network. You don't want that machine to be talking to anybody in the network. Antivirus solutions can’t exactly do that.

With respect to prevention, it has an auto-remediation feature, which is a good feature that I love with respect to prevention. It does auto-remediation as well as manual remediation, which is pretty good.

With respect to response, we were able to contain, block, and respond to threats faster with MDATP. When we analyze the incidents or the threats it gives us a very good view of everything.

With this product, before containing or responding, we get the information and can see what exactly is happening and when that malicious file was installed. After that, we have an event timeline. The visibility is not that much when you only have an antivirus. Now, we see the full picture. When we adopted this tool, we got the detect, prevent, and response functionalities. Overall, our security posture looks much better and our attack surfaces are limited. Endpoints are also most vulnerable today and we can efficiently protect them now. Since we have reduced the attack surface our security posture has improved dramatically. On top of that, we have the capability to respond and to go deeper on a forensic level.

The product doesn’t affect our end-users. I do not see any major issues. There are exceptions where approvals may be necessary. However, the user acceptance is good. This is something that organizations pre-plan and there is nothing the user really has to worry about or act on.

Defender’s GUI can be optimized. The console needs to be more refined. After you have been using it for some time, you get used to it, and it is manageable. However, it should be a little bit more refined.

They should come up with pre-built inner workflows. I would really like to see this. There need to be workflows with respect to notifications, remediations, or any actions that people want to take. They should come up with predefined or prebuilt hunting capabilities. Right now, we have to manually write queries. I would prefer if they could come up with something more automated.

This is with respect to a SOC analyst perspective. Other users, other administrators, other different roles might have different issues. For me, there are no major concerns. It is a good tool, out of the box.

I've used the solution for about a year and a half, and have also done training on it.

The stability is good. It's a stable platform. I don't see any issues right now. However, I did see something in the past. I can't quite remember the exact situation. It's resolved and right now there are no issues. 

The solution is highly scalable.

You can onboard as many end systems as you want. If you bring more, for example, 100 users or 100 endpoints, you can integrate them with no issue. It's not a problem with MDATP.

We have somewhere around 2,000 to 3,000 users who are using it. We have an endpoint team and they manage the antiviruses and security tools and all those things. We manage the product partially from a policies perspective, and the endpoint team manages the platform and maintenance of it, including any upgrades, as necessary.

I've dealt with technical support in the past. It's good, not excellent. That said, it's okay.

Before using this solution, the company mostly dealt with antivirus solutions.

We moved to this solution to strengthen and report, detect and prevent, et cetera, which antivirus solutions don't offer. We wanted forensics and capabilities that were missing. Antiviruses simply cannot protect you from advanced persistent threats, and they cannot protect you from ransomware and they don't respond to things faster. Response capabilities were something that was missing. Basically, we just needed more.

I'm usually not part of the entire setup, however, I do manage it. We have to do certain policies within our organization. However, from what I've seen, it's not a complex setup. It is pretty straightforward.

In terms of how long the deployment takes, I don't remember the length of time. If you have a CCM centralized, you can push the policies within hours. 

The licensing is something that management decides on. I don't deal with the pricing or licensing.

We didn't really evaluate other options. We provided support for one of our clients, and it was a decision they made. 

We're a consulting company. We are not partners with Microsoft.

We use the solution as a SaaS.

I'd advise other companies to use this solution. It's an ideal choice, however, I'm not sure about the pricing. Maybe it's on the higher end of other competitors' pricing. That said, if you have an opportunity to use it, it will solve a lot of problems with respect to pain point detecting and doing investigations. At the same time, with Microsoft, if 80% of your organization is using Windows systems, it's going to be compatible. Specifically, with its platform, Microsoft understands what is right and what is wrong. Therefore, if the money is not a concern, or the budget is not a concern, opt for this. At the same time, as a generic statement, if not this solution, go for an EDR tool that suits your organization's needs best.

I'd rate the solution at a seven out of ten simply due to the fact that I have not fully optimized it. 

The stability has been good so far. 

If I compare its features to the other solutions in the market, it has some good features. It's comparable to others.

The solution can scale as needed. 

In India at least, it seems to be a bit more expensive than other options. 

