Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Reviews

Our target is to have control over protected endpoints. As a centralized console dashboard, we want to see the exposure level and security weaknesses associated with those protected endpoints.

We are a consultancy company and a Microsoft Gold partner, so we are strictly attached to the Microsoft stack. We have used Microsoft Defender for Cloud for some of our customers on a few occasions.

The solution is deployed on the cloud. From an infrastructure point of view, it's on Microsoft and likely would be geo-distributed. The solution is typically deployed for all endpoints that require cloud protection in an organization. If a company has 300 devices, typically all 300 devices are connected. It doesn't make sense to divide profiles for different departments.

On average, we have 300 to 600 devices and a similar amount of users. In a few cases, we have Defender for Endpoint protecting shared workstations.

The solution helps us prioritize threats across our enterprise. If we're talking about projected vulnerabilities, like an outdated web browser, then there's a different priority associated with that. Conversely, if we have an endpoint out of data, like outdated Windows security patches, it will be registered with a different, higher priority. It helps a lot.

Sentinel enables us to natively ingest data from our entire ecosystem. By design, Microsoft ingests data from Office 365 to Sentinel.

This ingestion of data is critical to our security operations. Without data ingestion, nothing is shown in the dashboard or in the security and compliance portal. If it stops, we don't have data to analyze.

Sentinel enables us to investigate threats and respond holistically from one place. There are threat investigations directly in the portal, which depends on the license. This feature is really important for enterprise-class companies that have a huge emphasis on security.

Since using this solution, we have seen a better perception of incoming and active threats. We're able to see weaknesses or misconfigurations in applications and operating systems for devices.

It definitely takes time to realize benefits from the time of deployment. After we deployed the agent for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, it took about a week to collect data.

Defender for Endpoint doesn't help us automate routine tasks or automate finding high-value alerts. The most valuable feature is attack surface reduction rules, and in this case, we have an automated response. It's a lot like SOAR, which helps to contain security risks in an unmanned way, but it's limited to just that feature.

This solution absolutely eliminated the need to look at multiple dashboards because we have one XDR. It's a worthy capability that helps a lot. Having one dashboard makes our security operations more seamless. To retrieve data, we consult different places within the portal.

The solution's threat intelligence helps us prepare for potential threats before they hit and take proactive steps.

The solution saves us time, but it depends on the point of view. It helps to have a better understanding and outlook on our current situation within our organization and plan proactively for tasks in order to improve our security score.

We saved money by not needing to buy additional pieces of software or deploying additional infrastructure for an on-premises security product.

It also depends on the competitor and the infrastructure required.

Detection and response take minutes because as soon as something is compromised or something happens within our organization, an alert will be triggered within minutes. After we receive an email with an alert, we are likely to start the analysis and remediation if it exceeds or doesn't fall within the scope of the attack surface reduction rules.

The attack surface reduction rules are the most valuable. We're able to have unattended remediation actions when the solution works side by side with a local antivirus like Microsoft Defender or Kaspersky. The attack surface reduction rules help us to proactively block and stop threats.

The visibility into threats is fair. It's accurate and gives us control over threats.

Prioritization is pretty important to us because we need to concentrate on new threats with higher risks associated with them.

Generally speaking, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, along with Sentinel, provides fair, decent capabilities but it depends on the situation.

Reporting could be improved. I would like to see how many security incidents occurred in the last six months, how many devices were highly exposed to security risks, and how many devices were actually compromised.

I have worked with this solution for more than a year.

It's very stable.

Generally speaking, there are no bugs or glitches. We have had issues twice in the past two months, but nothing too critical. Before those two occasions, it hadn't happened in a year or more.

It's highly scalable considering it's a SaaS solution.

I would rate technical support an eight out of ten. It depends on the support engineer who is working on the problem.

Positive

We used Kaspersky, but the version is exactly comparable to Microsoft Defender for Endpoint.

We switched to Microsoft for better integration. It integrates very well with the Microsoft antivirus, so we don't have to deploy additional infrastructure or an additional piece of software. We have extended security controls over Windows devices especially and a single dashboard.

There is also integration with Intune, which is the MDM from Microsoft.

The initial setup was absolutely straightforward. We spent some time reading the documentation in order to understand how the setup and agent deployment worked, but then it was pretty straightforward.

It took a couple of hours to deploy the solution. Assuming you have the current licenses, you need to enable the features at the tenant level, and then you have to create a policy to distribute the Defender for the Endpoint sensor.

One person is sufficient to set up and onboard devices. The solution doesn't require any maintenance because the solution is upgraded from the cloud. Maintenance is very limited.

We have absolutely received ROI. Initially, it's time-consuming to understand how to onboard devices and start protecting them, but it's pretty easy to replicate the configuration across different customers.

The price is fair for the features Microsoft delivers. If you want tailor-made features, you have to mix different licenses. It isn't straightforward.

Intune is an additional cost. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint works really well with Intune, but you may decide to go for a license that encompasses Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Defender for Identity, and Intune, which is typically a Microsoft E5 license.

