NetWitness Platform Reviews

I'm primarily using the solution on my client's site. 

This is a log event management tool. We are integrating this solution for the clients where it is required. Mostly we work with OEMs such as IBM, RSA, Splunk, and Micro Focus. 

With the help of these tools, you can identify any attacks or phishing activity in your network. Most of the time you are able to identify these types of attacks or activity on your firewall. When the firewall will notify the SIEM tools, it will identify which needs to be acted on immediately - unlike when you are using automation tools. With the help of automated tools, you can block those suspicious IPS or you can hand it over back to your security analyst or analyst team to take action ASAP. 

We have not evaluated this tool. It is evaluated by the client's company directly. That said, I have found it has good threat intel insights, comparatively speaking. 

From the client-side, there are economical kinds of features.  It's quite economical compared to other solutions in the market. 

The solution is scalable. 

The technical support is very good.

We are designing reports and automated rules and processes. We are defining them in relation to this product. With the help of automated rules and processes, this product will help the team when they go to production to do operations smoothly, as, most of the time, what happens when you put manual interference into such systems, it may be delayed. This can lead to vulnerabilities. Sometimes, if a hacker enters the system, he might only have a limited time where there is a window of access, however, in that time, he'll take what he can, and even if the vulnerability only lasted for a few minutes, in that time, items can get stolen. 

Therefore, there needs to be more proactively to avoid any downtime. We're adding automating tools to help RSA Netwitness so that if anything happens, RSA can immediately shut anything down. We're in the process of configuring them and adding them in.

The initial setup is complex. There are solutions that are easier to implement.

I've been using the solution for two and a half years.

The solution is reliable. I won't say great, due to the fact that, naturally, if you compare it to other products it is not that great. That said, for the operations, it is good as long as you do not violate your license. The moment you violate your license, this will cause a quite delayed reaction, at least, that is what I've seen compared to Splunk and QRadar.

While the solution isn't necessarily for small organizations, it is good for medium and large organizations.

The solution scales easily.

Technical support is very good. They try to resolve issues with the proper SLAs which are defined by them and they understand the client's requirements as well as the client's infrastructure in a better manner. I'm happy with the support.

The solution is pretty complex to set up. Comparatively, I have worked on IBM QRadar and Splunk. They are much easier to set up. It also depends on the client's infrastructure. It just needs some time and understanding to be deployed. 

Once it is deployed it requires maintenance. Whenever you work on such products, if you do not take the support or support services, it might take some time to work through some things. For some things, the documentation is not the best. Support is always recommended. If you do not buy support, it can be a disaster. 

It's my understanding that the pricing of the product is pretty good. Compared to other options on the market, it's reasonable. 

I would say it's economical, as the licensing part is always a different ball game in the SIEM tools business, as everyone is running their business in a different manner. If you go to IBM, they will charge you in a different way, for example. RSA will charge you in a different way as well, and Splunk has its own unique licensing policies. I would say it's economical. I won't say it's cheap. It is in between.

Currently, there is only one license. There aren't different licensing models. Hardware is included in the price.

I'm on the latest version of the solution. I tend to work on updated versions.

We are systems integrators. We have a partnership with RSA.

If a company decides to try out this product, they need to do the homework properly due to the fact that sometimes on the hardware side or on the software side, you may face some issues. It is better to study thoroughly the troubleshooting part and prepare properly. Only then you can go for implementation.

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

We are a solution provider and RSA NetWitness is one of the products that we implement for our clients. We also use it ourselves, They primarily use it for threat protection.

The most valuable feature is the security that it provides.

The log-related capabilities are good.

It integrates well with other risk-assessment tools.

It is not so easy to customize this product.

This product would be improved with the addition of machine learning functionality.

I have been working with this product for perhaps eight years.

Stability is not a problem with NetWitness.

We have not heard any complaints about scalability. This is generally for enterprise-level companies.

The technical support is good and our customers are satisfied with it.

We use McAfee for internal purposes.

The complexity of the initial setup depends on the environment, but overall, I would say that it is quite easy. It isn't the easiest product to install, although it is not difficult, either.

They have just introduced an orchestration tool, although I don't know how it works yet.

