Microsoft Defender XDR Reviews

We use Defender XDR to monitor our network. We use it for when we analyze email and check endpoints.  

XDR is our second solution. We have two. We have it in basic mode as an antivirus and as an XDR. We use the DLP in our company as well. We can look at threat intel for vulnerabilities, and we check to see if vulnerabilities are present within our environment. We do that through Defender. It's useful for threat hunting. 

We have it integrated with Sentinel and we manage our incidents from Sentinel. We can do a detailed analysis of what actually happened, and it gives us the ability to log in remotely on devices. For example, if you have a problem with your PC, one of my colleagues can take the file from the PC remotely. As long as you have permissions as an administrator you can do that. Otherwise, you can create an incident and escalate it to the right admin.

The file analysis is helpful. When we have phishing emails Microsoft itself can analyze the file in the sandbox and then give you a detailed report. It's helped us respond better and increased the security of our organization.

I like the attack graph of each incident. It's really handy, and there's a summary. For example, you can see what had happened with a timeline. And if you go to investigate, the evidence will be there, including the users and devices. Co-pilot is integrated there as well. With just one click, you have a summary of what to do and the next steps. For young analysts, it is quite helpful.

You can have security administrators or global administrators. You can set up different permission structures outside of Defender.

The solution's security extends or covers more than just Microsoft technologies. Linux machines can be used, for example. It is possible to install an agent for Linux so you can monitor also Linux machines.

Apart from having everything within the same console, you have alerts.

The attack disruption capabilities positively affect our security operations. We can integrate with third parties. If an email comes in with a file attached, Microsoft's intelligence would be able to tell if it's a phishing scam, and it can automate the deletion.

We do educate and train our users, however, it provides an extra security layer that catches suspect emails. It reduces the risk of users accidentally clicking on phishing emails. 

The solution adapts to evolving threats. It's a next-generation solution. The machine learning and AI are integrated. With the help of machine learning, it can block quite a bit of suspicious activity.

It offers multi-tenant capabilities. We have four different tenants, and for each, we have a different console, so I don't directly deal with multi-tenant capabilities; however, it is possible. 

We do use the solution with a variety of others. We haven't reduced the number of other products we use for security. However, it's quite handy. It blocks a lot of malicious attempts. Nothing really gets by it. The automatic incident response and protection have kept us very safe, even though we do have other backups there on offer as well. 

We've saved a lot of time with the automated detection. It reduces the time we need to respond and react. We've saved maybe 30% to 40% of the typical amount of time it would take, thanks to automation. For example, if there is, a phishing email goes to the XDR if we had to do an analysis and a report, that alone might take 20 minutes to an hour. Then, we have to remediate, delete and block. With automation, we can save those 20 minutes to an hour. The process is automatic, so we don't have to manually do it. Also, if you have a bunch of suspicious domains or IPs, it will take time to manually go through everything, one by one. However, we can automate the blocking process and save ourselves a lot of time. 

The AI could be improved. As an analyst, I want to be able to interact more with AI. The AI simply sends summaries. I can't ask it, for example, if it has seen any suspicious activity with device two. I have to go and check device two for myself.

I've used the solution for 15 months so far.

The solution is quite stable. I'd rate stability eight out of ten.

We have 15 to 16 people using the solution in my organization. Then we have users on various Microsoft accounts. There may be 50 or more users in total. We have the solution spread across multiple locations. 

It's a scalable product.

I've had colleagues mention that they were very pleased with Microsoft's support. Once you open a ticket, the response you get is usually within an hour or two. 

Positive

I do use different solutions. Microsoft is very good compared to other market leaders. It's a leader itself. I've used CrowdStrike, for example, and I'm familiar with Zscaler. 

My understanding is it is quite easy to deploy the solution. Between deploying the agent and the initial installation, it may take one to two hours. Then, of course, you have to customize the product. However, as a SaaS product, it's very easy to deploy. I'm not sure if any ongoing maintenance is needed after deployment. 

I don't have visibility into the pricing. However, Defender is included in the price of a larger bundle. As a Microsoft customer, it's my understanding that users can access discounts. 

I'm a Microsoft customer. 