I evaluated other solutions, but the decision diverted to Microsoft products because we have a Microsoft partnership. I requested more information from PeerSpot about the differences between Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and Sophos Intercept X because I had to provide a business justification to a customer in order to go for Microsoft Defender for Endpoint.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

There are pros and cons to having a best-of-breed strategy versus a single vendor security suite. I would go for a single vendor security solution just to have convergence but it depends. Considering the fact that I'm working for a Microsoft Gold partner, I haven't had the occasion to make a comparison.

I would recommend implementing Microsoft Defender for Endpoint. My advice is to use Intune to have better control, especially for Microsoft devices. I would also advise using third-party local antivirus solutions rather than relying on Microsoft Defender Antivirus, which is a lock-in to a single vendor.

We use Microsoft Defender for Endpoint to prevent traffic attacks. The solution displays each attack through Symantec. Therefore, we do not need to develop any use cases. It will detect anomalies using machine learning in Defender for Endpoint. It collects logs from the sensor, which include all mission data from the Windows sensor. The machine logs will then be sent to the cloud for analysis, and for every anomaly found, an alert is generated in our console.

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint provides comprehensive threat visibility. It allows for file analysis, checking unsupported files in the system, and accessing the Mission Live console. Unused files can be deleted, and suspicious files are analyzed and checked for viruses on the platform. In cases where a file has numerous detections from different security vendors, it is quarantined, blocking it in the organization. Care is taken to avoid quarantining legitimate files to prevent disruption. Additionally, there are numerous advanced configuration options available.

It helps us prioritize threats across our entire enterprise. We receive notifications for any advanced threats and can also identify if there is an advanced threat within our organization. Additionally, we can view the different priorities, such as high, medium, or low, and understand the severity of the alerts. For high and medium alerts, we can take immediate action, such as isolating the machines from the network.

We also utilize Microsoft Elastic Cloud and EnCase. I believe the integration is straightforward, but I was only responsible for monitoring after the integration had been completed.

Microsoft offers four products that can seamlessly work together and be accessed through one console. These products are Microsoft Defender for Identity, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, Microsoft Defender for Office 365, and Microsoft CloudApp Security. With the appropriate license, we can subscribe to all four solutions from the Microsoft security website.

Sentinel allows us to collect data from our entire ecosystem and seamlessly integrate the log files with an API.

Microsoft Sentinel allows us to investigate threats and respond swiftly from a centralized platform. We possess the capability to generate customized queries and delve deep into the logs.

Microsoft Sentinel also has built-in SOAR, UEBA, and threat intelligence capabilities. The playbooks make the security analyst's job much easier. If there is unwanted software, we can configure a notification from the playbook to send the user a message or block the IOCs.

Defender for Endpoint aids our organization by enabling us to monitor the antivirus status on devices to ensure they are up-to-date. We can also access vulnerability details that we can share with the vulnerability team to promptly apply necessary patches. Additionally, it allows us to identify any pending configurations, streamlining our security analysis process.

It helped eliminate having to look at multiple dashboards and gave us one XDR dashboard for everything.

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint's threat intelligence assists us in proactively preparing for potential threats before they strike. Any threats detected by Microsoft Defender for Endpoint are automatically blocked, while for those that are not, we have the option to block them manually.

I find the vulnerability management section of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint to be very useful for organizations. It provides details on vulnerabilities, connection, and software vulnerabilities, and identifies any unauthenticated extensions. The Secure Score option is also helpful for reviewing configurations. In a project to improve Secure Score, we reviewed configurations on a weekly basis and implemented changes gradually. Each section (Identity, Endpoint, Encryption) can be configured phase by phase, and the changes are tracked through a graph. Comparing our Secure Score with other organizations is also possible. From a security perspective, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is easy to understand and facilitates advanced investigations.

The time to generate certain alerts on our dashboard can take between 45 minutes to an hour, and I am unsure of the factors that influence this duration. When I analyze the logs, I notice that some incidents occurred an hour before the alert was generated and sent to the console. This suggests that we are not detecting threats in real-time. Additionally, we encountered another issue with the dashboard while monitoring multiple organizations. One organization received a notification that 70 of their machines were at risk, while the other organizations only had five or ten machines at risk. Upon checking all 70 machines, we found no alerts or vulnerabilities in the logs. We submitted a ticket and provided the logs to Microsoft, but they were unable to offer a proper explanation for the triggered alert on those machines being at risk.

We were experiencing high CPU usage issues on the servers and found that Microsoft Defender for Endpoint was the root cause. We reached out to Microsoft and, after two weeks, they provided us with a solution to edit the registry keys and update the software.

I have been using Microsoft Defender for Endpoint for two years.

The stability is good.

The technical support team is good.

The initial setup is simple. We can deploy using Microsoft SCCM and provide the onboarding package to SCCM. 

There are different licenses, such as E3 and E5. With an E5 license, we can access all the solutions, which is better, but the cost is high. However, it is still valuable from a security perspective.

I give Microsoft Defender for Endpoint an eight out of ten.

We deployed Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and CrowdStrike together in one organization. While Microsoft Defender for Endpoint displayed valid alerts, there were no alerts in CrowdStrike.

We use it for threat protection.

It protects my endpoints from malware and viruses. Those benefits were immediate.