Overall, this is a good product and I recommend it. However, I always suggest doing a proof of concept first, to make sure that it meets your needs.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We use the on-premise deployment model of this solution. Our primary use case of this solution is for malware detection and for reconstruction during the incident and forensic analysis.

The web interface needs improvement because right now they have problems combining an older interface with a newer interface. They're in the middle of the process of combining the old and the new one. It sometimes confuses the user and sometimes you are not able to find the necessary information. You need to click the information and that is something that should be improved.

The data isn't a problem but you need to get used to it. You need to know where to click in order to get the results. Otherwise, you can encounter some problems.

I would be very happy if they would fix all the issues from 11.3 to the 11.4 version to have more advantages from the UEBA because the UEBA we have implemented will be the longest. If they will fully integrate the UEBA with the network data, this could be a very huge advantage and impact on the market. Right now, you have a solution like Darktrace which has the same capabilities as RSA NetWitness so NetWitness should implement the same things. They have UEBA, they have data. They should implement algorithms to digest that data and produce additional, more advanced reporting, alerting and support of internal security teams.

It's very stable if you are talking about the old version. I don't like 11.3 and I don't know 11.4, it's not actually released. It provides accurate information, quick analysis from the endpoint perspective, and quick identification of any potential malware. But the 11.3 version is a complete disaster. You cannot analyze anything. 

I am part of the maintenance team. It's me and a couple more staff members that don't work full-time on this solution. I would say around four employees are required for maintenance but not full-time. 

It's fully scalable. There is no limit. Of course, the license limits per day the number of terabytes. In my opinion, it's very flexible.

We have 10,000 users using this solution.

We do plan to increase the usage of this solution. We want to implement more monitoring of the internal traffic from specific places. We need to implement more decoders, more concentrators, and some kind of organization with the log archiving. 

Their customer service is excellent, one of the best.

I have been using Fidelis and that works. It's all the same approach, but they only gather the metadata, not the full packet capture. If you want to compare those products together, I can safely say that RSA is much better because they offer full packet capture capability. It's more scalable and more flexible.

The initial set up was not very complex. The problem is with the use cases. You need to be very careful to not become overwhelmed with unnecessary data. You need to very carefully decide what should be filtered, what you need to be taken from the network or from the logs. You need to decide whether you need YouTube traffic at all, for example, because it consumes storage. It's a huge amount of data and that data is useless. It is not relevant to malicious activity and if you want to fully get the picture of the user activity or the motor activity you can have with data without Facebook, for example.

We have a perpetual license, so the total cost of ownership is not very expensive. It's a good investment.

We have looked through the Cisco solution to expand more devices from Fidelis to cover more areas of our network. I also evaluated Symantec and I have seen FireEye but it's hard to even compare those products to RSA.

If it's possible, ask for help from primary support to help you implement at the very beginning with the fundamental alert or detection rules. This is my best advice for a customer regardless of the size and scope of the implementation. Use the support to help you with the implementation process.

I would rate it an eight out of ten. 

We are a service providing company and this is one of the products that we implement for our clients. The RSA NetWitness Logs and Packets solution is used for Event Stream Analysis (ESA), and we implement use cases based on our customers' needs. For example, suppose the security device is a Palo Alto device then at the policy level, we implement the use cases. These might be things like phishing attacks or a botnet. Most companies follow the GDPR regulations for compliance.

We have RSA NetWitness implemented in virtual appliances.

The most valuable features are the packet decoder, log decoder, and concentrator. The packet decoder is capable of collecting the flow, whereas the log decoder is capable of collecting the event. NetWitness offers a hybrid solution that collects both and also uses the concentrator.

The alert dashboard is not reflecting events in real-time. We have to refresh in order to view an alert in real-time.

Log aggregation is an issue with this solution because there are a huge number of alerts in a single instance. Compared to ArcSight or QRadar, this is a problem.

We have been using RSA NetWitness for about a year and a half.

The stability of RSA NetWitness is good. It is used on a daily basis.

The ability to scale varies from client to client, and what the client's requirements are. Sometimes the client will want to move to a lighter platform and you have to consider the many inputs related to the cloud. 

