Symantec Endpoint Security Reviews

SEPM is a product for anti-virus security. It provides endpoint security for all client machines. It protects the client machines from malware or ransom attacks.

• Support
• Scalability
• Flexibility

It keeps our machines up-to-date with the definitions of the current zero day attacks, which happens in real-time scenarios. It protects our data and the clients' data, which can be secured by using this product.

I am happy to say that the Symantec comes into the picture where the issues are reported from the product, it might be a product bug or it might be a product defect. The product engineer works on this and the latest upgrade has it built into the peer cost, where we can upgrade our involvement and support our clients again.

So, we were having a problem in Version 14, where the client machines used to go into the health state and once it restarted, and never came back again. But as far as one of the defaults, this was reported and not an issue in new versions of Symantec 14 and SEMP 2. Apparently, this is works well for now, and we are happy with this.

It is a stable product.

The scalability of the product is good to where it has had the effect of increasing the workload by adding more machines, so I should have a good scaled back-up for this supporting both lines.

I would rate them a 10 out of 10. They supply good support and have a good knowledge. 

We did have a previous solution. They are all equal in giving the definitions on a timely routine, but the bandwidth extent was an issue for me. This is why we changed to Symantec.

Everything was straightforward. Nothing was complex. The installation was very user-friendly, where the engineer from Symantec had helped us to migrate this product from the older version to the newer version of Symantec.

What we have paid for this product is good value for the work and the services that they are providing to us.

We were going through the multiple products out on the market and we chose Symantec, because we had proposed multiple products to the client and the client had chosen Symantec for these two perspectives: One is for the best service and support, which Symantec provides, and the other is the pricing, which was a constraint for our client.

If you have a good involvement and maybe your clients are not connected to a domain, you can use this product. This is one advantage of this product, where you can use the product for protecting your machines. 

You need to keep track of the definitions and releases on a daily basis. This is one of the disadvantages.

We use the product as an antivirus solution and install it on every end-user machine.  

I think Symantec is a good antivirus solution. There is not really a specific feature that I think stands out. If you consider the protection as a feature, I would say that antivirus protection is the most valuable feature the product has.  

We have had some problems with the Symantec solution. The problems were bad enough that I was compelled to start to research into other products. The biggest issue was the whitelisting feature. The Symantec software has a feature that detects certain things as malicious and it takes care of the issue. It is supposed to do that. Sometimes the things it flags are not real issues — they are essentially false positives. Sometimes there are things we want it to let through that it would otherwise flag. We put these things on a whitelist so they get allowed. We were having a problem keeping a particular file on the whitelist. It was an EXE and Symantec kept flagging it even when it was whitelisted.  

To fix the issue, we had to do in-house software development. We had to run some extra code. The process was not smooth and, in the long run, it basically did not work. The support by Symantec on the issue was of no further help and it remained a problem.  

A feature that seems to be missing from Symantec is reporting on external devices. For example, if a remote user gets a virus on their computer and they are accessing our system, I want to know. The Symantec agent should be checking this in the cloud and informing us that a particular end-user got a virus. I should get a report or alert somehow. The computer in question should be isolated — or something like that — to mitigate the potential of the threat. Instead, nothing happens.   

The enterprise product that we have now does not have that feature. Maybe Symantec has that feature implemented in other products, but I do not know about it. Maybe it is not there at all or maybe it is some type of cloud feature. But the end result is I have looked for the solution in the product, can not find it, support did not inform me that it can be resolved, and we are essentially left with a vulnerability. That is really not acceptable.   

I have been using Symantec Endpoint security for about 2 years.  

It is stable. We do not really have problems with the product crashing.  

Endpoint Security is not that scalable right now because it is hard to even get a new quote. It is part of the problem happening during the transition when they got bought up by Broadcom. The whole process of renewing and buying new licenses has become a pain. It takes forever to get a quote.  

On a daily basis in our company right now there are around 300 people using the product. The system is monitored by the system admin and myself. We have a cooperative situation.  

The Symantec customer support team is responsive by email. I would say it is between 80% to 90% effective.  

I have not used other antivirus products as an admin. The Symantec product was already in use at the company when I came here.  

I would say that the initial installation is moderately straightforward. It is not really completely straightforward and it is not really complex. It is somewhere in the middle.  

The deployment of the server takes more time, but I am not the one who deployed it. I do not know exactly how long it took. I am not aware of any surprises or difficulties with the deployment.  

The system admin did the installation without external assistance.  

I was not the one who implemented Symantec at our company. The decision was made before I arrived and I inherited the product.  