I'd advise new users to try a proof of concept. Before the solution is implemented, figuring out the grouping will be very important. You'll want to implement policies based on groups, so they need to make sense. For example, it would be easy to create a structure based on departments.

I'd recommend the solution to others. Microsoft is quite handy. You can get a full overview of your vulnerabilities, which makes investigations easy.

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.

We use Microsoft Defender XDR to secure all data transfers between the company network, databases, and user devices. It also protects against malware, ransomware, and other security threats.

Microsoft Defender XDR provides unified identity and access management.

Microsoft Defender XDR can extend beyond to cover more than just Microsoft technology.

The most beneficial aspect of Microsoft Defender XDR is the integration with Office 365.

We can realize the benefits of Microsoft Defender XDR anywhere from two weeks to three months, depending on the organization.

Microsoft Defender XDR stops the lateral movement of advanced attacks.

When a user exhibits suspicious activity, Defender XDR and Microsoft Sentinel work together to provide real-time protection and automation for prevention. This includes threats like insecure connections, lateral movement by malware, and unauthorized email sending. While Microsoft Defender XDR is a powerful solution on its own, combining it with Microsoft Sentinel and automation creates an even more robust defense.

Microsoft Defender XDR helps to discontinue other third-party solutions in our environment.

The cost savings potential of Microsoft Defender XDR depends on the size of an organization and the specific licensing chosen.

Microsoft Defender XDR streamlines security team workflows by offering a unified console for investigation, blocking, and mitigation.

The integration between all the Defender products is the most valuable feature.

The management and automation of the cloud apps have room for improvement.

I have been using Microsoft Defender XDR for 3 years.

Microsoft Defender XDR is stable.

The scalability of Microsoft Defender XDR depends on your organization's network for on-premises deployments, but it offers excellent scalability for cloud deployments.

Scaling Microsoft Defender XDR on-premises can lead to network and access control list problems, as well as VPN restrictions.

Microsoft Defender XDR boasts a straightforward setup process. This ease of use stems from its integration with existing Microsoft products. Once we have the appropriate license, we can be up and running quickly. Extensive documentation is available, and Defender XDR enjoys broad industry compatibility. Many other security solutions readily integrate with Defender XDR, opening their products to its robust security features.

The deployment time depends on each environment and can take anywhere from a couple of days to one month.

The number of people required for deployment also depends on the environment and varies between two to eight people.

The price we see for Microsoft Defender XDR is typically the discounted rate we offer to our customers. However, when we bundle Defender XDR with other Microsoft products, the overall bundle price may differ. Despite any initial price considerations, Defender XDR offers excellent value. It's important to compare similar products to make a fair assessment. For organizations already using Microsoft products, which applies to roughly 90 percent of our customers, Defender XDR is easy to set up. Unlike some third-party security solutions, Defender XDR integrates seamlessly with our existing Microsoft environment, eliminating the need for complex identity management configurations and development efforts.

While the standalone price of Defender XDR might seem high, its value becomes clear when considering the ease of implementation and smooth integration with our existing Microsoft infrastructure, especially when bundled with other Microsoft products.

I would rate Microsoft Defender XDR nine out of ten.

Between one and two people are required for maintenance which is conducted twice a month to roadmap Microsoft and check new features.

I recommend thoroughly reading the documentation. Additionally, if there are opportunities to attend Microsoft events, such as a partner workshop focused on Defender, these would be valuable resources. By participating in these activities, you can gain a deeper understanding of what needs to be done within your environment to successfully implement Microsoft Defender XDR.

It is, of course, an antivirus tool. I work as a lead for a SOC team, and it's our job to monitor all the endpoints in our organization. We are looking for any unusual activity happening on the devices, and Defender monitors them.

If there are any changes or unusual activities, it triggers an alert. An analyst will pick up the alert from the Microsoft 365 Defender and go through the timeline to understand what triggered that alert and whether to categorize it as a security incident or not. Some of them turn out to be false positives, and some turn out to be true positives.

We use it for other tasks like IOC management. In the cyber world, different applications have different vulnerabilities. If an application is used in our organization, we make sure all the IOCs, whether hash values, malicious IP addresses, or malicious domains, are blocked in the Microsoft 365 Defender.