We are supporting 10 to 15 clients for this solution. 

With regard to technical support, we have found that their diagnosis makes sense but in some cases, they are very late to reply. Our clients always want to resolve the issue through us, and sometimes the support takes a long time. Because RSA NetWitness is a new product, there are many things that they are trying to find out.

Overall, I would say that the support is good.

We are using multiple tools including QRadar, RSA NetWitness, LogRhythm, and Micro 
Focus ArcSight.

The QRadar setup gave us no issues, and it also works with logs and packets.

LogRhythm fulfills the GDPR compliance.

The initial setup is good, and it is not complex.

The length of time it takes to deploy depends on the type and size of the organization. It takes two to three days to implement this solution, including all of the installation and configuration. Once the company provides the requirements then we implement as per the organizational policy. 

We implement this solution using our in-house team, although if an issue should occur during installation then we can raise a ticket with support. We have had issues with difficult deployments because of the database during installation, which has lead to using the support portal. 

The number of people required for deployment and maintenance depends on how many logs are being integrated. Suppose there are 100 or 200 logs, then 10 people will be sufficient if they focus on deployment and troubleshooting. It also depends on the timeline. If the timeline is longer then five people are enough to complete the implementation.

Many clients are not able to purchase the packet capability because there is a huge amount of data, and the cost depends on the number of EPS (Events per second), as well as the number of gigabytes of data per day. 

My advice to anybody who is researching this solution is to consider the differences between the hardware and the virtual solution. The hardware is okay, but if you have any issues and need to restart then it is easy to do this with the VM. My preference is using the VM, where they can easily increase the size of storage if necessary.

It is important to remember that ESA takes all of the main memory. The minimum requirement is 96 GB of RAM, and this is very easy to implement on a virtual machine. My advice is to implement ESA using the maximum eligibility criteria. Consider what the hardware requires are in terms of RAM and storage, and use the maximum available for ESA.

This solution has a very good dashboard with a separate tab for incidents and alerts. There is a ticketing tool as well. If the problems with the dashboard are corrected then we will not need to have any other tools. The dashboard is a very important feature for clients.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

Our primary use case is real-time threat prediction so that we can minimize the person-hours of IT security analysts.

The most valuable features are the threat prediction and network forensics. For example, if there is any malware on the network, I am able to see who received it and who clicked on it. I like this functionality the most.

The deployment of the appliance is easy, where even a non-technical person can configure it.

The SOAR (security orchestration, automation, and response) component has areas for improvement.

Technical support needs to be improved.

Integration with third-party products for industries such as the banking sector, or telecommunications, presents challenges that require help from the OEM.

Lots of competing products have vulnerability protection built into their products, and this solution would be improved by including that support.

We have been using RSA NetWitness for about 10 years.

There are no issues in terms of stability.

This solution is pretty scalable, as I am using the VM infrastructure. It can scale to whatever you need.

I am not happy with the RSA support. Sometimes they can be really annoying because it takes so long to get the support that you need.

I have used RSA enVision and ArcSight in the past. We migrated from RSA enVision because they had declared the product end-of-life and upgraded to the NetWitness platform.

The Logs component is similar to what other competitors, such as IBM, ArcSight, and LogRhythm have. What distinguishes this solution is the Packets component. It is critical and something that people should make use of.

It is easy to deploy the appliance. Anyone can mount and configure it. There is a simple, pre-built OS that they just need to mount in the VM infrastructure, and that is clearly mentioned in the documentation. It will take two or three days to deploy, at most.

The challenge comes with trying to integrate with third-party application servers. 

We deployed this solution with our in-house team.

The number of people required for maintenance depends on your use case. If you are only using it to maintain the infrastructure then two staff is sufficient. However, if you want to implement a full-fledged SOC then you will need at least four or five people.

My advice for anybody who is implementing this solution is to look at both their endpoints and circuit paths. The two components, Logs and Packets, should definitely both be considered. Even if there is an on-premises SIEM log, they can integrate it.

Overall, I feel that the product is very good and my biggest complaint is about their support.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We are no longer using this solution, however, it was used mostly for network monitoring. 

The most valuable feature is the ability to write rules and triggers for network communication and then being able to investigate based on that. You can see the payload and deconstruct the packets.

