Snort vs. Sophos Intercept X for Server

If a colleague was looking to tighten down their network I can easily recommend Snort to them. It gives you some more peace of mind knowing that its always scanning traffic for malicious looking code. Even things your major firewalls and security hardware might miss, Snort has picked up. Its an easy recommendation for me.

Incentivized

Licensing is incredibly easy to renew - and to adjust based on usage. The interface of cloud-based management is fantastic and easy to navigate as well. Syncs up with Active Directory to get users/security groups and such for easily differentiating policies to various users. Being able to pinpoint exactly where a threat infiltrated a system (what it talked to once it did so) is a massive feature in responding to online threats. Depending on deployment size - the cost could be an issue for some smaller organizations.

Incentivized

• IPS detection.
• DoS detection.
• Packet logging.

Incentivized

• File protection and Recovery
• Blocks exploits to deny attackers
• Malware Detection

Incentivized

• At times can be unstable with Cisco bugs, require frequent upgrading.
• FTD images that are being pushed for ASAs are less efficient from an administration standpoint, no CLI.

Incentivized

• Takes time to deploy and keep updated
• Resource heavy application when running

Incentivized

For our organization, the Cisco defense in depth concept works the best. While Cisco can be made to work with other vendors, we have found the best in depth protection by integrating Cisco products for maximum visibility. We had a Barracuda Web Filter, but it was difficult to maintain when you had limited scope on what you could block, so we created a whitelist only setup which required a lot of additional manpower. This wouldn't have covered new threats with DNS spoofing and the like. Sourcefire also integrated with our anti-malware platform (Cisco AMP) for even better visibility on what may be happening on the end users workstation. We are planning on adding in Cisco ISE to complete the approach and possibly stealthwatch to cover our bases in the future. The Palo Alto gear was interesting, but it was priced far out of our range.

Incentivized

Does a great job protecting our systems. Email security has more features and easy to manage. You don't have to have your own server to run the endpoint security. Auto updates the endpoint and servers. With a Managed detect response team that does human threat hunting. Overall an awesome product.

Incentivized

• Being open source, ROI on free is hard to beat for something that works.
• I believe it greatly enhances the security of my network.

• It has protected us from a ransomware attack.
• Centralized management has saved us time.
• It takes more time to install than others.

Incentivized