It has given us a very wide range of visibility over the endpoints and it's easy to manage. If I see a threat or an attack pattern emerging from a certain location, I can easily isolate those endpoints at a very quick pace. That has pretty significantly improved our proactive measures when it comes to security in the last three years.

Apart from that, it gives us an overall picture, and not just of the endpoints. It has identity and access management and an email security module as well. If there is anything related to phishing or spam emails, we can analyze that in the same portal. We don't have to rely on multiple portals. It's just a single pane of glass where everything is visible. It gives us a clear picture and our visibility has increased a lot.

Another thing I like about Defender is that if a threat is detected, it starts the investigation by itself, by running the scans on itself, trying to isolate the device, and determining which IP addresses or websites it is connecting to. It gives us a detailed picture. All we have to do is make sure all these are blocked. But the initial triage and investigation are pretty much done by Defender itself. That is one of the significant areas of improvement for us, which I definitely like about this product. Automation is one of the key features in Defender, which saves us a lot of time. Sometimes, we don't need manual intervention. It does its job automatically.

If an analyst would take 40 to 45 minutes just to understand what was going on with respect to the alerts that were coming in with the product we were using previously, 365 Defender has reduced that time by half, by 20 to 25 minutes. That is a pretty good improvement. When you're working in a cyber security environment, you need to be very quick to respond because, in a matter of minutes, you'll be firefighting. And that's not what you want.

Among the most valuable features are the alert timeline, the alert story, which is pretty detailed. It gives us complete insight into what exactly happened on the endpoint. It doesn't just say, "Malware detected." It tells us what caused that malware to be detected and how it was detected. It gives us a complete timeline from beginning to end. It gives us a pretty detailed overview of the timeline of the attack.

Another benefit is that Defender absolutely stops lateral movement or advanced attacks like ransomware. The MITRE ATT&CK framework is pre-integrated, and all the use cases or categories that have been defined in Microsoft Defender are based on that framework. Lateral movement is part of that. There are multiple cases of lateral movement available in Defender, and ransomware, of course, is one of them.

We also have threat analytics in the solution. If there is a zero-day attack, it gives us the information. As of now, we haven't seen any impact on our devices. If there is any impact, it shows us, and we can take action accordingly. Those aspects work pretty well.

The only problem I find is that the use cases are built-in. There is no template available that you can modify according to your organization's standards. What they give is very generic, the market standard, but that might not be applicable to every organization. For example, an organization might look into an alert in a different way, not in the way Microsoft provides. There is no way to modify a template according to your needs, and that is something that I really don't like.

Those kinds of alerts are generating too many false positives for us, creating additional overhead. For example, part of the identity and access management is called "impossible travel activity." It generates false positives for us but there is no way I can modify the rule they have given that causes alerts. I cannot use that template or create a new one using that template, which I then modify to fit my organization's standards.

When we raised the issue with Microsoft, they said, "It's a product feature. What you are requesting is a product enhancement. We can take your request, but we are not sure when it's going to happen."

I have been using Microsoft 365 Defender for almost three years.

I have not observed even one time that the tool has lagged or crashed.

It is pretty scalable and user-friendly. There are no issues with the scalability.

We have raised a few tickets for cases we needed assistance with. Their support is good. The response is good. Sometimes, the challenge is that an issue might be a high priority for us, but they might not consider it a high priority based on their understanding. Their severity levels vary compared to ours. That's fair, of course. It's not something I am complaining about. Overall, the response from their support is always positive.

Positive

We were using McAfee ePO, but we have completely stopped using it now that we have 365 Defender. Discontinuing McAfee has definitely reduced manual correlation. Most things are automated in the Defender portal, so if a high-severity alert comes in, an automated investigation is triggered. That is one of the key features.

Irrespective of whether your organization is a mid-sized company or a big company, Defender is pretty scalable and very easy to use. As a cloud solution, you don't have to worry about it crashing. The alert timeline is pretty detailed. It catches most of the threats out there. You don't have to worry too much if there is a new threat because Microsoft makes sure that it is already addressed by Defender. If something comes up, it will sound an alert.

If you are looking for a nice antivirus product that doesn't take up many of your endpoint resources—compared to other antivirus software on the market, some of which take huge resources from your machine—it comes built-in with Microsoft. You don't have to install anything.

It's a cloud deployment, so I don't think there is any maintenance required from our end, unless there is a policy change requested at the organization level.