The solution would be greatly improved by unifying the management to one configuration option. One of the problems the system had is that you always have to choose the managed host. For example, if you want to write a rule, you have to duplicate it across your managed hosts. It should have centralized management. If you want to make a change then it should be configured automatically, so that you don't need to go one by one, changing it. That is really annoying.

Another problem is that the EPL (Event Processing Language) is not properly explained, and the expert could not even use it when they came to our site. It was causing the system to crash, so they should really consider using something else.

The system looks like it is a mix of a bunch of different systems, and nothing looked like it was quite together. I think that it could be better integrated, and it would be great for new customers or even existing customers.

I cannot say that the solution was stable because it tended to crash. We were using it before version 11, where some of the problems were supposed to be solved. I have heard from insiders that version 11 does not hold up to the hype and they're still facing some of the same problems.

I think that the solution is scalable because you can easily add news hosts. This is one of the things that was really straightforward and we appreciated. 

The people that we spoke with from technical support were really professional. Some visited us on-site and did some training with our analysists. They are really good staff and we really liked it. The company that did the integration at the site where I was working was planning on re-hiring them for other customers, so they made a good impression.

The support is responsive by email, but initially, it is a little bit lacking. Beyond the initial emails, it is quite professional.

I was not part of the initial setup, but I can tell you that managing the system, in general, is not straightforward. It is quite elusive and very confusing, even after calls to technical support.

This is a pricey solution; it's not cheap.

Perhaps if the implementation is small then it is not bad, but if you have a global network or a security agency that needs to be segregated on the network, then it can be quite pricey.

This solution has some good features, but it is lacking in usability. This means that I would rate it somewhere in the middle. I would rate this solution a five out of ten.

 Our customers are enterprise-level businesses.

The most valuable features are the integration and ease of use. It is a pretty simple platform that can integrate very well with our system.

The documentation is not as structured as I would like, personally, and I think that it can be improved and made much more user-friendly. I may see it differently than other people.

I would like to see a little question mark beside each button that you can click and find out what that button is for. It would make it much easier for people who are new to the solution. Like a pop-up appearing when hovering over the question mark, attached to each main action and split into branches. 

We began using RSA NetWitness Logs and Packets not long ago.

This is a very stable product.

I have not been in contact with technical support.

I would say that RSA University is fair and square. It is a bit tricky because they have changed the learning platform and I had trouble enrolling in courses. I needed to contact Dell EMC support, which is the same support for RSA, and they assigned the courses to me in one or two hours. In the end, I was very satisfied. It is a bit expensive but the companies are paying for it.

The initial setup is straightforward. I am also coding so it is easy for me to adapt.

I have also worked with RSA SecurID and I can say that from the moment I touched it, it has been very easy for me to use.

The company is very active on the market and it is improving continuously. EMC/RSA are trying to approach a build such that it can meet every user's needs, but you can't satisfy everyone.

I recommend RSA NetWitness alongside other products, although I would suggest this first because of the user-friendly interface and easy-to-manipulate options. The only issue I have is with the documentation.

Overall, this is a good solution with suitable features and it very well fits our needs.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

We are using this solution for security.

The most valuable features are the packet inspection and the automated incident response.

More customizability is required, which is something that they need to improve on.

When it comes to starting a log event, there are not many options available. It is very limited.

The log and event correlation need improvement.

The threat detection capability should be enhanced.

I have been using this solution for one month.

We are using it on a daily basis and, so far, it has been stable.

We have approximately 6000 employees, which means that we have 6000 endpoints that this product is working with. It is easy to scale it up to production.

We have not had to contact technical support.

In this company, they did not use a similar solution prior to this one. Personally, I used Splunk in my previous organization. Definitely, I prefer to use Splunk because there is more functionality, visibility, and options. You can do whatever you want with Splunk.

The initial setup is not complex, and more on the simple side. Our deployment took almost five months in total.

We had assistance from an integrator and the vendor for our deployment.

We have administrators in the company who take care of administration and maintenance. The vendor was only needed for the implementation.

RSA is something that I can recommend.

I would rate this solution a six out of ten.