Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks vs Cynet comparison

Microsoft Defender XDR is a comprehensive security solution designed to protect against threats in the Microsoft 365 environment. 

It offers robust security measures, comprehensive threat detection capabilities, and an efficient incident response system. With seamless integration with other Microsoft products and a user-friendly interface, it simplifies security management tasks. 

Users have found it effective in detecting and preventing various types of attacks, such as phishing attempts, malware infections, and data breaches.

Watch the Microsoft demo video here: Microsoft Defender XDR demo video.

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks is the first threat detection and response software to combine both visibility across all types of data as well as autonomous machine learning analytics. Threat detection very often requires analysts to divide their attention among many different data streams. This platform unifies a vast variety of data flows, which allows analysts to assess threats from a single location. Users can now maintain a level of visibility that other threat detection programs simply cannot offer. This level of transparency lends itself to both quick identification of problems that arise and the equally quick development of a potential solution.

Cortex XDR’s machine learning works on many different levels to detect and prevent threats. It is constantly scanning for threats and vulnerabilities. The solution can scan up to 5.4 billion IP addresses in three-quarters of an hour. This allows it to spot weak points in the system and notify administrators long before hackers can take advantage of vulnerabilities. Once the Artificial Intelligence (AI) discovers an issue or an area where an issue could potentially take place the system creates a log of the information and subsequently sends an alert to system administrators. The AI takes the information that it has gathered and uses it to assign threat levels to the issues that it detects. Following this, a human analyst will be assigned to manually assess the issue and deal with it accordingly. You can set it to automatically respond to the threat by isolating the issue while analysts investigate it.

Benefits of Cortex XDR

Some of Cortex XDR’s benefits include:

• The use of advanced AI analytics, behavior analytics, and custom-made detection to detect advanced threats before they occur.
• The ability to group similar threat alerts, reducing incoming alerts by as much as 98%. This allows analysts to avoid being overwhelmed by the volume of incoming alerts.
• The ability to investigate threats as much as 8 times faster than would be possible with other software. The machine learning, when coupled with the unified data stream that Cortex XDR collects, significantly increases the ability to more quickly discover the root cause of a threat.

Reviews from Real Users

Cortex XDR by Palo Alto Networks software stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its ability to isolate threats while enabling them to be studied and the way that the software combines all of the data that it gathers into a single, more complete picture than other solutions offer.

PeerSpot users note the effectiveness of these features. A network designer at a computer software company wrote, “The solution has a very helpful isolation feature. If any system gets compromised, with one click I can access the system and isolate it from other networks, and then go into further forensic investigation of the current threat without compromising anything else.”

Jeff W., Vice President/CTO at Sinnott Wolach Technology Group, noted, “The ability to kind of stitch everything together and see the actual complete picture is very useful. I guess you'd call it a playbook. Some people call it the forensics analysis of what was happening on particular endpoints when they detected some malicious behavior, and what transpired before that to cause that. It is also very user friendly.”

Cynet has pioneered the security industry’s first all-in-one security platform purposely built for organizations that need the ability to effortlessly identify, block and respond to all types of attacks inside the perimeter - defending endpoints, network, files and users - without the heavy burden of deep cyber expertise and the overhead of integrating and managing multiple products. Our approach converges and brings synergy with technology: endpoint protection, EDR, vulnerability management, deception, threat intelligence and network and end-user analytics, and expertise: a 24/7 cyber SWAT team for incident response, malware analysis, threat hunting and forensics. Cynet deploys in hours and simplifies management with automated monitoring to complement any sized staff.

Cynet Consists Of:

• Next-generation AV (NGAV)
• Endpoint Protection (EPP)
• Endpoint Detection Response (EDR)
• NDR and MDR
• UBA Rules
• Network Detection Rules
• Intelligent Deception

With Cynet You Can:

• Consolidate network and endpoint protection in one central place
• Protect against a very wide range of attacks, including common attacks as well as complex multi-layered attacks
• Have access to a team of world-class cybersecurity experts available around the clock that complements whatever expertise you have in place

Cynet Supports:

Four different deployment methods: On-premise, IAAS, SAAS, and a Hybrid mode

Cynet Benefits and Features:

• Advanced threat detection
• Incident response capabilities
• Extended detection and response(XDR)
• Managed detection and response (MDR)
• Response automation
• Network-specific playbook
• Multi-layer protection
• Alerts delivered to a single point for visibility
• In-house SOC for clientele

Features Users Find Most Valuable:

• IT hygiene: By scanning assets, including endpoints, users, files, and network traffic to render a dashboard of security issues, Cynet is able to quickly map an entire IT infrastructure.
• Prevention: Various prevention capabilities include UBA, deception, and traditional endpoint protection.
• Detection: This includes traditional endpoint security, EDR, UBA, deception and network analytics, which helps detect malicious behavior, ransomware, exploitation, user login anomalies, DNS tunneling, and much more.
• Vulnerability management: Cynet can find Windows vulnerabilities, unauthorized and outdated applications, and security policy violations.
• Response: Cynet includes various analyses, response and remediation capabilities, across endpoints, files, users and networks.
• Automated response: Users can create an automatic remediation rule for each alert Cynet creates, which helps improve the incident response process and can prevent a real-time threat.
• 24/7 Support: For no additional cost, Cynet includes CyOp, a 24/7 operations team available to you at all times.

Reviews from Real Users

“I have found the continued support and pretty much all the features to be valuable. They all stand out as being positive. It continues to detect unusual activity when it's supposed to, and so far we haven't had any issues.” - Ken S., Director InfoSec and Audit at a manufacturing company

"The feature that I have found most valuable is that the configuration and the usage of the product are not so complicated. For people responsible for using this infrastructure for the first line of workstation monitoring, it's quite easy to use." - Senior Cyber Security Manager at a financial services firm

"The dashboard is beautiful, overall ease of use, and the UBA and NBA features are valued." - Harsh P., Cyber Security Operations Center Analyst at Vincacyber