And the automation of routine tasks, such as finding high-value alerts, had an immediate impact because I can see all the threats in a single console, and how they are mitigated.

It has also definitely eliminated having to look at multiple dashboards, giving me one XDR dashboard. It's really effective because it is very tough to handle two different dashboards or environment consoles. The single console gives me a one-shot view of the whole infrastructure, security-wise.

The solution also saves me time because there is no need to install it on all the machines. That is automated. Even the mitigation is sometimes automated, which definitely saves time. It saves me about 90 percent of the time I would otherwise spend on these things.

I have also seen a clear improvement in time to detect and respond. It is instant.

The solution's threat protection is mostly AI and machine-learning based. That is the most important feature of the product. It also offers centralized management so I can remotely manage devices.

In terms of visibility, it gives me all the threats. They are showcased in the management portal. I check there and it's nice.

We also use Microsoft Intune and Azure Information Protection and have them integrated with Defender For Endpoint. The integration was moderately difficult, slightly confusing, but it can be done. But the solutions work natively together to deliver coordinated detection and response. That is very important. Integration is one of the main things I look at. The fact that they work together is the best thing. The threat protection these solutions provide is very comprehensive and very detailed. They cover different aspects and layers of security and that's why it's very important to have them integrated.

The automation could be simpler on the mitigation side. It has a learning curve. Otherwise, it's pretty easy.

I have been using Microsoft Defender for Endpoint for one and a half years.

It is a stable solution.

It's also scalable.

If I have any issues I can relate them to support. But they are quite slow in responding.

Neutral

We used Sophos and we switched because of integration. 

It's deployed on the cloud and the setup is quite fast. I just needed to add the machines and the deployment happened quickly. Within a day, we were up and running. It was straightforward and involved two people.

There is not much maintenance required.

We have definitely seen ROI, due to the fact that I only have one dashboard and one solution. Our ROI is around 20 percent.

The cost is high, compared to other products in the market, if you look at it as a separate product. If you look at the cost where it is part of a bundle, the cost is okay.

Defender for Endpoint doesn't really help to prioritize threats across the enterprise. It's more of a basic threat protection solution. It's more of a reactive approach, once something hits.

With a single vendor, it's much easier to detect alerts and threats beforehand. Having a single vendor helps.

I would recommend Defender For Endpoint. If you are using other Microsoft products, together, this is a better security solution.

We have been using it in our test environment. On the customer side, we are using the small business variant of the tool. So, we are using Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and Microsoft Defender for SMBs. They're pretty similar, but the one for SMBs is a little lighter.

In our test environment, we have access to 50-seat licenses for everything. So, we are making sure that we are technically in a good place before we begin to offer this kind of solution to our clients. In addition to our solutions, we are delivering services to our clients. So, when we sell an SMB or enterprise Microsoft license, we are able to do the migration, management, and other things for a client.

It works well with different solutions from Microsoft. If a company is using Microsoft 365 package, this security addition is easier to implement and manage because it is from the same vendor. You have greater visibility because they are from the same vendor. Microsoft probably also has larger visibility on the endpoint itself because of its own operating system.

It provides good visibility into threats. I would rate it a seven out of ten in terms of visibility.

Its threat intelligence is helpful for preparing for potential threats before they hit and taking proactive steps. We can manage our own images, and we can also inform the client to patch certain things.

I've started to test it from the security point of view. There are plenty of features that are interesting, but at this time, the XDR functionality is most valuable. It is endpoint security on steroids.

It allows you to prioritize threats across the enterprise, which is very important because the SLAs are different for different cases. If the error is critical, you must act now. If something is just informal, it can be done in weeks. 

I miss having an executive dashboard or a simple view for viewing things. Everything is extensive in this solution. Everything is configurable and manageable, but the environment of Microsoft 365 has about 13 administrative dashboards, and in each of the dashboards, there are a gazillion things to set up. It is good for a large enterprise, but for a 200-seat client, you need to see 5% of that.

A simplified SIEM would work so that we don't have to use everything on the Sentinel, which is great by the way, but Sentinel is too expensive for our kind of market. It is an enterprise product. It is not an SMB product.

We have been using it for half a year in our test environment.

It is good. It is stable. Once you set it up, it works, but we haven't tested it on a large time scale. The solution itself is pretty young. We'll see how stable it will be in the next few years.

It is very scalable. We hope to increase the usage of the product. It is being used only by our team for now at multiple locations. It is for laptops in the office and other networks and also for mobile devices. A few tech guys in our department are testing everything that could happen on the client side, and that's it.

I didn't use their support for this solution, but the knowledge base, training, and documentation are pretty good. I would rate it a nine out of ten.

Positive

It is complex. You need to first have a list of computers. Then, you need to set up the plan for these computers, and then, you need to deploy it and apply it. There are too many steps to deploy this kind of solution because it is a Microsoft native solution.

In terms of the implementation strategy, first, you need to have a view of the inventory. You have to have knowledge of what is already installed on an endpoint. You don't want to cause any clashes with some other endpoint security vendor. So, you need to know your devices. The next one is to prepare the package and then decide to deploy it via Intune or via MSI, through group policy.

