Microsoft Defender XDR Reviews

Microsoft 365 Defender works together with Exchange Online is my area of specialty.

Microsoft 365 Defender incorporates a capability to identify potentially malicious emails or emails originating from suspicious senders.

Previously, we encountered a significant number of spam emails and suspicious emails, and users were inadvertently interacting with them. However, we have made progress in addressing this issue. We have conducted attack awareness training to educate users on identifying suspicious emails, and Microsoft Defender has played an important role in preventing such emails from reaching our inboxes. As a result, we have noticed a reduction in the volume of spam emails and an increase in the delivery of trustworthy emails. Considering these improvements, I can confidently state that we are in a better position now in terms of email security compared to the past before the implementation of Microsoft 365 Defender.

Within Microsoft 365 Defender, specifically using Advanced Threat Protection, you have the ability to define rules and actions for high-value alerts. 

By using Advanced Threat Protection, you have the capability to conduct thorough investigations and delve deeper into the search for specific threats that you suspect may be present within your organization. 

Within the Microsoft 365 Defender suite, you have access to numerous features that enable you to effectively track and investigate potential threats within your organization.

Automation significantly impacts our security operations in a highly beneficial way. It revolutionizes our approach by providing a centralized IT vendor admin center where we can execute all our search queries and obtain the desired information from a single interface. This unified platform streamlines the entire process by consolidating various components and their respective search processes into one, eliminating the need to navigate through multiple individual interfaces. With Microsoft 365 Defender, we have the convenience of accessing and investigating different areas of interest from a single standpoint. This not only saves us substantial time but also reduces effort and enhances overall efficiency in our security operations.

The consolidation of security operations has had a significant impact on our effectiveness and efficiency. It has resulted in improved response times, enabling us to swiftly pinpoint the potential sources of threats. We have observed a reduction in incident response time, allowing us to address security incidents more promptly. Additionally, the consolidation has enhanced the efficiency of our deployment processes, streamlining our overall security operations. These notable impacts have greatly contributed to our organization's ability to proactively identify and mitigate threats, ultimately bolstering our security posture.

Threat intelligence is an essential component in proactively preparing for potential threats and implementing proactive measures. While I have not personally engaged with this particular feature, it is widely acknowledged that staying informed about current threat intelligence is essential.

Although preventive measures are in place to minimize maintenance issues, there can be instances where threats successfully circumvent those safeguards. However, the capability to detect and identify threats before they cause harm to the system remains a valuable advantage. Anticipating the effects of this specific feature in Microsoft Defender is something I am eager to experience, as it appears to be a fascinating addition to the security measures.

Another noteworthy feature that I find appealing in Microsoft Defender is the credit-backed simulation. This feature enables organizations to train their users on effectively responding to phishing emails through a simulated training environment. 

Indeed, the credit-backed simulation feature in Microsoft Defender operates by sending simulated phishing emails to users within the organization based on the configured settings. When a user interacts with the email by clicking on a link or taking any action, they receive a notification informing them that it was a simulated phishing attempt. This simulation serves as a valuable training tool, helping users learn how to detect and respond to phishing emails effectively. By experiencing these simulations, users can enhance their awareness and develop the skills necessary to prevent falling victim to real phishing scenarios in the future. This feature is highly valuable in improving the overall security awareness and resilience of the organization's users.

In terms of visibility, Microsoft 365 Defender offers a comprehensive and detailed overview of threats and potential traces identified within your organization. 

Within Microsoft 365 Defender, you have the ability to configure specific criteria and assign high-risk values to certain indicators. This allows you to align with compliance regulations and establish your organization's threat determination framework. By leveraging Microsoft 365 Defender, you can implement and enforce these criteria to analyze and assess potential threats in your environment. 

I believe that Microsoft has the potential to greatly enhance the efficiency of the application by incorporating advanced capabilities into this feature. By providing users with the ability to customize and tailor threat detection according to their specific needs, Microsoft could significantly improve the overall effectiveness of the application. The addition of advanced capabilities would be a valuable enhancement, complementing the existing features and further strengthening the overall functionality of Microsoft 365 Defender. This would undoubtedly be a welcome and highly beneficial addition to the platform.

Microsoft 365 Defender demonstrates a commendable level of comprehensiveness in its threat protection capabilities. However, it is important to acknowledge that false positives and false negatives can be potential challenges in any security solution.

I primarily focus on using two key features within Microsoft Defender: the attack training simulation and the threat policies integrated with Azure Guard Protection.

The dashboard is one of the features of this application.