I am now researching products in consideration of deploying a replacement option for Symantec because it is not totally meeting our security needs.  

The honest advice I would have for someone considering this solution at this point in time is to move on. I say this because Symantec is being bought out by Broadcom. That may not be a bad thing on its own. Symantec has traditionally been a very good company and still was up to this point. But being bought by another company just means that there will be a mess because of the transition and integration between these companies and products. Developers of the product will be spending time focusing on that merger rather than core product issues. It creates a little bit of a mess that the client should not have to suffer through when there are other capable solutions.  

Another thing is that Symantec still needs to implement some features that it does not have. They have very good, strong protection, but they are behind other products on the market. There are a lot of more features they have failed to implement. Especially now when everyone is working remotely and with cloud products, the security does not seem complete.  

Maybe the cloud version addresses these issues. I have not used the cloud version because I am on the enterprise version and like in-house deployment. Our version is missing a ton of features that are very important to security especially in the current environment.  

On a scale from one to ten where one is the worst and ten is the best, I would rate Symantec End-User Endpoint Security as a seven-out-of-ten. It is missing too much to be rated higher.  

My primary use case is endpoint antivirus/antimalware security on Windows computers, on and off my office network.

Initially, it provided easy centralized management of policies and devices. Threat protection has always worked well.

I originally posted the most valuable feature is centralized management - after consideration, I realized this is not accurate. I've used the on-premise and cloud versions of SEP.  I prefer cloud versions as it is centralized and easy to manage, but every cloud-managed solution does this. I have many cloud managed solutions I use, but I've found SEP to be quirky and inefficient at best. My personal experience is the protection works well. I haven't had an infected computer in years (managing 300 devices now, more over the years). The problem with the protection is I've encountered far too many computers where the licensing fails at some point after installation without warning or notice. You have to check each computer routinely to verify the license is good and the agent is updating. This directly impacts the core reliability of the product since license "expiration" (failure) prevents the agent from updating.

This latest version upgrade/migration over the last year has been atrocious.

There have been numerous support issues and calls with Sr. VPs at Symantec, who were always understanding about the problems, but the product has proven unreliable to install and manage. The protection itself seems as solid, but if devices are losing their licensing without notice for no reason, it's only a matter of time before they become compromised.

The bottom line is that when it comes to management, reliability of management, reporting, alerting, installation, and licensing, if these don't work reliably you can't trust the product's security capability.

I've seen way too many outages and "maintenance" events in the last year on the new platform to consider it stable.

This latest version has proven unreliable for management and installation.

I would no longer recommend this product as a viable security solution.

Symantec Endpoint Security's function is to protect our assets.

The most valuable feature of Symantec Endpoint Security is the protection of our systems.

Symantec Endpoint Security can improve management because it is difficult to do. It is not a straightforward tool to use. Additionally, the dashboards and reports could be better. It is difficult to understand what exactly is your current status.

I have been using Symantec Endpoint Security for approximately one year.

Symantec Endpoint Security is stable.

The scalability of Symantec Endpoint Security is good, and easy to do.

We have approximately 10,000 users using this solution.

The support from Symantec Endpoint Security is very good.

The initial setup of Symantec Endpoint Security is complex. However, not as complicated as other solutions, Symantec VIP.

I rate the initial setup of Symantec Endpoint Security a three out of five.

The most important aspect of a security solution is having good reports, to help understand what's going on. This is one of the main points that a security team should have. Good visibility from the reports and an easy understanding of what's going on.

I rate Symantec Endpoint Security a seven out of ten.

We were facing many problems related to AV definitions not being updated and viruses, and we could solve these problems with the help of Symantec. 

It is a good product. It has saved us from external attacks and viruses.

It is easy to use. Its interface is user-friendly. So, anybody can use it very well, which is a good thing.

It is a reliable product, and its performance is also good.

Automation of tasks should be improved on SEPM. It is currently manual, and we should be able to automate installation and deployment from the client side.

I have been using this solution for the last seven years.

Its stability is good. It is reliable.

Its scalability is good. We have more than 50,000 clients in our environment, and Symantec is installed on all the clients. It has been working properly, and it is easily able to detect viruses and malicious files. We currently don’t have any plans to increase its usage.

Their support is good. Every time we are facing an issue, their technical support team is able to help us. I would rate them a ten out of ten.

Positive

I didn’t use any other solution previously.

I wasn’t involved in its deployment. In terms of maintenance, it doesn't require any maintenance.

