Cisco IOS Security vs. Qualys TruRisk Platform

When it comes to security on the edge of your network (downstream) Cisco's IOS security features provide pretty much everything you need when it comes to securing your network, network devices, and access. I would absolutely recommend Cisco switches due to many reasons, but a big reason is security.

Incentivized

Qualys Cloud Platform is well suited for organizations that need additional tools to secure and bolster their security from end to end. The automated, real-time threat protection is very quick to notify an admin of potential vulnerabilities and risks, as well as recommending quick fixes to resolve/close the gap before an incident occurs. QCP excels at portraying all of these in a single pane of glass, and find that the Qualys reports are more detailed than competitor product lines. One of our big issues with QCP is that you do have to pay for each scanner, which can quickly add up to large costs. For this reason, I would rate Qualys at a ~7 due to great features and functionality, but overall value could be better for a large organization. I would also say that QCP may make more sense for smaller organizations due to this pricing model.

Incentivized

• Authentication.
• Access lists.
• Port security.

Incentivized

• It really does well at vulnerability scanning, which it is well known for. It's accuracy at finding vulnerabilities is top notch, more so than a lot of other vulnerability tools out there. In an organization/company you want this kind of accuracy at finding vulnerabilities in your network/endpoints
• It is very good at managing endpoints on a consistent basis, meaning you can add endpoints to Qualys and have the platform scan/track/protect for vulnerabilities on an ongoing basis, without user intervention
• It does really well at separating out and identifying what levels of criticality each vulnerability should fall into. This way, an organization/company can attack the more critical vulnerabilities first

Incentivized

• Cisco could provide an initial set up script for those are not used to the CLI (Command Line Interface). With that initial script, people could easily deploy the security features instead of having to learn how to use the commands.
• The web interface that Cisco provides with the routers, although it’s useful to set up the security features, it could also have some sort of tutorials to help people understand the main concepts of iOS security.
• You have to license iOS security separately from the main OS. For that reason, sometimes it tends to be a little expensive if you have a small business.

Incentivized

• This program is really complicated, the multiple functions that are presented to us are not very clear and in some cases, it is a matter of intuition to execute a function, it is not very informative.
• The interface of this program can be a real problem; for our taste, this program looks a bit messy, and the interface does not help or guide you to find the options you need.

Incentivized

Again, the usability of Qualys has been a pinpoint for this entire review. It was easily the worst thing about the product and because of this, I would not recommend Qualys to anybody in my field. This should be something that Qualys strives to improve if they wish to stay in business.

Incentivized

Cisco has the best Support team that gives us 24/7 support as we need. Cisco has huge detailed documentation for design, implementation, and troubleshooting all areas of the IOS security. There are many communities discussing all Cisco devices and solutions for studying groups and for customers to share their stories, technical problem and solutions.

Incentivized

They had a support page within the WAS to report any concerns or seek help. But the UI of that is not smooth. Regardless support staff were pretty responsive and helpful. They scheduled calls to understand and address our problems. Email support is good as well.

Incentivized

I also like HP Procurve. It is my choice when the customer cannot afford Cisco. Cisco is better all round but HP is the only other [product] I will use if I have a choice.

Incentivized

As described before Qualys is used to scan periodically the environment in order to check if there are some packages (Linux) or Applications (Windows) outdated, generating reports to the Service Owners, fulfilling what's is expected from us, attending all our expectations regarding the tool. That's why we'd choose Qualys to our organization.

Incentivized

• Cisco iOS security helped our business deploy a relatively safe solution for a small amount of money.
• If you don’t have enough budget to invest in a robust and expensive firewall solution, you can safely use Cisco iOS security to protect your branch or remote office without compromise your network.
• Because Cisco iOS security uses a simple command-line based interface, you can deploy standardized scripts and keep the operational costs low.

Incentivized

• Big time-saving tool vs. having to comb through several system reports which ultimately can still have you missing unapproved software.
• Quick snapshot via the dashboard provided a nice summary of where you're assets meet or do not meet your organization's policy requirements.

Incentivized