The platform provides unified identity and access management. When I started using it three years ago, that was a separate product. It was under Azure Cloud App Security. Now, they have integrated into Microsoft 365 Defender. We can see identity and access management-related alerts in Defender. Identity protection is something we have not explored that much. Our main focus lies on the endpoint.

Still, it's good to have it in Defender itself because it comes as a complete package. Just because we are not actively using it doesn't mean it's bad. It gives us detailed information, but we are working on the endpoints, focused on the device side. But if a brute-force attack is happening, it comes from a specific device. We don't have to rely on multiple portals to get that information. Everything is available in a single window, because we have that user information. You also see user access to devices and check if there are any malware-related alerts on that device. And that information is in the same portal. Integrating identity and access management in the same portal is a pretty good feature rather than having a separate feature altogether.

My role is to monitor Microsoft 365 Defender. We investigate various alerts and incidents that occur there. We utilize the solution to block any malicious domains, URLs, or other harmful elements that could affect our environment. Microsoft 365 Defender is our tool of choice for this purpose, and it helps improve our secure score. We assess the available remediation options to determine if they are suitable for our enrollment. Additionally, we use it for email analysis and make use of all the features provided by Microsoft 365 Defender.

Microsoft 365 Defender offers excellent visibility into our environment. We have a dedicated team that focuses solely on handling threats. As for me, I mainly deal with the architectural aspects of the overall environment. However, we rely on Microsoft 365 Defender for threat detection, and in the future, we plan to implement Sentinel as well. The reason for choosing Sentinel is that its integration is much more compatible, as Microsoft does not send various logs for other third-party tools like QRadar or any other tool. Therefore, we have decided to move forward with Sentinel.

Microsoft 365 Defender assists in prioritizing threats across our organization by offering real-time threat analysis. However, it does not provide upcoming threat alerts, such as identifying vulnerable technologies for our environment. To secure them, we can access the security score and follow the recommended actions. The platform displays current metrics and trends.

We are currently in the process of integrating Microsoft Defender for cloud apps and Microsoft 365 Defender, with 80 percent completion. Both solutions work together to deliver coordinated detection and response across the environment. We have one unified dashboard to monitor and control both solutions from a single place.

To create a fully comprehensive threat protection environment, we will integrate Sentinel with Microsoft 365 Defender and Microsoft Defender for cloud apps. This integration will allow us to receive additional data related to threats that are currently not shared by Microsoft.

Microsoft 365 Defender is an excellent tool. It is compatible with Teams and Outlook, making it ideal for threat detection and mail security in a Windows environment, which is commonly used by many corporate entities.

Microsoft 365 Defender is helpful in automating routine tasks and identifying high-value alerts. The Microsoft dashboard facilitates the remediation of alerts by grouping alerts of the same kind, which is beneficial.

Microsoft 365 Defender helps reduce the number of dashboards we need to look at, but it does not completely eliminate them.

Microsoft 365 Defender has saved us time by consolidating many of our solutions into a single tool.

Microsoft 365 Defender helps reduce our MTTD, but Sentinel would help decrease our MTTD even further.

The 'Incidents and Alerts' tab is a valuable feature where we can find triggered alerts.

Microsoft Cloud App Security has now transitioned its alerts to 365 Defender. As a result, all alerts that were triggered in Microsoft Cloud App Security are now visible in Microsoft 365 Defender.

It is beneficial that we can search for any of the devices. If we choose any of the devices, it will display the alert, incident, and the entire timeline related to that particular device. These are the features covered, including the ability to run antivirus directly on the device, isolate the device, and apply restrictions. These are the positive aspects of the solution. The same applies to 'Identity' as well. 

We can also investigate that router using email. The image represents the user's complete inbox. We can find out who the main users are, what the titles of the emails are, and how much malware we have received, including the number of phishing emails. We can see all this information in that explorer. Additionally, that thing is also beneficial.

There is a section titled 'Action and Submission.' When we submit any kind of share value for evaluation to Microsoft, they take a significant amount of time for the process.

When discussing the secure score, which includes overviews and recommended actions, some of these recommended actions are not applicable to us, particularly those related to Microsoft Internet Explorer, which we do not use in any of our environments. Nevertheless, there are instances where options to disable macros and various configurations appear, even though they shouldn't be present.