I've just recently been introduced to the product. I haven't used it for very long. 

The stability has been fine. There are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze. 

The scalability has been great. If you need to expand, you can.

I have never needed to contact technical support. I can't speak to how helpful or responsive they are. 

The pricing is a bit high for the Indian market.

We are a partner and we consult clients on security solutions. It's one of the solutions we take to our clients.

For companies that are Microsoft shops, I would recommend the product. It saves a lot of integration requirements as compared to other solutions. It's a good product that does what it says it will do. 

I would rate the product a seven out of ten. There are improvement opportunities in terms of the overall tech and commercial aspects of the product. It needs to be more competitive and technical. 

The area that I focus on the most is Endpoint Protection. We use Intune to build custom devices and configurations, to push out group policies, and do quite a bit with Azure Log Analytics.  

I'm writing a script from a multi-home deployment of the MMA Agent. The use case varies a lot, depending on the clients' needs. Our clients tend to be pretty big companies. The smallest client I have is about 600 people. Our biggest client is about 50,000.

DFE organizational security posture has been a positive experience. We're a Microsoft house. It works. Once it's deployed and once it's configured, it works and our clients tend to be happy with it. I haven't really experienced anyone who has been so unsatisfied with the platform that they wanted to go a couple of different directions, that has never happened to me.

It's Microsoft native. Microsoft is the corporate default, so it makes sense to use security platforms that are baked into the Microsoft platform. That's probably the most valuable aspect of it.

It has specific features that improve our customer's security posture. It makes the monitoring a lot easier and minimizes on-prem administration. A lot of the administrative stuff is all folded into Azure. It makes things easier.

The platform just makes things easier compared to on-prem or hybrid solutions because if you start working in an on-prem solution, most of the time it's going to be a battlefield. 

DFE affects the end-user experience when it's deployed. The more freedom a user has on the device, the more they're used to doing things their own way. By locking things down, by having device configurations, you disrupt the workflow. You need a lot of user education where you have to explain why you're doing these things. I'm a part of security. It's twofold, in that users have to get used to the new configurations. And the reason why we might take a little bit longer with pilot phases is that we have to identify how it'll affect the users and how the differences of different business units will be affected. Developers need a more open environment than other solutions.

Everything can always be improved. Improvements would depend on the client. 

Monitoring can always be better, onboarding can be a little bit faster, log collection could be easier, they could streamline the dashboard. They could maybe split it up into different workspaces and have the ability to segment groups a little bit more.

I have been using Microsoft Defender for Endpoint on and off for about three or four years. 

It's only the last two and a half years that it's been a big part of my job.

Microsoft has some creative accounting when they promise an SLA of 99.99%. But it is generally good. There's always going to be a problem with the cloud. If it works 99% of the time, that's great.

The frustrating thing is, you're not sure if there's a problem with your configuration or if the service itself is down because Microsoft tends to only report that the service is down much later than when you started experiencing things. So sometimes I have to jump onto a private forum or a Slack channel and ask other consultants if they experienced something similar. But when it works, it works. There's never going to be a cloud solution that has 100% uptime.

Scalability is fine. I mainly work with implementation, so I haven't really had to mess around with the scalability. I'm responsible for setting up security policies, and then if they want to do scalability, that's another team. I sit in security.

I haven't worked with support. I generally don't use Microsoft Support.

We were Microsoft partners last year. We're gold partners where we won security partners of the year, so we have an account manager. If it really hits the fan, then I would just talk to him. 

I've been an IaaS specialist since I began my career. I've done Apple MDM solutions and I've done Google Workspace, but when it comes to actual IaaS, I can't really compare. Because we're a Microsoft house, we generally don't use third parties or competitors.

The complexity of the setup depends on the environment. If it's Greenfield, it's super easy. I've been doing this for two to three years now. Most of the time it's easy. The larger companies have more complex networks and systems. The smaller the company, the easier it is to deploy.

The beginning of the project, like scoping, implementation, the entire process, or just the actual deployment depends on the size of the company. For smaller companies, we'll push some policies out. We'll do a week or two of a pilot phase where we identify different stakeholders and different business units. We collect feedback from them, keep an eye out on the audit logs and if that goes well, then we go into phase two, which takes another week or two where we slowly push out, if it's an accounting department with 60 people, then we'll do batches of 20. We'll have a pilot group of five and then we'll push it out to 20 people at a time.

