Cisco Stealthwatch is a network behavior analysis product based on technology acquired by Cisco with its Lancope acquisition in 2015.
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F5 BIG-IP SSL Orchestrator
Score 8.7 out of 10
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F5 Networks provides the SSL Orchestrator, a high-performance decryption, analysis, and re-encryption tool for SSL/TLS traffic across the network to locate threats or data exfiltration efforts concealed in encrypted traffic.
Few products operate off the Netflow or RAP/SPAN traffic versus the endpoint. Of those products, many operate from the aggregate traffic of uplinks/downlinks, whereas Secure Network Analytics focuses on viewing all traffic to give per-endpoint comprehensive data analytics. SNA is a great product for network visibility and detection, and to preserve that focus, other options such as remediation or quarantined are deferred to other products in the security ecosystem. SNA uses Machine Learning models to determine traffic behavioral compliance, which is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it mitigates zero day attacks changing traffic patterns, but conversely, it requires training to know acceptable traffic patterns. Unfortunately, many adopters of SNA do not spend the time giving it the user input and so the ML models never gets the correct weights and parameters to work from.
F5 SSL Orchestrator is an ideal software to address the blind spots of the encryption of incoming and outgoing traffic, this is because it provides a high visibility of the traffic. By having a management based on policies allows to carry out a simpler management and obtain a more integration easy with existing infrastructures. It is ideal for reducing costs as it allows the creation of dynamic devices, thereby evaluating whether the traffic should be decrypted or not.
There are things that you can search for a particular type of traffic, but you cannot create an alert to alert on that type of traffic. An example of that is a particular encryption type. So like RC4 encryption is prohibited within DHS. I can search for traffic using it, but I can't create a rule alerting on that traffic type.
It is a software with a somewhat complex documentation so when you are in doubt it is difficult to solve it through its documentation.
A good knowledge is required in the management of the software, because although its implementation is flexible, carrying it out in the appropriate way guarantees good operation.
Its price can be somewhat high if it is a small company, however considering its high versatility the investment is worth it.
Learning curve somewhat steep, but you can count on the support of your support team.
Cisco Secure Network Analytics is a fantastic tool, but does require some setup and upkeep which may turn off smaller IT Security teams. However, once all the flows are set up and the product is functioning with the proper rules, the insight into your network is fantastic. For us, the product has a significant ROI and will be a product we keep up on.
Strong and complete tool which gives comprehensive methods to discover cyber security incidents and prevent data leakage. In case of common use of Cisco StealthWatch and Cisco ISE, you will receive [the] ability [to] not just discover cyber security incidents but also dynamically respond to them. This makes StealthWatch one of most valuable products through[out] [the] whole Cisco Security product portfolio.
We haven't had too many issues with the uptime and availability of CSNA, but the application does have a lot of dependancies and we have seen issues after an upgrade that caused an outage for several hours.
Overall winner because it exceeds our expectations by answering all our requirements and at the same time empowers our operations thru other built-in capabilities it has. Visibility is a key to security operations and Cisco StealthWatch really gives us a magnifying glass to check all logs in the network for threat intelligence and threat hunting.
Implementation of the product can be tedious, especially fine tuning its rules to customize it to your environment. However, after that is done, CSNA is a very useful and flexible product that would enhance the security posture of any corporate network.
After integrating and developing a lot of security features in MF NNM, we were not able to meet the requirements from the customer. After the alternative research, we got to know about this Cisco Secure Network Analytics tool and after implementing the same, we finally were able to win CSAT. MF NNM had a support-related issue as well. It took more than a month to solve for couple of issues frequently. Whenever there is a problem or need their support, reaching out to them has always been a challenge.
OpenSSL is a simple software to use, with a complete documentation and an easy installation and ideal for encrypting and decrypting and making certificates, however F5 SSL Orchestrator can be implemented in different ways, it provides a high visibility of the traffic which does not miss any threat It wants to hide in encrypted traffic, but its biggest advantage is that it helps to better manage and does not provide static but dynamic devices so it is possible to decrypt once or encrypt once, it is for all these powerful features that F5 SSL Orchestrator was chosen.
It is a little pricey - in my organization, with budget cuts, I eventually had to replace it with an open source product (NTOP). While it works well for visibility, it simply isn't the same. If you can afford it, don't bother looking anywhere else - just get it.
Being able to detect, pivot out, and remmediate from one console was awesome.
By providing a high vision of inbound and outbound traffic, we manage to avoid the entry of threats and the exposure or loss of data from our business infrastructure.
Its policy based management is very helpful, since it is much simpler to manage SSL traffic and to be aware of any attack coming from it and to apply security controls to all business traffic.