I have been using Microsoft 365 Defender for two years.

Microsoft 365 Defender is stable.

Microsoft 365 Defender is scalable. The solution can handle numerous endpoints, and as our user base grows, the number of endpoints automatically increases.

Many times, the engineers assigned to our tickets are not very knowledgeable about the solutions and features.

Neutral

I would rate Microsoft 365 Defender an eight out of ten. There are many rapid and independent changes happening each month or every other month, making it difficult to keep track of them.

I prefer adopting a best-of-breed strategy instead of relying on a single-vendor security suite. I have observed this approach being implemented in numerous organizations.

Microsoft 365 Defender surpasses most platforms available in the market in terms of advancement and offers extensive integration with other Microsoft solutions. I highly recommend this solution.

We mainly use this solution for security reasons. We use it for the complete stack of email security so we don't have to use a third-party tool, and we use the extended security features that are included in M365, like sandboxing.

The solution is deployed on the Azure cloud. We're a cloud-only company, so we only deploy cloud workloads, but we also have customers with legacy systems. If we're not able to migrate them to Azure, Defender for the server can be deployed on-premise.

The solution is deployed across Germany in four regions: Munich, Cologne, Bremen, and Hamburg. However, most people work from home.

There are about 50 endpoint users, but we have customers with thousands of users. We focus on customers with a thousand seats or more.

We use the entire M365 E5 license for everything that's going on in the M365 world. We try to accomplish everything we need with Microsoft products.

It was very easy to integrate the solutions. We integrated them so we could have an overall good view of our assets. The installation was fully automated via Intune.

Overall, the solution has decreased our time to detect and respond. If there is any issue, it's not complicated to get the information we need and respond quickly. We offer managed services to some customers, and we have a very clear view of what's going on in their security environments.

One of our main focuses is IT security. This solution has a huge impact on how we use tools and what we do in IT.

One of the biggest points is that Defender is included in the license. It's integrated fully into the M365 world. There's no need to have a third party, which is more complex and includes additional costs. Especially because we're partners, it's very good to have 100 free licenses. We're able to distribute all the information to our customers and integrate it into our projects in a very streamlined way.

We saw all of these benefits instantly. It's different with customers because they are often heterogeneous in the software they use. There's a little bit of explaining and promoting, but it's a huge benefit for most of our customers when they understand that they can have a centralized view of all these security topics. If we are able to deploy the solution to new customers, the benefits are realized in about six months because we have to train them and implement all of the security.

The solution helps with finding high alerts. I wouldn't say it helps with automation because we are piping the problem into the Jira automation, so our managed service kicks in. I would say that it's half-automated.

It helps save time when it comes to the operation and receiving information because we don't have to skip around with different products and customer situations.

This solution enabled our security operations. The legacy approach, in which the tools are in place and someone occasionally checks them, is not secure as it's meant to be today. 

It eliminates the need to look at multiple dashboards and gives us one XDR dashboard. The consolidated dashboard helps our customers get a faster view, which wasn't possible with the former solution.

The solution's threat intelligence helps us prepare for potential threats before they hit and to take proactive steps. Our security team is able to work well with it, and a lot of information is getting to our internal users. We distribute everything we learn to our customers.

Sentinel enables us to ingest data from our entire ecosystem because we're cloud-only, so there is no other architecture to monitor.

I would say the logging and analyzers are about 80% of our security operations. The ability to have a clear view of the security information is a big win. For legacy implementations, it's normal to have the security installed but not be able to monitor, detect anything, or get the information to the right people.

For the most part, Sentinel enables us to investigate threats and respond holistically from one place. Today, there are different views, different websites, and different portals to use in order to drill down and get to the real problem. It's a good starting point.

I like the easy integration and advanced possibilities. We can implement it at customer sites in a few clicks, but we can also dive deep and drill down to extended features. There's a very good starting point to get into this product and all the features from Defender. We use Plan 1 for email security because it's a common vector for phishing and attacks. The Plan 2 version goes more into advanced features and logging, which we also use for our internal security operations center.