The project managers worry about the licenses. I get my scope, I know the limitations I have to work with, and then I just make a solution based on that. I'm a very technical consultant and I don't really care about licenses, that doesn't really have anything to do with me.

My advice would be to start small, don't start a project thinking that it's the best solution, and bowl it out straight away. Take your time. Don't think that you'll be able to incorporate the platform within a month, although that would depend on the size of your business. Take your time, there's no rush, be patient. Because there will always be some problems.

I would rate it an eight out of ten. 

This is an endpoint security product. It helps detect and prevent attacks and is very good when it comes to vulnerability assessment. It automatically detects attacks. It provides support for all the end devices, whether it is a Mac OS, Windows, mobiles, Android and iOS, it has support for all. I mostly deal with smaller and medium sized companies, I don't deal much with enterprises. I'm a customer of Microsoft and I work as a solution architect.

The product is very good when it comes to vulnerability assessment. It's a Microsoft flagship product and it integrates with Office 365. If my customers are using Office 365 or Azure or a Windows server, it helps to use Defender. Other products like Symantec or McAfee don't have that kind of integration with Microsoft products. In terms of identifying the attacks, it's far superior to Symantec. 

The GUI is very complex, particularly for normal users who work on it. It could be more user friendly. For future improvements, I'd be looking at internet security which we don't have as Microsoft does not distinguish whether a site is malicious or not. Kaspersky is very good at that but not Microsoft. It would be a big advantage for them if they were to include it. 

I've been using this solution for seven months. 

It's a stable product. Microsoft only recently entered this market and nobody believed that Microsoft antivirus would be good. They are now trying to prove everyone wrong in that sense by having a good security product. 

Scaling in or out is very easy. Scalability is really about licensing so you just have to request a registration license.

Ninety-nine percent of the time, I'm able to solve the problem. I do not have access to Microsoft support so if I go to their open support page and try to login a request, it takes up to 24 hours for the support agent to get back to me. It's pretty average. If you have the premium support or if you're a support partner of Microsoft, they respond back in one or two hours, something like that.

I tested the difference between Symantec and Defender by taking a malware from the internet and downloading it. Symantec allowed me to do it, even though it shouldn't have, but Defender, gave me notification and wouldn't allow me to do it. That said, Symantec is a very stable product that's been on the market for a long time. They have more expertise in endpoint protection than Microsoft. Symantec is not a cost-effective product for most customers. It's integrated with third party companies and is good in protecting endpoint. Because my customer base is companies that use Office 365 and Microsoft Azure so Microsoft integration with these products is very good.

The initial setup is very simple, you just have to attach it to the user's email address. Once the user logs in, it automatically downloads and starts working. I do the implementation.  In terms of maintenance, sometimes my engagement with the client is one time but sometimes, I do maintenance as well. This is a subscription-based, cloud-based product. They have to call me every year to renew. 

I would suggest that if you're already using Microsoft products, then I think it makes sense to go with Microsoft Defender over any other product.

I would rate this solution an eight out of 10. 

There are endpoints that are not in our organization's network but are connected directly to the web. We use Microsoft Defender for the antivirus.

We are not dealing with this solution daily, just when there is an issue from time to time.

The interface could be improved.

I have been using Microsoft Defender for Endpoint for a couple of years.

It's a stable solution.

We are only running it on a few workstations. The scalability is okay.

It's run on 10 out of 3,000 workstations and we plan to continue using it.

We have no more than 10 users in our organization.

We are also using Symantec. 

We have a few endpoints where we use Microsoft Defender because we cannot use the Symantec Sets.

The initial setup was straightforward. It was easy to install and t only took a couple of minutes.

There is no team for maintenance. If there is an issue, the security team helps to resolve it.

We completed the deployment and implementation ourselves.

We don't have an issue with the price. 

We have a bundle where the price includes all Microsoft products.

This is an area that I am not dealing with. I don't have all of the information.

It's pretty good.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

We are a system integrator and I specialize in practically everything that is security-related. This is a product that we sell as part of Office 365, and rarely as a standalone solution.