In terms of duration, you can deploy it on one computer in minutes. If you are deploying it on a thousand computers and everything is set up correctly, it can be done in a few hours, but if everything is not set up correctly, it can take up to a day or a week. 

It took a month for us to realize its benefits from the time of deployment. It takes some time to understand the settings, portal, etc. 

It has not yet saved any time. It has only consumed my time for now because I need to learn and do the training and PoCs, but it is an investment for the future.

The number of people required for deployment depends on the size of the client or the company. I can do it by myself if I have a client with 100 seats, but if there is a corporation or enterprise in several locations, we need to involve the local IT people to confirm everything is okay, etc.

It doesn't require any maintenance, but it requires somebody to take care of the consequences. You can implement endpoint security and just have it there. You don't have to maintain the solution itself, but you need to take care of the alerts. You need to take care of the patches and other things. The number of people required depends on the size of the client.

It hasn't saved us any money yet. It might save in the future, but it depends on the pricing of Microsoft because there are several different parts of the Microsoft solution. 

Everybody would like to see a lower price on everything. The Slovenian market is basically an SME market with clients having up to 100 seat licenses, comprising 90% of the company. They're very price sensitive. So, the price could be cheaper. 

Any additional costs depend on the basic license of the client. There could be additional costs. If somebody needs Plan 2 of Defender for Endpoint, if I'm not mistaken, it is only available as an add-on. It is not included in any license, not even in the E5 license. So, there are some things at an additional cost.

We are always open to suggestions and newer and better things. We are constantly looking around for similar solutions and testing them. Microsoft is the biggest player. Everybody uses something from Microsoft. So, it is a logical next step. For an MSP, by having everything from one vendor or everything under one umbrella, managing clients is easier. This is the main reason for exploring this solution.

At the moment, we are using the Cynet XDR solution, and we also tried SentinelOne. We are going to put it in our portfolio in the following months, but mostly, we are comparing everything to Cynet because we have more clients on Cynet.

In comparison to other solutions that we are using, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint has not decreased our time to detect and time to respond much.

In my opinion, from the management and maintenance point of view, it is better to go with a single vendor, but from the security point of view, multiple vendors on multiple layers could work better than one vendor. If one vendor is breached, then everything goes, but if you have several layers with several vendors, and only one is breached, you have other vendors.

My advice to those evaluating Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is to stick with it and train themselves. They should know the solution and try it as much as they can. Microsoft is on the right path here.

It helps to automate routine tasks and the finding of high-value alerts, but we haven't yet implemented automation. We are planning to implement it, but at this time, because of a small number of clients, it is easier to do it manually. We just look into the alerts and resolve them one by one. We don't have a few thousand alerts per day, per week, or per month. So, it is manageable to handle them manually.

It would help us to eliminate looking at multiple dashboards and have one XDR dashboard, but we haven't yet managed to do that.

I would rate it an eight out of ten. I would have rated it a ten, but it is a pretty pricey solution.

We use Microsoft Defender for Endpoint for our antivirus protection.

The visibility into threats that Defender for Endpoint provides is good because we are using all Microsoft products. 

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint assists us in prioritizing threats throughout our enterprise. This prioritization of threats is crucial for safeguarding end-user devices.

Sentinel allows us to gather data from our entire ecosystem, and the interface is highly impressive. Data ingestion is of utmost importance for our organization, especially concerning the security of our environment.

It allows us to comprehensively investigate threats and respond from a unified platform. This is of great significance to us, as Sentinel plays a pivotal role in our Security Operations Center.

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint assists us in automating the prioritization of critical alerts. I am certified in cybersecurity. Recently, I have begun the process of renewing my certification as it is set to expire next year. I have been reading numerous articles regarding Sentinel, Defender for Cloud, Identity, and Endpoint applications, and there is a multitude of information available. Automation is now fully integrated, which holds significant importance for enterprise-level customers.

The solution assists in eliminating the necessity of using multiple dashboards, providing us with a single XDR dashboard integrated across various Microsoft products.

The threat intelligence assists us in preparing for potential threats before they occur, allowing us to take proactive measures to prevent them. The assessment mechanism analyzes and identifies threats, providing clear instructions before we proceed to the security parameters.

It has saved our clients time, mainly with their SOC operations. 

The antivirus is the most valuable feature.

There are alternative solutions that offer a greater range of dashboard insights when compared to Microsoft Defender for Endpoint. The solution needs better integration with third-party vendors.

The analysis that identifies the threats and remedies them can be enhanced in a future release.

I have been using Microsoft Defender for Endpoint for almost four years.

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is stable.

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is scalable.

The quality of technical support is determined by the customer's priority levels: P1, P2, and P3. Overall, they are known to provide good support.

Sometimes, the support takes a while to respond, and their shifts change, so we have to begin again with the new person on the shift.

Positive

The initial setup is straightforward for me. All Microsoft products are easy to configure and integrate data also. To properly utilize all the features the person integrating must understand the architecture code concept as well.

Before deployment, I consistently conduct a rapid assessment to comprehend the customer's infrastructure. Subsequently, I formulate a plan grounded in this information. Typically, we aim for minimal personnel involvement due to the centralized nature of cloud operations. Additionally, we can advocate for either GPO or CCM deployment software. Our approach entails utilizing a singular architect, one resource, and one SME for implementing and overseeing the infrastructure, aligning with the security prerequisites of the customer's locale. Continuous monitoring of the infrastructure is imperative, maintaining a 24/7 vigilance.