Implementing this solution has proven to be time-saving as it enables us to effectively track down suspicious and malicious attachments that may accompany emails. Even if users tend to click on attachments without much thought, we have successfully prevented and significantly reduced security breaches that were prevalent in our past security architecture. The ability to identify and mitigate potential threats has greatly improved our overall security posture, providing us with enhanced protection against breaches and unauthorized access to our systems. By leveraging this solution, we have experienced tangible benefits in terms of minimizing security incidents and safeguarding our organization's sensitive data and resources.

There was a specific incident where an email was received containing an executable file, and unfortunately, like many other users, this particular user was unaware of the potential risks and clicked on it without hesitation. Consequently, the consequences of this action became evident. 

Microsoft 365 Defender has provided us with the capability to pinpoint the specific machine where the application is currently present, as well as track the actions and steps that the application has already taken on that machine. This is just one example of the numerous areas where Microsoft 365 Defender has proven invaluable in our security operations. 

While providing an exact numerical comparison may be challenging, I can confidently say that the improvement in our response capabilities with Microsoft 365 Defender compared to our previous security architecture is indeed significant.

It is fair to acknowledge that Microsoft 365 Defender, like any software product, is not without its imperfections. There are instances where it may incorrectly flag legitimate emails from trusted senders as spam or exhibit inadequate performance in accurately classifying certain emails.

Aside from that, it's a pretty good solution, and that is for the emails.

However, the main point I want to convey is that for someone who is new to it, using Microsoft 365 Defender will demand a significant amount of effort and a willingness to learn about the product in order to maximize its benefits. It deals with technical aspects and encompasses a broad range of features beyond just the mentioned warranty, such as online exchanges. To effectively utilize Microsoft 365 Defender, it is important to have a thorough understanding of its functionalities.

It may be too complex for beginners to grasp.

In the future, it would be beneficial for Microsoft to consider making the product more user-friendly or simplified for those who are interested in using it. Currently, it requires a high level of technical expertise, making it challenging for beginners or less experienced individuals. 

Breaking it down into smaller components or enhancing its comprehensibility for end users would serve as a valuable advantage. In fact, it would not only impress others but also motivate them to understand the significance of utilizing I Defender in their specific situations.

At the moment, I have limited knowledge about TripAdvisor and its offerings, so I'm unable to provide comprehensive information. However, based on my current understanding, I believe it would greatly benefit from being more user-friendly and simplifying its features. This would enable users to easily navigate the platform and maximize their experience with it.

I have been working with Microsoft 365 Defender for a year.

To the best of my knowledge, I have never encountered a situation where Microsoft 365 Defender experienced significant crashes or unresponsiveness, aside from occasional instances of false positives and false negatives. I have found the platform to be reliable and self-service oriented, with prompt responses from the provider whenever assistance was needed.

We currently have around a hundred users with Office 365 licenses; however, not everyone has the same plan that includes Microsoft 365 Defender. I was hoping to access the admin dashboard to have a closer look at the settings and configurations, but it seems that access is limited to approximately fifty users.

This is managed by Microsoft you don't have to do anything.  All you have to do is understand how to use it to make it work for you.

Similar to other cloud applications, I believe Microsoft 365 Defender demonstrates excellent scalability by seamlessly accommodating an increasing number of users. It effortlessly scales across these users, eliminating the need for extensive efforts to extend security measures to them. The scalability of Microsoft 365 Defender is highly commendable.

In situations where an email that appears to have properties indicative of spam gets delivered instead of being flagged, it is advisable to contact the technical support team directly. 

Engaging with customer support allows you to understand why such potentially harmful content was allowed into your organization. While Microsoft 365 Defender is an advanced solution, there is always room for improvement, and feedback can help drive future enhancements to make it more effective.

By reaching out to customer support, you can address specific concerns and gain insights into how to optimize the system's performance for better security outcomes in the future.

I would rate the technical support an eight out of ten.

I use Exchange Online Protection in conjunction with exchange mailboxes.

They collaborate closely. Collaborating with one is nearly identical to collaborating with the other due to the overlapping features between Microsoft 365 Defender and Exchange Online. Essentially, I consider them to be synonymous since their primary objective is ensuring security.

They lack native integration and instead exhibit interdependence. I believe their collaboration is essential in order to fully utilize their capabilities and optimize the user experience. It is crucial for them to function together in order to achieve maximum benefits and enhance overall performance.

The main differentiating factor is the expanded scope of Microsoft 365 Defender, which is evident as the primary distinction. Our utilization includes Microsoft 365 for cloud applications and Microsoft 365 for Office Microsoft 365 applications. However, when it comes to Exchange Online Protection, its functionality is exclusively focused on email boxes.

Microsoft 365 Defender provides a broader and more extensive coverage compared to Exchange Online Protection, offering a wider reach in terms of wireless accessibility.