Usually, if we have a customer with Office 365 and they need this type of solution then we increase the subscription to a point where it is included.

From the user's point of view, this is classic anti-virus software. From a management point of view, this product gives better control over endpoint devices because some processes can be stopped remotely. If you have a person that is watching over the system then they have a higher level of control over endpoints.

This is a cloud-based product so it is always updated by the end-user.

They have to improve the email scanning where email is coming from somewhere other than our private network. The scanning is slow when it is working with incoming emails. Often, I can see the email but the scanning process is not finished and I cannot open the attachment. In general, the scanning has to be faster.

This solution looks stable. Provided that Windows 10 is updated, everything is okay.

I have not been in contact with technical support in regards to this product. However, technical support for Microsoft products is always of bad quality. In my experience, if you cannot find the solution yourself then you will have a huge problem because it is not an easy task to have them understand and support you.

You can lose a lot of time explaining the problem before you receive something that works.

My advice to is look for a good support library and try to find the solution yourself. This means that you don't need to contact support.

We have worked with many different security solutions. For example, we are selling a Security Operations Center as a service. We implement EDR, Privileged Access Management, Identity Management, anti-fraud solutions, web application firewalls, database security, and more. We are working with practically everything in cybersecurity.

We are working with between 10 and 15 different vendors. Sometimes, this is too many, but it is useful to have information about each product, its quality, and how it compares to others. Two products that we are working with now are Cisco AMP and Carbon Black.

There is a free version of Windows Defender, although the paid version has EDR functionality. We sell this product as part of Office 365 and it is not expensive.

I have never touched this product. I'm just selling it, and I don't recommend it to anybody as a standalone solution.

I would rate this solution a five out of ten.

We are using it only for EDR, but we have a plan to extend it to Microsoft email as well as to the cloud.

Within one month of using Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, we could achieve great insights.

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a perfect solution. We have used several EDR products, and Microsoft Defender is the best one that I have worked with. It provides great visibility. It is very transparent. We can get so many details about a particular endpoint. It is a great product. I would rate it a five out of five in terms of visibility.

It helps us to identify process-based threats in our environment, not only the signature-based ones. We are able to identify some of the threats that were not detected previously.

We get severity levels from the solution itself. Based on them, we have developed our action plan to act upon any category of incident. It helps to achieve a better SLA to attend to incidents.

I am quite interested in the vulnerability dashboard. It provides vulnerability data according to the CVE database, which helps us to prioritize vulnerabilities in our environment and address them.

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint works with Windows and Linux, so we could cover them all. It is suitable for servers as well, not only for endpoints, so we could implement it on most devices in the organization. It has probably saved us 20% of the time. 

It has Kusto Query Language (KQL), so we can use our own queries to find anything.

We can get real-time updates. It is not just signature-based. It provides results based on behavior and successors. It analyzes the behavior and the process. With that, we can achieve greater results that other products do not offer.

We need better support to learn about the product. Documentation is available, but we need some kind of training program so that we can get a better understanding of the product.

We switched to Microsoft Defender for Endpoint about one month ago.

I would rate it an eight out of ten in terms of stability.

It is highly scalable. We have around 5,000 users. I would rate it a ten out of ten in terms of scalability.

Previously, we were using a separate EDR product in our environment. We were using Sophos. Our organization moved into Microsoft 365, so we switched to Microsoft Defender for Endpoint. 

We heard that it is one of the best products in the industry. We thought that we would get better results with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint. That is why we moved to Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, and we were able to achieve better results with it.

It is a cloud deployment. It took us a few months to make the switch.

It does not require any maintenance from our end.

Overall, I would rate Microsoft Defender for Endpoint a nine out of ten.

We use Microsoft Defender for Endpoint to secure our workstations, laptops, and servers. It helps us to do virus scanning and malware protection. 

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is free and part of the licensing stack of other Microsoft products. 

The product should reduce updates since it is hard to keep up. 

I have been using the product for three to four years. 

The tool's deployment was simple. It took about a month to complete since we have over 5000 servers across various platforms. 

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint helps us save time since we don't have to keep a separate semantic console. 

We can see the threats as soon as they come in. Our security team gets notifications. 

I rate it an eight out of ten.