I would 100% recommend it. I would rate it a ten out of ten.

We are using it for endpoint security and EDR and as an antivirus. We are also using it for threat detection purposes.

It is on-prem. We didn't migrate to the cloud.

The features are very nice. We are getting updates continuously from the Symantec side regarding any attacks, such as zero-day attacks. Symantec helps us in mitigating any attacks or threats early. 

Whenever we have any issues regarding the endpoints, Symantec is very helpful in resolving those issues.

They provide the updates of the client, and those clients need a reboot after the upgrade, which is something we don't like. We don't like to reboot the server after the upgrade because we have live applications. If we do a reboot, it can impact the business as well.

It sometimes behaves unusually. It sometimes stops our full services, and if we didn't upgrade to the better version or current version on the server, many a time, it blocks Microsoft patch upgrades. 

I have been working with this solution for around four years.

It is good. We don't have to worry much about bugs. We had a bug only once where we had not allowed for automatic upgrades, but it was upgrading. From the perspective of bugs, Symantec is fine.

I would rate them an eight out of 10. Sometimes, it takes a lot of time to connect to Symantec through a call. They usually reply by email. They are also reachable on call, but it takes lots of time to connect to them by phone.

Positive

It is complex. All servers report to SEPM, then after SEPM, they report to EP. It is complex and not straightforward. We have different environments for inside, outside, and DMZ. So, for that, it is kind of complex.

Its price is fair.

It is a very good solution. Symantec is a traditional antivirus, and among all traditional antivirus solutions, Symantec is very good. It has good updates.

I would advise others to go for the cloud environment. The cloud environment is very good, and there are a lot of new features.

I would rate it an eight out of 10.

We are service providers. We use this solution for endpoint response and detections.

We use this in the banking sector regularly.

We also use it for automatic threat protection and for DLP (Data Loss Protection).

After selling this product, what we have observed is that the system gets slower, which is a major issue.

We would also like to see better pricing. It's almost double when compared to other products.

I have been using this solution for more than seven years.

We are using the latest version.

It's a stable solution.

It is scalable. If you get the proper licenses then it scales well. There are no issues with scalability.

We are service providers with many different clients. Some of our customers have 100 users, whereas others have 200, and even as many as 300.

We have completed several installations but have never contacted technical support.

We do a direct installation. It is cloud-based and we can create a diary on the Symantec site.

We create the ID and download the client package.

It can take five to seven minutes to install per node.

If it is in the same network, we don't require much manpower to maintain it. All of the usernames and passwords are in the system. We can deploy remote deployment and installation.

Symantec is expensive. 

When compared with Trend Micro and Sophos, it is expensive.

Customers are required to purchase a license.

We recommend this solution to others who are interested in using it. In some organizations, it is compulsory to use Symantec.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

A couple of our customers have deployed and are using Symantec Endpoint Protection.

I joined COMPAREX eight months back, and they have been using Symantec Endpoint Protection for two and a half years.

Symantec has cloud-based endpoint protection, so whether a user is off the network or on the network, the endpoint will be protected by the cloud.

It has very unique features, which are not available with other vendors. E.g., there is a feature called SONAR.

You can integrate it using ATP, so all the endpoints communicate to each other on the security platform. 

17 million sensors are fitted all over the world. 

About four years back, Symantec's signature was very heavy and their signature patch was around 200MB or 300MB files.

Symantec Endpoint Protection is stable product, if you compare it other vendors, like McAfee or Trend Micro. McAfee was acquired by the Intel, who is very not strong in security patterns.

Our German team manages the maintenance.

The scalability is okay. I would rate it as a nine out of ten. Users are a bit afraid of the integration with ATP, as it is increasing scan times when downloading up to two to seven seconds.

We have around 2500 employee over all the globe. All the endpoints on laptops or desktops are running Symantec Endpoint Protection. Apart from that, we have multiple customers who have deployed the Symantec Endpoint Protection solution.

The technical support is very good. They have an Indian support team, so there are no delays in receiving support.

Their R&D teams are very strong in remediation.

We were previously using Trend Micro Smart Protection Complete.

The initial setup is very straightforward, not complex.

Deployment time depends on the user size. E.g., 200 users can be implemented in two days.

We have a dedicated delivery team to deploy the solution.

It is very easy to configure. There are no challenges when implementing this solution.

We have seen ROI.

Each annual client license is around 1200 or 1600 INR.

Zero-day threat or advanced attacks should be part of the endpoint. The product should not require you to buy a separate license.

It is a very good product. They are a very strong leader in the Indian market.