In the past, we used Mimecast for email filtering, and before that, we employed Trendmicro as our spam filtering and email filtering solutions.

I was not involved in the deployment process.

Previously, organizations had to invest in separate third-party filtering solutions to effectively address potential threats and breaches. However, the situation has now improved significantly as Microsoft 365 Defender consolidates all these necessary security measures into the comprehensive Microsoft 365 license. This consolidation brings numerous benefits, making it a win-win scenario for organizations. They no longer need to make additional purchases or manage multiple security solutions, as everything is conveniently available with the Microsoft 365 license.

With an eligible and dependable license like Microsoft 365, there is no need to concern yourself with the purchase of an additional third-party solution, which often comes at a higher cost. 

All these functionalities have been consolidated into a single license, eliminating the need to incur additional costs for third-party solutions such as Google Security for email features and similar functionalities.

The time it takes for us to respond has been significantly reduced. Additionally, the time it takes to detect potential threats has also seen significant improvements.

In situations where Microsoft 365 Defender did not successfully mitigate a potential threat or error, it highlights the need to initiate a new process to address the specific scenario. However, with the current setup, we are now able to detect and prevent such incidents in a timely manner. This proactive approach has saved us from potential future issues and the associated costs that may have arisen. Without Microsoft 365 Defender, it would have been challenging to identify and contain these threats, which could have caused widespread problems throughout the environment. The implementation of Microsoft 365 has effectively stopped such incidents from occurring, mitigating the need for extensive investments to resolve the issues. This positive outcome demonstrates a favorable return on investment, provided we fully understand and leverage the capabilities of the product to its maximum potential.

I believe the pricing is fair and acceptable. I consider it to be reasonable and satisfactory.

If you prioritize security, considering the cost should not be a determining factor. If you truly understand the level of protection offered, you wouldn't be concerned about the price. Instead, you would focus on the value provided. From our perspective, the pricing is reasonable considering the significant benefits and value we currently receive.

We recently transitioned away from those solutions and successfully migrated everyone to Microsoft 365 Defender. Since then, we have been exclusively using Microsoft 365 Defender without any changes up to the present time.

We have no motivation or desire to switch to or explore other products, as we are already satisfied with the quality and value we receive from our current investment.

Optimally managing a combination of various security solutions can be time-consuming and overwhelming. Instead, having a single dashboard where you can consolidate and run all your queries proves to be more efficient. While the intention might be to extract the maximum benefits from multiple solutions, dividing your attention among them hinders the ability to fully leverage each one. Therefore, it is advisable to identify a comprehensive solution that meets your requirements and focus on understanding how to maximize its potential and utilization.

Furthermore, using multiple solutions in an environment can lead to compatibility issues and conflicts. When you have multiple applications performing similar functions, it can complicate matters and potentially cause problems in the future. To avoid such complications and maintain a streamlined setup, it is advisable to stick with a single solution and focus on understanding and optimizing its usage. By doing so, you can ensure better control and avoid potential disruptions that may arise from using multiple conflicting applications.

To truly grasp the value of a service like Defender, it may be challenging for someone who hasn't experienced the need for its intervention firsthand. It is essential to engage individuals who have encountered scenarios where Defender played an important role in saving the day. When evaluating the effectiveness of the solution, it is important to involve those with hands-on experience, who have witnessed the capabilities of the product and understand how to maximize its utilization. The hands-on experience becomes paramount when screening and assessing the proficiency of individuals in dealing with this specific solution.

I would give Microsoft 365 Defender a rating of nine out of ten. The only reason I'm not giving it a perfect score of ten is that it can be quite technical for someone who is just starting out. Additionally, there may be occasional false positives and negatives, which is not unique to Defender but is a common occurrence in various software and security applications. However, apart from these minor aspects, I consider Microsoft 365 Defender to be an excellent solution overall.

Almost every use case is about security layers for messaging in Teams and for email. It especially used for phishing filters, spam filters, and composite authentication, as well as Zero-day advanced protection, and for protection within already received emails. Clients are also looking for link protection in Teams and in SharePoint.

The solution has improved the remediation steps we take for each threat. That has been the biggest impact on our organization because we need fewer human resources to deal with a bigger attack surface.

And for routine tasks and alerts on issues of high importance, the automation that the system provides has helped greatly. You can set up customized alerts and categorize trends to see a quick overview. As a result, our security officers can focus on the really important tasks, without noisy alerts. Previously, there was a procedure with a rule that was sending all emails that resulted from the SPF and DMARC controls failing to the phishing mailbox. Our security officers had to review every email and accept or decline. Now, using the automation tools within the Microsoft 365 Defender, they don't need to do that. They can check that the tool is working fine from time to time, but they don't need to do that task on a daily basis. It gives them a lot of time to do more important and creative stuff.