The implementation takes around three months to install and configure.

The pricing is competitive. The pay model is pay as we use.

For organizations that make use of all Microsoft solutions, the cost is lower, and the visibility is increased.

I rate Microsoft Defender for Endpoint nine out of ten.

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is indeed a commendable product. However, despite its implementation, we should consider the integration of other security products. This is due to the escalating variety of cyberattacks prevalent today. While Windows consistently issues patches to update its existing products, I propose the adoption of a dual-product approach within our infrastructure. This approach aims to preempt eleventh-hour security breaches. By juxtaposing and scrutinizing the attributes of different solutions, we can better comprehend their nuances, specifically at the feature level. The pivotal factor lies in how adeptly a solution identifies and mitigates potential threats. Therefore, I advocate for the incorporation of two distinct solutions within our infrastructure. This strategy is poised to yield heightened efficiency, effectively mitigating the risks of both security breaches and data breaches.

It's an AV and EDR. The AV is integrated with the OS and, once you onboard the devices through a portal, it also functions as an EDR.

The main reason it has improved our organization is that it is integrated with the entire Microsoft 365 suite. We get a lot of functionality and a centralized way of operating or controlling all the devices in the environment.

The solution automates routine tasks and the finding of high-value alerts. That helps a lot. I worked with a different product before and, if we wanted to check if a specific application was affecting our organization, we had to get the application details and then search in the EDR console or on the devices for those application details. But with Defender for Endpoint, you can simply put the application details in a query and run it, and that becomes a customized detection. I don't need to check for the same application again and again. I can get an alert whenever it pops up again.

There is integration with all the products, whether Defender for Cloud or Microsoft Purview or Office 365, so we have a centralized console. There is a sync so that you can get all the alerts in different portals on a single portal. That consolidation makes things easier because we don't have to navigate to multiple portals to check for all the information. Before, we used to only get basic details, like the title or the category of a particular alert. But now, since it is also syncing with Sentinel, we don't need to go to the Defender portal. We can view the entire alert story and related devices, or potentially affected devices, and which devices could be the next targets.

Another advantage is that the threat intelligence helps us proactively prepare for potential issues before they strike. There is an option to check for vulnerabilities and that is not only limited to our organization or the license we bought. We have one filter that will show all the potential threats in the market or that other customers might have reported. We can view them and the steps they have followed. There are all the CVD details that are not affecting our organization, things that are still new in the market, and it will give the remediation steps for them as well.

In terms of deployment, management, and manual efforts, it has saved me a lot of time. Previously, I would review each alert. That meant, during a given week, that I would be on alerts for three or four days, and only then would I go on to other things. It has saved me a couple of days a week because of the automation and auto-suppress rules, which are configured to automatically resolve an alert and trigger an email to me that the alert has come up and the action has been taken.

Because it has been integrated with the OS, we get the entire software inventories, and we even get access to the registries. Those are the primary features. We also have something called advanced hunting, which uses SQL tables to list out all the details of the device and that is also used for threat hunting.

Defender for Endpoint also helps prioritize threats across our enterprise, and we have an option for customized detections, which is an additional feature that differentiates it from other products. The customized detection helps us identify threats.

I would like to see improvement from a management perspective. We have had to depend on Intune for certain tasks.

I would also like to see additional features related to device control. For now, it has all the common features that other EDR and AV products offer, but device control is missing. Device control means automatically syncing the devices without any dependency on other products, like Intune, SCCM, or even Azure. If it could sync between products after only adding it to one product, that would be great.

I've been working with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint for close to one year.

It is stable.

It is also scalable. 

Since it's an AV and EDR, you can use it at any location and on all the platforms, including Android and iOS.

Support depends on the support contract you have. The Premier support contract is comparatively efficient.

I would rate their support at eight out of 10. Sometimes, because they have multiple teams, there could be a delay with a ticket going to a wrong team. But once it is routed to the correct team, we get good support.

Positive

I worked with one similar solution, which was VMware Carbon Black Cloud. Defender for Endpoint has the advantage because Carbon Black is a third party to the OS. That is going to create a lot of additional work to manually deploy things, check the installation, see if it's parsing. There could also be compatibility issues. Because Defender is integrated with the OS, you don't need to do those manual tasks to install the product or work through the compatibility issues.

It is pretty straightforward to deploy. There isn't any manual effort, even if you are a new customer and migrating from a different product to Defender. All you need to do is get a license and the credentials to log in.

In the back-end, if we were to deploy the new tenant, it would be on Azure, and there are a series of steps to follow, nothing complex. It's just a GUI. You just need to give the device count and the geographical location. It takes four to five people for the deployment. 

Once the deployment is done, you don't need to constantly monitor it, but four people would be good for operations: two people to manage the devices and configuration, and the other two to review the alerts that are coming and analyze the vulnerabilities. Once a month you should review and update the software. Other than that, there is only maintenance when there is an issue. The signatures are updated automatically.