The solutions work natively together to deliver coordinated detection and response across our environment by about 80%. There should be something to get a consolidated view, which doesn't exist at the moment. We have a known tool in place to consolidate all the information into one view for us. That would be a perfect function to have in the future.

I have more than 15 years of experience in IT security, so I have a very good understanding of the tools we need for a use case. I think the documentation helps us and all of our customers comprehend the product. For cloud products, it's normal that something new today is almost outdated tomorrow. Company-wide, we have a very good view of all these products, and we're very firm in deploying them.

I would like more of the features in Defender for 365 to be included in the smaller licenses. Even if I buy a small license and don't need everything, security shouldn't be a question. Security is one of the main aspects of all projects from our side, so it would be nice to have more features in the smaller licenses.

I would also like a more aesthetically pleasing dashboard. For German customers, it's important that the solution is in German. Multi-language support should be in all the features if possible. In many projects, we want to use digital signatures on emails. It would be perfect to have better integration of digital signing in a standard way.

In the last few months, the dashboard changed very often. When they restructure it, it's a little bit painful. Otherwise, the technology is very helpful.

The visibility into threats could be better. For the last six months, getting information from the access points has been difficult. However, the newest version fits very well. It's easy if you've found the right spot to view what's happening.

For legacy organizations or legacy customers, I would say it's possible to save time, but time-saving isn't always the best with security because it needs to be deployed and managed.

It can be installed quickly, but it takes time to check out false positives, have everything in place, and train each end user.

We have been using this solution for five years since our company started. The solution had a different name, but we have been using it since it's been available. We use company-wide E5 licenses.

The solution is stable.

We haven't had any scalability problems.

I haven't had a lot of contact with technical support.

For my personal project, I used many other legacy projects, but not at my company. We aren't selling anything other than the new Microsoft solution at the moment.

The solution doesn't require any maintenance.

We have seen ROI in project situations because we removed legacy email gateways and legacy antivirus on-premise solutions.

I would like to have more security features in the lower licenses because not every customer is able to buy E5 licenses. The bundling isn't always easy for our customers to understand. Compared to other tools, it's a good price.

I would rate this solution as eight out of ten. 

My advice to those who are looking to implement this solution is to get help from the right company so you can use the solution properly.

Defender helps us prioritize threats, but I would say it's a combination of all the information that we're getting from the internet and from other resources.

To a security colleague who says it's better to go with a best-of-breed strategy rather than a single vendor security suite, I would say that it depends on the customer. If someone has their own VSOCK implemented and many security guys on board, then maybe best-of-breed is what they need. 

If someone is a classic customer who doesn't know a lot about security, then they should stick to a one-vendor strategy.

We primarily use it for endpoint security. Specifically, it serves as our solution for antivirus detection, malware detection, and related aspects focused on safeguarding individual devices. 

Its single-pane interface is a time-saving feature, as it eliminates the need to check different locations which is excellent for efficiency. It allows us to phase out the use of other security products. For example, we previously ran Sophos on-premises. However, upon transitioning to Microsoft 365 and leveraging the included Defender, we discontinued the use of Sophos. This shift not only streamlined our security approach with a unified solution but also contributed to cost savings, as everything is encompassed within the same license—a concept that aligns with the efficiency of a single-pane interface.

The most valuable aspect is that it comes included with the licensing, which is excellent. It provides a single pane of glass within the 365 admin interface, streamlining our experience by consolidating information in one place and eliminating the need to navigate through multiple interfaces.

It would be highly beneficial if CoPilot could identify anomalies within the network and notify the IT team. For instance, if a user typically accesses around a hundred megabytes of data daily from familiar files and locations but suddenly diverges to an uncommon destination, uploading ten gigabytes of data to an unfamiliar website, that would be a significant anomaly. Pausing such activity and alerting the IT team for a human assessment would be a valuable feature to ensure security.

I have been working with it for three years.

No stability issues noted, and there haven't been any concerns regarding false positives. Overall, the experience has been positive.

Scalability is straightforward; no issues are encountered. We predominantly use Windows 10, and so far, I haven't observed any issues. Some of us have transitioned to Windows 11, and it appears to function well.

We haven't contacted their tech support, which I consider a positive indicator.