In addition, especially when it comes to Zero-day attacks, the solution's threat intelligence helps prepare you for potential threats before they hit. It identifies, for example, attachments containing something malicious and remediates by blocking additional delivery to other users. For example, an email may only be delivered to three users instead of 100 users. Even if somebody didn't open the email, the Zero-day attack protection has removed the email from their mailbox. This is a great remediation step for protecting that attack surface. Then I can observe how the tool is dealing with the attack instead of trying to figure out how to approach it, what to do, who I should contact, et cetera.

It also saves me time every day. It was taking me really long to review the message headers to identify what happened. It could take an hour or even more if it was a really complicated case. I needed to check the headers, the content, the links, the attachment. Using Microsoft 365 Defender, I can see in Explorer at a glance, or by clicking through one or two tabs, what is happening. It gives me a lot more time to do more interesting work and to close other cases. Instead of an hour, it takes five or 10 minutes now.

It's a lifesaver for me and keeps my clients from being threatened and attacked every day. It's not about the money, it's about the information. Attackers can use information to make money.

I can check the overviews and see trends where somebody wants to use some kind of open gate to gather my information. But the solution does the work on my behalf, so I don't need to observe the environment, traffic, and user behavior. And we don't have to invest a lot of money on repetitive training for users. Training is also good, but I don't need to invest so much money and effort in that process, and that results in savings.

For me, the email protection features are the most useful because I focus on that area.

I also really like the integration with the entire Microsoft 365 service because it's not really common to have a tool that is integrated well with Teams, SharePoint, and Exchange. 

Another feature I like is that inside Explorer I can perform an investigation to check, for example, if any accounts have been breached or accessed by a malicious actor. I can also check the source of emails from which we are receiving something that was not expected by us, such as 

• XML attachments 
• meeting invitations with the malicious links
• JavaScript. 

And I really like that the tool checks attachments within the hash so that we can investigate who received the malicious file and where.

There is also one dashboard that shows us the status of many controls at once and the details I can get. Sometimes I'm on a call with somebody from the security team who is asking why we received something or how we can better protect our environment. I can even show them the analysis of a particular Excel file and a macro inside that file. That is something I really like. It gives me a lot of information and I can respond very quickly to a particular case.

It gives a great overview of many areas, such as files, emails, chats, and links. Even with the apps, it gives you a great overview. In one place you can see where you should look into things more deeply and get knowledge of the details, instead of browsing the details and looking for something that might be of interest.

And, of course, it helps prioritize threats across the enterprise. The solution identifies threats and categorizes them. I can assess which category is more important for me and react accordingly. This categorization is really important because it gives something like an SLA for each case. You always have limited resources to deal with cases. For example, in one of the companies which I support, over half of the email traffic is filtered by Microsoft 365 Defender's tools as malicious traffic, amounting to about 5,000 emails a day. I can use the tool to see an overall view of the threats, instead of just going through each one, one by one. It gives a great overview and the ability to see trends for a day or a month and I can adjust my focus according to the trends.

With Defender on end-user devices, we have the ability to monitor them without the need to have them connected to the same network. People are working from home and sometimes they are working on their own devices. We can use conditional access policies to ask them to provide the minimum security standards. That gives us a lot of peace of mind when using Microsoft Defender. We can create rules that look for users who are uploading malicious content to Teams, SharePoint, Android, et cetera.

There should be better information for experts on features in the solution. What I see when reading about features in Microsoft 365 Defender is that it is always general information.

If Microsoft could go deeper into details for the experts about how to use the tools, usage of it would be more familiar and it would be easier to use. Right now, I need to spend a lot of time using Defender to check the possibilities and how to connect them together to see things better. If I could read a more detailed article about it and see some use cases and how some threats are remediated, that would be great. Maybe I'm not looking deep enough or maybe there is some room for them to improve in this area.

And I would really like to see new features.

I'm a Microsoft 365 consultant and have been using Microsoft 365 Defender for about three or four years.

It is really stable.

Sometimes, when there is a problem with the Microsoft infrastructure, for example, in India, then it can be hard because it's not just that somebody may have a problem. It's not about only one business unit but all of Europe. But it's not that problematic for us because usually this kind of situation is very limited and the fix is delivered really quickly.

It is a scalable solution. I haven't had any problems with the scalability of Defender.

We have the solution deployed in 38 countries. People are connected to their local networks and they use the updates from Intune and SCCM.

I haven't had any situation in which I had to ask for support for Defender. 

