These Microsoft Defender solutions focus on cloud security and target different aspects. They are complementary solutions, working together for a comprehensive cloud security strategy.
Defender for Cloud Focuses on securing your entire cloud environment, including infrastructure, workloads, and platforms. It offers Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) and DevSecOps functionalities, identifying vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and recommending remediation steps. It can extend beyond Azure to AWS, GCP, and on-premises environments.
Defender for Cloud Apps primarily secures user access and data within SaaS applications. It offers features like Data Loss Prevention (DLP), User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA), and Adaptive Access Control (AAC). It integrates with Microsoft Defender XDR for a broader security view.
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"Defender is a robust platform for dealing with many kinds of threats. We're protected from various threats, like viruses. Attacks can be easily minimized with this solution defending our infrastructure."
"It takes very little effort to integrate it. It also gives very good visibility into what exactly is happening."
"The vulnerability reporting is helpful. When we initially deployed Defender, it reported many more threats than we currently see. It gave us insight into areas we had not previously considered, so we knew where we needed to act."
"It helps you to identify the gaps in your solution and remediate them. It produces a compliance checklist against known standards such as ISO 27001, HIPAA, iTrust, etc."
"Defender for Cloud is a plug-and-play solution that provides continuous posture management once enabled."
"It's quite a good product. It helps to understand the infections and issues you are facing."
"Everything is built into Azure, and if we go for cross-cloud development with Azure Arc, we can use most of the features. While it's possible to deploy and convert third-party applications, it is difficult to maintain, whereas Azure deployments to the cloud are always easier. Also, Microsoft is a big company, so they always provide enough support, and we trust the Microsoft brand."
"Defender lets you orchestrate the roll-out from a single pane. Using the Azure portal, you can roll it out over all the servers covered by the entire subscription."
"One of the most valuable features is auditing. Some of the other protection services have issues with auditing. Microsoft Defender for Cloud has an excellent auditing technique that helps us avoid the risk of filtering or information loss. You can use different tools to guarantee these things. It allows you to conduct an in-depth exploration of applications, users, and files that are harmful or suspicious. You can also enhance your security setup by creating personalized rules or policies that help you better control traffic in the cloud."
"The most valuable feature is its policy implementation."
"I like the alert policies because they are quite robust. It has some built-in templates that we can easily pick up. One of them is the alert for mass downloads, when a particular user is running a massive download on your SharePoint site."
"It's very easy to install and it includes the Intune portal from Microsoft where I can control all the devices from one place."
"I like the web GUI/the management interface. I also like the security of Microsoft. As compared to other manufacturers, it's less complex and easy to understand and work with."
"Shadow IT discovery is the feature I like the most."
"Threat detection is its key feature, and that's why we use this tool. It gives an alert if a PC is attacked or there is any kind of anomaly, such as there is a spike in sending emails or we see an unauthorized website being accessed. So, it keeps us on our toes. We get to know that there is something wrong, and we can isolate the user and find any issues with it. So, threat detection is very robust in this tool."
"Defender helps us control which applications are being used and gain more security insight into remote and hybrid users based on user identity and log in location. You can also integrate Defender for Cloud Apps with Defender for Endpoint to extend its capabilities."
"The overview provides you with good information, but if you want more details, there is a lot more customization to do, which requires knowledge of the other supporting solutions."
"You cannot create custom use cases."
"Microsoft can improve the pricing by offering a plan that is more cost-effective for small and medium organizations."
"Sometimes it's very difficult to determine when I need Microsoft Defender for Cloud for a special resource group or a special kind of product."
"As an analyst, there is no way to configure or create a playbook to automate the process of flagging suspicious domains."
"The remediation process could be improved."
"The most significant areas for improvement are in the security of our identity and endpoints and the posture of the cloud environment. Better protection for our cloud users and cloud apps is always welcome."
"I would suggest building a single product that addresses endpoint server protection, attack surface, and everything else in one solution. That is the main disadvantage with the product. If we are incorporating some features, we end up in a situation where this solution is for the server, and that one is for the client, or this is for identity, and that is for our application. They're not bundling it. Commercially, we can charge for different licenses, but on the implementation side, it's tough to help our end-customer understand which product they're getting."
"I believe it's only set to be integrated with Microsoft Defender for identity and identity protection. I would like to see it available for use with something like Office 365 Defender. I don't think it's integrated with that yet."
"We sometimes get errors when we create policies, which is somewhat annoying because some policies stop working due to misconfigurations. We find this challenging because it limits our options for troubleshooting an issue."
"There are challenges with detection and there are challenges with false-positive rates."
"There could be more granular roles that are out of the box included in the product."
"I would like for it to be available on Mac and for it to support all of the features of Microsoft financing products. It is really for Windows."
"The response time could be better. It will be helpful if the alerts are even more proactive and we can see more data. Currently, the data is a little bit weak. It is not complete. I can't just see it and completely know which user or which device it is. It takes some effort and time on my part to investigate and isolate a user. It would be great if it is more user-friendly or easy for people to understand."
"They should continue integration with all other Microsoft security-related products. The integration with all the other products is still ongoing."
"Defender for Cloud apps is primarily useful for Azure apps. It has limited capabilities for applications based on other cloud platforms."
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Microsoft Defender for Cloud is ranked 2nd in Microsoft Security Suite with 46 reviews while Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is ranked 10th in Microsoft Security Suite with 30 reviews. Microsoft Defender for Cloud is rated 8.0, while Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Microsoft Defender for Cloud writes "Provides multi-cloud capability, is plug-and-play, and improves our security posture". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps writes "Integrates well and helps us in protecting sensitive information, but takes time to scan and apply the policies and cannot detect everything we need". Microsoft Defender for Cloud is most compared with AWS GuardDuty, Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks, Microsoft Defender XDR, Wiz and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, whereas Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is most compared with Zscaler Internet Access, Cisco Umbrella, Netskope , Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks and Qualys VMDR. See our Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps report.
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