In terms of ROI, our expectation is to gain a comprehensive analytical perspective by upgrading to E5, activating Sentinel, and deploying other products like Entra. This move aims to provide a more extensive understanding of user activities, login details, and other relevant metrics. Currently on a three-year Microsoft term set to end on April 1st, we've inquired with our vendor about transitioning from E3 to E5 immediately.

In our security solution evaluation, we considered Trend Micro and Sophos, focusing more on Sophos due to its cloud version. However, challenges in patching the on-premises Sophos led us to choose Microsoft Defender. The simplicity, inclusion in our package and regular patching made Defender more attractive. Additionally, our decision was influenced by community adoption, as no other law enforcement agencies in Canada were using Trend Micro. Defender's seamless integration and zero additional cost aligned with our strategy of opting for solutions without extra expenses.

Overall, I would rate it eight out of ten.

We implemented Defender two and a half years ago, utilizing it in a passive mode with only the sensor active for data collection and basic EDR results. Although it has been running on all devices, we are currently in the process of making the final transition from the existing setup to fully leverage Defender as our EDR solution.

We utilize analytics on both iOS and Android platforms, and it holds significant importance for us. Compliance with mandates, often stemming from executive orders, requires meeting specific contract requirements. In response, we employ analytics to implement and maintain controls consistently across various device types. The capability to adapt to emerging threats is of utmost importance to us. We lack the time and resources to constantly learn about new indicators and threat actors. We expect that the threat intelligence from Microsoft and other providers seamlessly integrates into the system, enabling automatic updates based on the current global threat landscape. The unified single pane of glass is a significant benefit. It consolidates everything into one interface, eliminating the need to navigate through multiple portals for information.

The greatest value lies in integration, I believe. The ability to integrate and observe a more cohesive narrative across the products is crucial.

There are still some components, such as vulnerability management within the vendor product, where improved integration would be beneficial. Currently, it's not visible in the same interface, requiring us to search elsewhere to access that information. While it has streamlined data collection and retrieval, there's still room for improvement in terms of user-friendliness for certain individuals. While the ultimate goal is to enhance security, there's room for improvement in terms of pricing.

We are currently in the migration process from Sophos to Microsoft Defender.

It offers high stability.

The backend infrastructure and structure in place seem to be easily scalable to meet our requirements.

Customer service and technical support vary. Opening support cases for different components within the security stack or Microsoft entity often reveals that first-level support is lacking. It typically takes two or three weeks to get an escalation, and by then, the issue may have resolved itself. Escalations are challenging, as first-level support struggles to comprehend the problem, leading to repetitive discussions. I would rate it four out of ten.

Neutral

We transitioned from Sophos to Microsoft Defender primarily due to cost reduction and the elimination of duplicated technologies.

The initial setup used to be complex, but now it's much more streamlined.

We follow a phased approach for deployment, beginning with a proof of concept pilot. However, our main deployment cycle revolves around Defender, facilitated via Intune, where all devices are managed. Building the package and incorporating scripts into Intune is the key process for the sequential implementation, which has evolved over time. Maintenance involves keeping pace with changes, not just patching. Microsoft has significantly improved patch cycle management, but dealing with the constant stream of changes they introduce remains a challenge.

It proved to be effective in cost savings. Our return on investment is tied to the existing investment in the current SKU. We anticipate not only recouping the dollars spent but also gaining the advantage of a unified interface, a single pane of glass. This consolidation allows us to streamline our operations, saving valuable time and effectively reclaiming productivity that would otherwise be spent navigating between different platforms on a daily basis.

When seeking a security suite, even with an E5 enterprise license, additional purchases are still necessary. The license cost for a year is approximately forty-four thousand, and this annual saving is a significant factor in our decision to switch.

In the past, we explored alternatives such as Carbon Black and Cylance, particularly for their machine learning and AI components, which were quite innovative at that time, approximately three years ago. However, our approach has evolved, and we've shifted significantly towards the Microsoft Stack. The decision is influenced by our existing environment, where we can readily assess the capabilities available within Microsoft.

The critical aspect is comprehending your existing setup. During our migration, we opt for a like-for-like transition instead of going for something entirely new, as the latter could be disruptive to some processes. Defender offers extensive capabilities, but understanding where to begin is crucial to avoiding disruption. Start with a like-for-like migration and plan the subsequent ramp-up to align with its capabilities. Overall, I would rate it eight out of ten.