But for Microsoft 365, overall, when we contact the exact, dedicated team, it's really good. But before that, when a ticket goes through the first and second lines of support, sometimes it's too repetitive. The first line asks the same things as the second line. I know that it's required because Microsoft is a huge company and it has a lot of customers, so some kind of triage is needed. But when an issue is well-known and there is already a solution or a workaround, the sharing of this knowledge should be better.

Neutral

I used regular filters on the email server, running on Linux, with some type of anti-exploit solution that checked for threats inside the files. I filtered the DMARC and SPF with regular controls. That was a nightmare and I'm really happy to now use Microsoft 365 Defender.

I don't deal much with the pricing aspect, but the companies I am supporting use an E5 license for Microsoft 365 because they want to include all the features and it's cheaper for them to use E5 than SE3.

Maybe the solution should be cheaper because I have heard that the licensing is pretty expensive. I can imagine why: The knowledge is expensive and the tests and infrastructure are expensive as well.

From time to time there is maintenance in reviewing the rules so that we can focus on how to use it better. But that's not "maintenance" in the standard meaning that you need to check if the processes are working properly. For example, our security department uses phishing attack simulations to check if users are aware of how the tool behaves when we receive a phishing attack and what actions are taken to remediate that attack.

When trying to decide between a best-of-breed strategy versus a single vendor for security, it depends on the approach, resources, and of course, money. You can have a single vendor and extensively use the solution and really invest time and effort into better understanding how it works. Or you can buy a few solutions but understand each of them less, because it's not possible to have deep knowledge of how every solution works. For me, it's better to use only Microsoft 365 Defender instead of having additional security providers. I can then go deeper into the details and ask the vendor to implement a feature that is useful, and that probably will not only be useful for me. We can build it together instead of blaming each about who should do better work.

My advice is to go deeper into the details to understand how remediation is utilized inside the solution. Notice that Microsoft 365 Defender is using data collected from every tenant that is using the solution, not only mine. If a company's controls have been attacked, the tool can already protect me because I'm not on the first line of fire. It's great to understand this fact and understand the idea behind it and what the benefits are.

We use Defender XDR to assign roles and monitor based on the analytics report from Microsoft. 

Defender XDR has improved the organization's confidentiality. If there's a DLP violation, such as someone sharing documents inappropriately, a notification will automatically trigger. Defender stops the movement of advanced attacks. We first need to set up some independent indicators of compromise. The IOCs are connected to some attack surface reduction rules.

We get alerts if someone tries installing something on the system or adding an external hard drive. We get security recommendations from Microsoft, but our security implements them on their own. We don't use the AI feature. We see significant time savings from the alerts based on the indicators of compromise. It saves us about 10 to 15 percent.

The best feature is probably the alert generation. When I do a security reset, the other session triggers instantly from the Defender console, and I can work on it. The policies are three times, but they are also ready to install it.

The identity management feature is something we need for our use case. It wraps up the access management and XDR components, so it's not just Defender. It works well with Azure AD for access management. I didn't think I needed identity and access management in the past, but it's nice to have if you're performing a significant migration on a tight schedule. 

Defender XDR's coverage extends beyond Microsoft technologies. It covers all the endpoints of users in the organization. I can manage access to any application and system within the organization. 

Defender XDR could provide recommendations for threat-hunting queries. Some people do not know how to write an advanced threat query, so we need to spend time training them. 

We have used Defender XDR for about 15 months.

I rate Defender XDR 10 out of 10 for stability. It's a stable solution. We've had no outages. 

The scalability depends on the number of licenses you can purchase. If I want to add more endpoints or solutions from Microsoft XDR, I have to pay more. The scale depends on the pricing. 

I rate Microsoft support eight out of 10. Some cases are easy fixes, so they don't take much time, whereas some of our more complex tickets take some time.

Positive

I've also worked with Trellix. Microsoft provides better recommendations for protecting our tools, devices, and files. Trellix has XDR capabilities, too, but Microsoft's recommendations are more robust. 

Defender XDR is a SaaS solution. The deployment is ongoing because we're constantly onboarding and retiring endpoints. Microsoft handles most of the maintenance for it. It rarely requires maintenance from our end. 

Defender XDR is fairly priced and cost-effective. 

I rate Microsoft Defender XDR eight out of 10. If you want to implement this product, you should have a team who understands the product well. It's SaaS-based, so the Microsoft team is delivering everything to you. However, you still need to know the product.

Extended XDR expands threat protection across endpoints, email, identities, and cloud environments.

Microsoft Defender XDR provides strong identity protection with comprehensive insights into risky user behavior and potential indicators of compromise. It includes capabilities for monitoring Active Directory against attacks and threats, making it a broad and deep solution for identity security.

