Cisco IOS Security vs. Qualys VMDR

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 VMDR is best suited for larger companies with a very large IT asset footprint. Qualys VMDR is not suited for businesses that are small and upcoming as the price for the tool is very expensive and could be a budget sink if not used properly. In our organization we use the Qualys VMDR dashboard and reporting in order to collect any vulnerabilities we miss during our routine audits to ensure that our environment is stable and protected for attacks.

Incentivized

• Authentication.
• Access lists.
• Port security.

Incentivized

• Qualys VMDR automates the remediation process for risks without code.
• Scans and detects all of our assets whether they are IT or IOT
• Analyzes our environment for misconfigurations and measures risk against industry benchmarks

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

• Qualys VMDR can definitely improve on its reporting of assets as we have caught devices not captured in the Qualys VMDR scans.
• We would like to see an improvement on the dashboard interface as it is faulty sometimes.
• Qualys VMDR should focus on more competitive pricing as it is very expensive.

Incentivized

infrastructure to identify vulnerabilities

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

This is iron but I am giving it 5 star and I can give more If I can do because they are best in support. So once you own this product they will assign a dedicated support for you and when you are under the weather with anything just connect them with anything call, ping or ticket they will come like Genie.

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

It is a very similar tool but Qualys VMDR is much better when it comes to reporting and solutions provided. Asset management is really good in Qualys VMDR. Qualys VMDR support is really quick , you can get a TPM if you run into any issues. Qualys VMDR has wide variety of scanning options which lacks in tenable.

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

• Cut down on manual efforts to investigate or remediate vulnerabilities, which can be a big driver of ROI
• Avoidance of potential incidents with upfront risk mitigation
• Patching efficiency gains

Incentivized