You can manage the devices on-prem, but if you want the EDR solution, it's completely cloud. You still have the option to control the devices on-prem through SCCM or any other integration, but ideally, it's cloud-based. The back-end portal is on Azure, but the console or tenant for users or management is a different portal. It's not on the Azure portal, it's a different URL.

The time it takes to see benefits depends on the end-users' requirements or which products they want to integrate it with. In my case, after two or three months I felt like I had found the good things to integrate it with and had a centralized way to manage them.

The solution has saved us money compared to the other products we use, but it depends on the situation. If there are multiple integrations, you have to get the licenses for those as well. But in our case, comparatively, we have saved money.

We did consider other options, CyberArc and Trellix (which is the new name for McAfee products). But the ease of using Defender for Endpoint and the reduction in manual efforts are why we went with it. Also, collecting and reporting on the data was easier.

The visibility into threats that the solution gives us is the same as other EDR products. But one advantage I have noticed, because I have experience working with a couple of other EDR products, is getting the complete device registry information. If we want to query anything or look into the complete alert or vulnerability details, we can get to the core. We don't need to depend on getting access to the device. We can do it from a centralized console.

I've seen a lot of people saying that they are looking for feature X but it's not there in the product. Most EDR products function in the same way, but they call features by different names. My advice would be to consult with Microsoft's Fast Track support engineers. They can guide you and explain every feature. Go for that first and then implement it.

I would definitely recommend Defender for Endpoint because going with a third party would require a lot of maintenance. For smaller companies, Defender for Endpoint would be more cost-efficient than requiring more headcount to do more maintenance.

It provides good visibility in terms of the number of devices covered, users covered, and so on. With most people working from home for the past two years as a result of the pandemic, Microsoft has helped us improve our security. Because it's a cloud component, we have been able to have improved coverage for our remote users, which was a challenge when we were using traditional endpoint protection solutions. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint has enabled us to secure devices even when they are off of the organization's premises. It has added value to our organization and has helped improve and mitigate security risks across the organization.

I like the fact that it's prebuilt onto Windows and that it integrates with various solutions.

The Microsoft Defender for Endpoint dashboard gives you a very wide view. If, for example, a device is having some malicious activity, it will tell you who has logged into that device and the history of the activity such as whether the activity began because that particular user clicked a malicious link in an email. It is able to do this because Microsoft Defender can connect to the whole Microsoft 365 ecosystem. Thus, it can provide more visibility as compared to a standalone endpoint solution, which will only give you visibility with regard to the information collected on the client in which it is installed.

It provides a detailed level of visibility considering that it's prebuilt onto Windows. It's able to drill down into the processes, such as the DLL files that are running and the installation files from where the threat is emanating. It gives you a deeper threat analysis in comparison to that of other solutions I've worked with. Microsoft Defender is able to provide details such as whether it is a malicious file, the process that is executing a particular file, how it is initiated, the process number, the particular execution file that is running, and so on.

When it discovers a threat, it has its own inbuilt capabilities to prioritize the severity as low, medium, high, and critical. You can also intervene and assign a particular priority to an incident if the priority was not what you expected. Microsoft Defender gives you visibility not just from a threat perspective but also from a user perspective, for example, to identify the most high-risk users in an organization. It gives you the ability to prioritize the riskiest users and devices.

We use Azure AD Identity Protection, Windows Defender for Cloud, and Microsoft Defender for Office 365.

It is easy to integrate these solutions because Microsoft Defender for Endpoint gives you a central view of all of the security components in the organization. We have integrated these solutions to have one central dashboard.

Having one XDR dashboard has eliminated the need to look at multiple dashboards.

In terms of these solutions working natively together to deliver coordinated detection and response across our environment, Defender for Endpoint works natively well on its own Defender for Office 365. The full integrated visibility doesn't come natively enabled by default. As an administrator, you have to figure out where the configuration is and enable that configuration so that the events are captured by one solution and pushed to the central dashboard for security.

Microsoft has come a long way in terms of security and comprehensive threat protection. They've done quite a lot to mature their solutions. It's hard to find one vendor who covers your email security, cloud security, and endpoint security, giving you central visibility into all of it, and Microsoft is one of the major players at the moment.

Threat intelligence helps us proactively prevent attacks before they happen. Defender can pick up an activity that is happening across other tenants in the organization. You can then look at what controls you can put in place to prevent it from happening in your own organization. It's better to prevent an attack rather than to stop one that is already happening. This approach allows us to proactively put measures in place and be ready to respond in case an attack does occur. It keeps us more alert and prepared.

With Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, you can automate some of the incident response actions. However, we do have false positives that are picked up, and automation needs to be done sparingly. Automation of routine tasks does free up our admins, and they can focus on more strategic initiatives and improvements, and leave the day-to-day administrative duties to the system.

This solution has saved us time in terms of providing centralized visibility and not having to onboard agents when deploying. It has made management a bit easier because it can be accessed from anywhere and has made it a bit more convenient to manage the whole Endpoint protection activities. Our team is still quite lean, and the time spent on EDR activities has probably reduced by about 50%, freeing us up to catch up on other activities that we're following up on in the entire information security program.