Improving scalability, especially for very large tenants, could be beneficial for Microsoft Defender XDR. Additionally, enhancing the privilege access management capability would make it a better solution overall.

I have been using Microsoft Defender XDR for about a year and a half.

Microsoft Defender XDR is very stable. I would rate the stability as a 10 out of 10.

I would rate the scalability of the product as a 10 out of 10.

Microsoft's customer support for Defender XDR is generally very good and I would rate it at around an eight out of ten. Larger customers like us, especially those partially owned by Microsoft, tend to receive excellent support. However, smaller organizations may not experience the same level of support.

Positive

Microsoft Defender XDR is typically deployed at the organizational level across multiple locations and departments. Maintenance is required, and the number of people needed depends on the organization's size and complexity. It could range from a large team for a big organization to just a few individuals for smaller ones.

Microsoft Defender XDR is expensive, especially for the full suite functionality. However, when compared to buying multiple-point solutions separately, it may be comparable in price. Overall, it is competitive within the market, but the broad capabilities make direct cost comparisons challenging.

Clients implement this tool to address various security issues efficiently. Microsoft Defender XDR offers a unified solution for a wide range of security needs, including extended detection and response across multiple platforms like Office, endpoints, mobile, and identity.

Microsoft Defender XDR includes some identity and access management features, especially when used alongside Azure Active Directory's privileged access management capabilities.

While primarily focused on Microsoft technologies, Microsoft Defender XDR can integrate with third-party SIEM vendors and covers multiple operating systems, including macOS, iOS, Android, and Windows, through its Defender for Endpoint and Intune capabilities.

Microsoft Defender XDR is designed as an XDR solution, utilizing the Mitre ATT&CK framework to detect and correlate events across various areas of compromise. It can identify and correlate events related to advanced attacks, such as business email compromise and ransomware, affecting security operations by providing insights into the events leading up to such attacks.

When security products like antivirus and vulnerability management software are discontinued in favor of Microsoft Defender XDR and other Microsoft 365 tools, it streamlines operations but may require less manual correlation of security events.

Some organizations might experience a 10-20% cost reduction with Microsoft Defender XDR, but for me, the main goal is to improve detection and response capabilities, not just save money. It is about adapting to the evolving threat landscape rather than focusing solely on cost savings.

Microsoft Defender XDR has saved time for our security team, making our operations more efficient.

For those evaluating Microsoft Defender XDR, my advice is to understand your requirements and map them to the appropriate licensing capabilities. It is not a one-time project but an ongoing process, so plan for continuous improvement of your security posture.

Overall, I would rate Microsoft Defender XDR as an 8 out of 10.

I'm a Security and Compliance consultant providing 365 Defender as a security solution for my clients.

All our solutions are Microsoft 365 products, including security, identity, etc., so we have better protection from advanced cyber attacks. It's also easier to ensure compliance with data regulations through the Microsoft Purview portal, which has templates for various regulations on medical privacy and personal data.

365 Defender helps us automate routine tasks and prioritize high-value alerts. Automation allows us to use time more efficiently. It makes functions easier by consolidating data from multiple Microsoft portals into a single dashboard. You can customize the playbook however you like and get a centralized view of the various components.  

The Threat Explorer feature helps us understand emerging threats in real-time and take steps to safeguard our environment. 365 Defenders saves us money because it's a bundle. If you purchased each of these solutions as a standalone product, it would cost you more than $60 per user per month, but you get them for $12 a month in a package. 

365 improved our detection and response times because we catch issues earlier in the chain of events. All the components of 365 Defender work together to provide instant detection. 

The most valuable feature depends on the scenario. For compliance, I like Microsoft Purview Information Protection and Data Loss Prevention. Sentinel is the most helpful feature for security. 365 Defender helps us prioritize threats across an enterprise. It's a crucial feature for the managed services team. 

I also have Defender for Cloud Apps and Defender for Office. Integrating other Microsoft solutions with 365 Defender is seamless. Microsoft has better documentation than some other solutions. I also work on AWS, but I feel more comfortable with Azure. There are some limitations with a standalone license, but integrating Microsoft products is a seamless experience that produces insightful analytics.

Sentinel enables us to ingest data from our ecosystem, giving us a complete picture of the entities associated with an incident. Those analytics are pretty helpful. We develop playbooks customized for any executive or developer-based summary. It depends on what we want to show and our creativity. 

365 Defender has multiple subsets, including Defender for Cloud Apps. When integrating Defender for Cloud Apps with apps on third-party cloud platforms like AWS or GCP, there are limitations on our ability to control user activities. If Microsoft added more control over third-party products, that would be a game-changer and help us quite a lot.

