AWS Identity & Access Management vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

AWS Identity & Access Management is well suited to managing AWS application access between services. Very helpful for both third-party products and in-house developed software. Very happy with how easy it is to create access keys and then share them in our environment. AWS IAM can also be used to manage individual users, but I highly recommend using AWS SSO for that purpose instead. Much easier to deploy for console access and from a security side easier to turn off in one click from your SSO provider.

Incentivized

It is well suited if your team is working with Microsoft tools and Azure services. but if you are using other cloud service providers and don't want to spend efforts in learning integration with third-party software then this is not a great fit for you. overall we are very satisfied with the product. If your corporation with Microsoft tools then I would recommend it.

Incentivized

• Customized access per key to limit scope
• Safely distributes access keys
• Provides access audits

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• Detect threats based on user activity logs.
• Set manual and automatic alert remediation.
• Implement activity policies.
• Detect threats based on user activity logs.

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• Better integration with roles and policies so you don't need three windows open to create a new IAM user
• Display recommended configurations based on services being used
• Easier options to base config on existing users

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• Cloud discovery throws away found services not found in the MCAS database of SaaS apps.
• Many panes of glass required for a fully enabled implementation to administer, configure and utilize 100% of the product.
• Room for improvement in the reporting realm - not enough records are visible and exportable for high record count policy reports.

Incentivized

We would be unable to manage the interconnected nature of our AWS services without AWS IAM.

Incentivized

The interface is pretty simple and easy to use; however, you will need to do a lot of investigative research on your own to get comfortable with it. Originally, many of the Microsoft security tools had their own seperate consoles. Overtime, they have blended into one interface which is the ideal state. In some cases it is clear Microsoft had to pick which console a certain feature or setting was going to reside in and this leads to some confusion. For example, DLP is managed through Defender for Cloud Apps but you will also need to jump into Purview. For things like reverse proxy on your M365 tenant, you will need to go into Azure and setup conditional access rules. Not a big problem and I can understand why the settings are located where they are but for someone just starting out with Defender for Cloud Apps, it will take some time to figure out.

Incentivized

I have not utilized actual support but the Sales and Product teams have been super helpful in moving our implementation forward and showing us the best practices.

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While we do not use Microsoft Azure for our servers and other customer-facing services. If we did, we would have to use Microsoft Azure Active Directory to manage access to services appropriately. It's difficult to quantify the differences between the services as they are truly different. I would recommend choosing AWS or Azure, then using the identity management provided by the same vendor.

Incentivized

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps was chosen primarily due to its ability to work perfectly within our mostly M365 environment. Given that this was an added feature of our E5 license, we chose to dive into it and use it due to it's good visibility into user actions and the ability to tie all M365 actions together into one place. We did not see similar visibility with other tools that we vetted

Incentivized

• Without IAM, it would be difficult to use AWS across services. Increased ROI

Incentivized

• Cloud App Security saves us thousands of dollars finding and rectifying apps security issues
• Identity Security Posture helps the organization identity stay in shape, saving thousands of dollars on security consultations
• The cost of suffering a breach cannot be quantified, CAS helps minimize the chances of the attackers succeeding, with excellent historical logging for most operations

Incentivized