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint has decreased our time to detect and our time to respond. Proactive alerts help you send notifications before something actually happens. That means you have more time at hand to quickly detect threats before they happen. If they do happen, it gives you all of the information you need to be able to quickly respond compared to traditional EDR solutions for which you may need to look for VPN production to access your tenant. The ability to automate the responses has also decreased the time it takes to respond to an incident by about 50% because even before the notification is received, the system would have begun to take the action that you had configured for the automation. That is, the response will begin without your intervention.

Automation is one of the areas that need improvement because if you fully automate, then there's a high chance that you're going to be blocking a lot of actual false positives.

With the XDR dashboard, when you're doing an investigation and you're drilling down to obtain further details it tends to open many different tabs that take you away from your main tabs. You can end up having 10 tabs open for one investigation. This is another area for improvement because you can end up getting lost in multiple tabs. Therefore, the central console can be improved so that it does not take you to several different pages for each investigation.

Microsoft keeps changing the name of the solution, and when we go to senior management to ask for a budget, they think you're asking for a different solution. It would be great if Microsoft could decide that Defender for Endpoint is the name and stick with it.

I've been using it for three years.

It's quite stable.

It's very easy to scale because it comes built-in with Windows 10, and you just need to enable it. This can be done on scale using group policies or through Endpoint Manager on cloud or Intune.

We have about 5,000 users.

The technical support is okay, and I would rate them at seven out of ten. It depends on the level of support that you have with Microsoft. If you have enterprise support, you'll get dedicated support, and your issues will be resolved much faster. That is, if you're able to pay for premium support, you'll get good, faster responses. If you have normal support, however, it may take a bit longer to get someone to look at an issue.

Neutral

We previously used Kaspersky Endpoint Protection. One of the reasons why we switched is the fact that traditional endpoint solutions tend to be monolithic. They usually run on an on-premises infrastructure. As a result, you have to deploy agents to all of the machines and to manage them, you have to be on the company's network or be able to access it through VPN. Also, those who work remotely will need to log into the VPN to receive updates. Often, those who don't need access to internal systems will go for months without logging into the VPN, which means that they will not pick up the updates.

We were also looking for a solution that was more cloud-friendly because the organization was moving towards the cloud with the emergence of remote work.

The initial deployment can be straightforward if you have Windows 10 Enterprise Professional because it will come preinstalled. All you will have to do then is to enable it. In our case, we wanted to enable a particular GP and encountered some complexities in terms of connectivity. It took us about six months to deploy it.

It's a SaaS solution, so you don't require much effort in terms of deployment. Once installed, there's very little maintenance required. We don't have to upgrade any agents; it's straightforward. It mainly requires administrative work from the console.

Our environment is across multiple branches in the organization with branches in different locations and countries.

We had a team of three with someone to configure the group policies, someone to look at the admin center on Microsoft, and someone to ensure that the traffic is allowed.

Because Microsoft Defender comes as an add-on, it can be a bit expensive if you're trying to buy it separately. Another option is to upgrade, but the enterprise licenses for Microsoft can also be quite a bit pricey. Overall, the cost of Microsoft Defender compared to that of other endpoint detection solutions is slightly higher.

If you have a big team, then you can go with a best-of-breed strategy where you have dedicated teams that are looking at your endpoint protection, email protection, network protection, and so on. You may have a SOC team as well that gets the events and incidents from all of the different teams, analyzes centrally and provides a general view from a security operations perspective. In summary, if you have a well-resourced, mature organization, then it may make sense to go for the best-of-breed strategy.

However, if you have an organization without a big security team, it makes sense to have a single vendor's suite. At times, it may appear to be a single point of failure, but in terms of management and usability, it's a bit easier to work with and deploy. It will give you some level of visibility that will cut across the different domains.

Overall, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is a good solution, and it'll give you good visibility and protection. It's worth considering, and I will rate it at eight on a scale from one to ten.

We are a property investment company, and people here use Microsoft Surface devices for their daily job. We are a Microsoft-oriented company, and we use it for our basic endpoint security implementation. 

Our entire security is based on this endpoint solution. Sometimes you have centralized security where you scan all traffic going through a central firewall and you also check through several types of solutions. You also check HTTPS connections. Basically, for all the traffic going inside and outside the company, you use a security firewall, and this endpoint solution is actually a firewall solution or security solution that is distributed. So, all the traffic coming from and going into the end-user device is basically submitted for scanning. If you download an ISO on a website or an email, everything is scanned for security to check whether it contains any malicious data. 

We are using Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Plan 2, which is the enterprise version of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint. We are using the most recent version of it.

We deploy it via Intune. The feature is called Microsoft Intune Autopilot. We have a hardware hash. A colleague of mine prepares the configuration and then based on the hardware hash and Autopilot, the devices are completely installed and joined to Azure AD and then to our enterprise. Intune is a Microsoft device management platform that comes with Microsoft solutions. When you buy a new device, based on the hardware hash, it can automatically find that device through Autopilot and do the specific deployment for your company. So, the users can use any type of device, start it, and then it will automatically be joined to our environment.

It is a completely integrated platform with advanced threat analysis, SIEM features, updated inventory, and so on. It is an all-in-one solution. Microsoft is taking over lots of companies to provide more and better services to its clients. This is one of the best solutions around at the moment.