I have used 365 Defender for five years.

365 Defender is stable.

365 Defender is scalable. It's easy to create and manage groups, set policies, and add users. 

I rate 365 Defender support a seven out of ten. When I raise a ticket, I'm usually redirected to a third-party vendor like Convergence. I would prefer it if Microsoft India handled our tickets instead. That would be helpful. The third-party vendor sometimes doesn't have comprehensive knowledge of the product. 

Neutral

The deployment varies from client to client. Our implementation strategy is based on the client's business requirements and the RFP. You need at least two people to deploy 365 Defender, but you might need more support staff for larger jobs. 

It all depends on how a client wants to proceed, but we typically perform an audit before consulting to identify missing components or security controls. For example, if the client requires HIPAA compliance, we must control the data about specific patients. After following up on everything, we recommend the appropriate Microsoft product, and each has a separate timeline. 

I'm on the consulting side, so once we are done with the implementation, a managed services team takes over the maintenance on an SLA of one to three years. 

The price of 365 Defender is reasonable. 

I rate Microsoft 365 Defender a ten out of ten. Microsoft is a one-stop solution, and it has an answer for any problem you're facing. Before implementing 365 Defender, you should be clear about the problem you want to solve. Hiring a consultant can help, but typically, my clients know maybe three out of the five things they should know. 

I am the head of IT of the police force in the Madrid municipality. I have deployed the product to all 6,000 policemen and police women here and we are trying to protect all our devices with it.

It has helped eliminate having to look at multiple dashboards. This is a part of the benefit of the integration. It's quite helpful to receive information and data that is correlated with other information, in the form of a graph or chart. It's a good added value. We are provided with consolidated information, which is very valuable for making decisions and moving forward in improving our devices and our security.

It's very well known by all our technicians and it has helped to decrease the time to detection and response.

And while I can't demonstrate it with metrics, my intuition is that we have saved money. Because we are a very large organization, we have very large needs in IT systems. Perhaps the best thing we did, years before, was to have everything, all applications and the operating system, come from Microsoft. Perhaps that means potential money savings.

The most valuable feature of all is the full integration with the rest of the software in the operating system and Office 365, as well as Microsoft SCCM. It is quite easy for us to work with the whole instance of Microsoft products. This integration improves the benefits of the whole suite of products. Even the desktop devices seem more productive by having all these products integrated. That's the best advantage.

I'd like to see a wider solution that includes not only desktop devices but also other devices, such as servers, storage cabinets, switching equipment, et cetera. That is where they should put in more effort. I don't have a global risk solution coming from Microsoft, one that could help me in all these different IT areas.

I have been using Microsoft 365 Defender for about two years.

I would rate its stability at seven or eight out of 10. It's quite good. Up until today, we haven't had any big problems with the solution. I'm quite comfortable with it.

The solution is deployed to more than 25,000 in the municipality, but my responsibility is only over 6,000 people in the police corps.

Microsoft provides quite good support across their different areas of activity. The people attending to your requests are quite professional. They take care of your requests and respond to your needs. They try to help you. The documentation is not the best in the world, but it's quite sufficient for our needs.

Positive

Years ago we had solutions from other companies, such as Trend Micro for the desktop devices, and Trend Micro and Sophos for servers.

We used to work in different ways. Some people were in the office with desktop devices, but most of our people work outside with mobile devices. The latter group is at much more risk and we wanted to protect all these devices from potential damage and risks.

The switch was a company decision made by higher management within the municipality. We started to work with Microsoft Office 365 years ago, and then a decision came down imposing the use of Microsoft 365. I feel comfortable with the decision, but I know inside our organization that we've had plenty of problems deploying all facilities given by M365.

I'm not aware of having more or fewer problems with this product than the ones we had before, when it comes to deployment or interfaces. It's quite standard and the deployment was quite easy, but it was equally easy to deploy all the products years ago.

It has been easy to integrate with the rest of our devices and software. In addition, there was no impact on the user experience. The solution is transparent. The users may not even know of the existence of this product. There was no problem deploying and starting to use Microsoft 365 Defender. We have some other products, beyond the desktop level, that work in a coordinated way Defender.

The deployment took a few months, but we needed at least a year to stabilize our organization. The first days were awful because people couldn't understand the change in mentality required to work with this paradigm of software. During the first year, we had to cope with plenty of incidents and problems. Having passed the one-year mark since we deployed, we have started to see some of the benefits.

I generally use an "onion" deployment methodology. I start deploying new solutions in desktops that are quite close to my area of activity in the IT department. We implement, let's say, 50 to 100 desktops per day and we wait for a week to see if everything is okay and whether there are incidents. Once we are assured everything is fine, we implement by regional police units in different locations.