We mainly use it to defend endpoints.

We have seen fewer threats with the solution. The attacks that we experienced in prior years have reduced drastically since we implemented Defender.

We also use Microsoft Defender for Identity. Their integration is very good. If you are a Microsoft 365 SaaS solution user, it is perfect. It works very well with all the services provided by Microsoft. These services work natively together to deliver coordinated detection and response across our environment. We are pretty much a Microsoft shop, so the integration of these different services is very important for us to secure our offices.

Microsoft 365 Defender's threat protection is very comprehensive. The service that is available now is much more comprehensive than what was available a few years back. The only area that I see lacking is the dashboard. I can create my own dashboard, but the preset security dashboards should be much more functional.

Its threat intelligence helps prepare us for potential threats and take proactive steps before the threats hit. The vulnerability scanning feature is great, and the Secure Score feature that scans the endpoints for vulnerabilities and keeps them up to date reduces a lot of the attacks that can possibly happen.

Microsoft 365 Defender has saved us time. It has saved at least 30% to 40% of our time.

Microsoft 365 Defender has saved us costs. Previously, we had to pay for third-party protection services separately, but because it is now integrated with our E5 licenses, it saves us a lot of money.

Microsoft 365 Defender has decreased our time to detect and respond. We now have visibility and this led to about a 20% to 30% reduction. 

The EDR and the way it automatically responds to ransomware and other attacks are valuable features.

The visibility into threats is not as good as other products in the market such as CrowdStrike, but if you know where to look, you can gain access to what is going on. The way the dashboard is designed is not as great as other products.

It helps to prioritize threats across the enterprise, but a lot of administrative overload is involved in determining which threats to prioritize. As compared to other products, it is a bit lacking.

Similarly, it helps to automate routine tasks and finds high-value alerts, but a little bit more automation would be appreciated.

Automated playbooks and automated dashboards would be preferable to the way the data is currently being presented. That is because a lot of organizations that I have worked with over the past years do not have full-on SOC or threat detection services. They should put in more automated response capabilities and dashboards for smaller organizations.

I have been using this solution for almost three years.

It is a very stable product. Our attack metrics have come down drastically since we integrated with Defender. In my opinion, it is a very stable product.

It is very scalable. I do not know about third-party clouds or third-party solutions, but when you are a Microsoft shop or have Azure or a hybrid setup, it is very scalable.

We have multiple departments and multiple locations. We have client-facing computers, and we have in-house and on-prem computers. We also have Azure VMs. 

Their support can be better. Their response time is good, but their knowledge and documentation are a bit lacking. Technology is moving faster than the documentation and the knowledge that is being provided to the support team. Their support team pretty much looks at the same documentation that we are looking at, but the technology is moving a lot faster than they can catch up. I would rate their support a seven out of ten.

Neutral

We used CrowdStrike and Trend Micro. We switched to Microsoft 365 Defender because we wanted to integrate services.

The solution is deployed on the cloud, but the endpoints are connected on-prem. In our organization, we have quite a few endpoints, so it took about three or four weeks.

The setup will be straightforward for big organizations if they have a complete IT department, but for a small organization, implementing the same service becomes trickier because they do not have full-fledged IT departments. That is where the problem lies. 

More automation would be better. However, automation is present with Autopilot and other services where you can integrate everything.

In terms of maintenance, you have to fine-tune the services on a regular basis and tweak the deployment as per your requirements.

We have about eight admins who worked on the implementation of the solution.

We have probably seen 30% to 40% ROI.

It is fairly priced because we get complete integrated services with the E5 license.

To a security colleague who says it is better to go with a best-of-breed strategy rather than a single vendor’s security suite, I would say that a single-vendor strategy worked for us because it brought down our investment in terms of licensing and cost. The deployment across the organization has been a lot easier than integrating third-party solutions in different areas of the organization. For example, Defender integrates very well with both the endpoints and the cloud. Whereas with a third-party solution, we have to get different applications that need to connect back to the service to get the solutions that we require. Native integration is very useful for us when it comes to Microsoft. That is what I would recommend.

If you are a Microsoft shop, I would highly recommend it, but you have to do a PoC.

I would rate Microsoft 365 Defender a nine out of ten.