It protects our organization from all kinds of attacks, such as ransomware attacks and any malware downloads. It is like an oracle who knows everything about:

• What is around at the moment?
• From where the attacks are coming?
• What is currently going on security-wise?

It knows about all the software that you have installed on the laptop, and whether they are not patched or have security issues. It covers everything you want from your security platform.

It is a very advanced system based on AI. It has a very large database of places or sites on the internet where you should not go. It is continuously online. 

It is completely self-sufficient. You don't have to install anything. It is completely integrated into the operating system, and it also has a centralized information dashboard where you can immediately see:

• Are all your devices up to date?
• Are there any threats?
• Are the devices having problems with updates?
• Are they infected with anything?
• Was something blocked?

You can immediately see what is going on in your enterprise, in different networks, and also in people's homes in terms of endpoint security.

It is a zero-trust platform, and it integrates with all types of enterprise services that we run. It also integrates with the Office 365 environment where you can securely connect from anywhere.

It makes your Surface devices hot. It is resource-intensive. It strains your CPU, not more than other file scanners around, but it also does a lot more. When you are transmitting files or data, it is continuously scanning the traffic and analyzing it bit by bit to see what's going on, and that, of course, is costly in terms of CPU. It is CPU intensive, and if you are on battery, it drains your battery fast. That's the only drawback that it has.

They're continuously improving it. You can compare it with Teams. About a year ago, the codex and the presentation of the Teams application were not very well optimized, and if you were using the Teams application, it used to drain your battery. It still drains your battery, but they have improved it a lot, and it is a lot less CPU intensive after one year. They're working on Defender for Endpoint to make it less CPU intensive.

We have been using Microsoft Defender for Endpoint for more than six months.

Its stability is quite good, especially with Windows 11, which is a very stable operating system. Of course, you can run into some issues. We have some issues with docking stations for Surface and screens, but generally, the operating system together with the endpoint security solution is very stable.

It is the most scalable solution around. You can create an Azure tenant, and with a script, you can deploy 1,000 user accounts. There is no actual limit to it, so the scalability is infinite.

Their support has improved. They're quite good. I would rate them an eight out of ten.

Positive

It has the easiest setup that I've ever seen. It's completely integrated with Microsoft. When you deploy your machine through Autopilot and Intune and assign the license, everything is done automatically. Of course, you have a lot of possibilities and a lot of freedom for detailed configuration, but out of the box, it comes completely self-sustained. You don't have to do anything. This is one of the easiest solutions that I've seen.

You just apply for the plan in Office 365, and you set up your very basic Autopilot template where you would specify the types of software that have to be installed. For instance, you want Office or other types of software. The very basic template is enough to roll it out fully automatically.

It takes a couple of hours. If you apply for a tenant on Azure, you pay for the licenses, and you can roll out with a click on 200 to 1,000 endpoint devices within the hour. This cloud is really amazing.

We are a small company with a few technical engineers, and we provide services for our clients. We provide all kinds of services such as maintaining endpoints and Azure cloud solutions with virtualized services and SaaS services.

Its implementation is more or less handled by my colleague. I do a little bit of configuration but not so much. My colleague knows about all the technical details. He does the complete installation and the complete central management of policies and templates. However, a basic part with basic software is very quickly implemented. You just create a tenant on microsoft.com, and then you can very easily roll out to as many workstations as you would like the necessary configuration for Defender for Endpoint.

Its price at the moment is very good because you get a lot of value for your money, especially with the subscriptions. If you have the E1, E3, or E5 enterprise subscription, you pay per month per user, and you get almost an infinite number of solutions. If you compare the price to the number of solutions that you get, it is a very good deal. 

I'm only concerned about the future because Microsoft is taking over one company after another. In the end, there will be no alternative and then they can do whatever they like, but for now, in terms of price, Microsoft is one of the best performers.

At the moment, it is one of the best security platforms for endpoint security in the market. It is comparable to SentinelOne in terms of features and functions.

It is part of Microsoft's ecosystem. If you need a reliable and secure work environment, and you are bound by GDPR and other standards where you have to take care of your data and prevent breaches and unauthorized access, it is a great solution. 

The E1, E3, or E5 license contains Defender for Endpoint along with many other solutions. Having just the scanner is not enough these days. You need an overview of your whole environment. You need to make sure that your endpoints are encrypted, they are up to date, and they are correctly using zero-trust relationships for your central services. All these things that you need these days are perfectly implemented in the solutions that Microsoft provides. This is the only way for a company that takes data seriously and has to give a guarantee to customers that data is protected.

It is resource-intensive, but you have to take into account that it is not only a file scanner. It is continuously scanning every connection you make on the internet. It is deeply investigating the data that you transport and the connections that you make. It is scanning your files, and it is scanning your software against all kinds of knowledge bases to identify whether there are vulnerabilities in the software that you use. It is a solution that integrates almost everything. It is doing what a central firewall did before, but it is doing that in a distributed way on your device. So, it does so much more than you expect. If you are providing it to your users, you have to take its CPU consumption into account, and you need to provide sufficient CPU power for this.

I would rate it an eight out of ten.