We had 10 to 12 operations technicians involved in the deployment.

Every software solution requires maintenance. In this case, there isn't a lot of maintenance. We have to keep an eye on the status of the solution every day. That process involves two or three people.

As most software companies have done during the last few years, they have moved from a licensing model to pay-per-use. It was difficult to understand and accept this change. When we had to accept that model, it had a great risk for companies like ours that always have to cope with annual budgets. The question is: What happens if, for any reason, there's not enough budget to accept this model? That could be a great problem.

There was a possibility of continuing with the solutions we had been working with.

But we cannot compare them because the other solutions were built eight years ago. Technology has changed so much.

Fortunately, we haven't had the chance to see if the solution's threat intelligence helps prepare us for potential threats before they hit. But I'm quite sure that it's working together with other tools to help us to stop potential breaches and risks.

Give this product a chance. Is it the best in the market? I don't know. Is it the worst? I don't know. But what is quite good is the integration with the rest of Microsoft's software products. That's the added value.

Try it, prove it, and see how it integrates. It depends on the situation. If a colleague is using Linux in their data center and desktops, of course, I wouldn't recommend this solution. But here in Spain, most companies have Microsoft products.

We are using Microsoft Defender XDR for our endpoint, desktop, and laptop protection.

Microsoft Defender can extend its protection to the third-party applications we use, which is helpful.

Microsoft Defender XDR not only helps stop malware attacks but also offers advanced attack prevention features to safeguard against sophisticated threats.

Our environment is multi-tenant, and Microsoft Defender XDR offers seamless integration. Its ability to respond to threats across the multi-tenants is good.

It helps our security team by automating tasks, providing detailed reports, safeguarding our systems, and enabling historical analysis.

It has helped to reduce some of our costs by almost $10,000 per month.

Microsoft Defender XDR is easy to manage, saving our security team time.

Scanning, vulnerability reporting, and the dashboard are the most valuable features.

While the XDR platform offers valuable functionalities, it falls short of other solutions in its ability to deliver a cohesive identity experience. To address this limitation, integrating MDR as part of the XDR experience and incorporating the latest advancements into Microsoft Defender XDR are crucial steps.

I have been using Microsoft Defender XDR for over three years.

Microsoft Defender XDR is stable.

We can scale up with Microsoft Defender XDR with no problems.

We have a dedicated account manager who handles our support requests. We submit our requests through a ticketing system, and they respond promptly.

Positive

We also use CrowdStrike. Both have advanced capabilities and are easy to manage. We have them integrated with multiple tenants but for different products. 

The initial deployment was straightforward and took one to two days to complete.

While Microsoft Defender XDR carries a higher cost, its ease of use compared to Defender may justify the investment.

Although I would rate Microsoft Defender XDR eight out of ten, its visibility suffers when used with third-party applications and non-Azure cloud platforms.

While the implementation itself is straightforward, troubleshooting, log creation, and monitoring can be challenging. This solution may be suitable for Microsoft-centric environments, but its visibility suffers in scenarios with multiple third-party solutions or hybrid deployments.

I'm using the solution for security.

Previously, we weren't using anything and now we can configure privileged access and rules. We now operate in a more secure environment. 

It's great that it's a cloud solution. You don't need to worry about physical hardware.

You can configure the product very easily. It's simple to implement and easy to run.

The XDR platform provides unified identity and access management.

We only use it to cover Microsoft products; it works really well. 

365 Defender stops lateral movement of advanced attacks, like ransomware or business email compromise. It protects us from spam and ransomware. 

So far, we haven't had any attacks. It also allows us to adapt to evolving threats. 

We use the solution's multi-tenant management capabilities. It's easy to access and helps with investigating and responding to threats across tenants. 

With Microsoft, we get multiple services under one platform.

With Defender, we've been able to reduce costs. We've likely saved around 25% in costs so far. We've also been able to save time - around 10% to 20%.

You can customize the product based on your requirements - and everything is available under one platform.

The solution can improve the rules and privileges it offers. They need to be more transparent with changes. Often, changes come too rapidly.

I've been using the solution for seven months. 

The solution is a stable product. I'd rate it nine out of ten.

It's scalable. I'd rate the ability to scale nine out of ten. You can scale according to your needs. 

Support is very good. 

Positive

I also use SentinelOne and Splunk. Microsoft Defender is easy to implement and is user-friendly. Splunk, however, is not user-friendly.

The deployment is easy.

We have 20 to 30 people working on the solution. 

There isn't really any maintenance needed. 

The pricing is reasonable. It's cheaper than other options. 

I'm a Microsoft customer. 

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. 

I would recommend the solution to others.