Kaspersky Endpoint Security vs. Malwarebytes vs. Sophos Intercept X

I think Kaspersky is well suited for large and small companies. Larger companies can take advantage of the KSC (Kaspersky Security Center) servers to help manage a large network. The KSC has many good features to help monitor the health of the organization. It does a good job with updating and deploying remotely. It has inventory features, and can even deploy non-Kaspersky software packages uploaded to the center. KSC can become a source of good information about [your] network that can be seen at a glance. IT departments are normally smaller than they need to be. KSC helps with larger and smaller companies because of this. A small company would appreciate the amount of information and management that can be done through KSC without needing extra help. If the company is small enough that they don't have servers on-site, there is a cloud version. I have not used that to know how it differs from the local KSC.

Incentivized

Now, I gave it that rating because it's a handy tool for diagnosing issues. Quarantining them, and most of the time, it does fix the problem. Though with rootkits, it's been hit or miss, and sometimes perfectly valid software gets flagged erroneously. However, once you've run it, it tends to run continuously, consuming far too many resources and being a real pain to uninstall, sometimes even causing issues.

Incentivized

To be frank, this product is fairly expensive. So I would recommend this to companies that are mid-sized or larger to condone the cost of the purchase. It does save me a significant amount of time in my day - being able to glance at the dashboard and see if there are any outstanding issues that require my attention, as not much digging must be done to accomplish this. So for our company, with a short-staffed IT department, it's incredibly helpful to us. We also qualify for Educational pricing which brings the cost down - which helps tremendously

Incentivized

• The Security Center is laid out very well and makes it easy to install and manage the client endpoint protection on servers and workstations.
• The way security policies are defined and managed is very easy to understand.
• The client programs seem to be lighter and smaller on the client systems than others I have used in the past. Using fewer resources is always an advantage.

Incentivized

• Low system resources, it does not slow down the whole computer when scanning or when real-time protection is enabled
• Quick and frequent updates, usually people hate updating, but for malware/viruses, you want to be updated as possible. It takes less than 15 seconds and usually does it automatically. They usually send a few updates a day as they find more.
• Protection features actually work when visiting known bad websites. The page will be blocked and nothing will be downloaded. It may not be what the user wants, but it's what the user needs (as the user can't know every bad website)

Incentivized

• Sophos Intercept X is great at preventing malware infections and rolling back their effects. I have seen this happen hundreds of times since we installed it
• When combined with Sophos Central, you have an easy to use dashboard where you can manage all installations from a single pane of glass.
• It's easy to deploy on machines and stays updated.
• Good reporting features including alerts sent to the admin if there's ever something wrong with it.

Incentivized

• The PC imaging tools are difficult to set up and use
• Device Encryption tools are getting better, but are difficult to manage.
• The policies are powerful, but could be broken up. More help can be provided in what the policy element does within the policy setup

Incentivized

• One of the main things that malwarebytes is missing as a company, is phone support for its clients. All support questions has to go thru email only. This is not acceptable for issues that needs to be resolved quickly.
• There is an issue when installing the client on a machine, it has a set amount of time where the software can register with the management server. The issue with this is, with machines that are over a wide area network, slow connection speeds can cause the software not to register. When that happens, it never re attempts to register in the future.

Incentivized

• Sophos OOTB policies are very strict and they don't offer anything less strict without you creating new custom policies. I'm sure this is deliberate because the product starts you out in the safest way possible but it means that you will have lots of calls to your tech support desk when you first deploy it unless you do somewhat extensive testing beforehand.
• Sophos Intercept X is currently broken (at least the DLP component) by having secure boot turned on in the UEFI/BIOS. If any user wants to be able to write data to a USB drive or floppy from their PC (yes we still have a couple users who need to use floppies) we have to turn off secure boot on their PC, even if the DLP policy for that user/PC combination specifies that the user and PC are allowed to write to USB/floppy. This would be a very serious problem if it weren't for the fact that we have very few users who need to write files to USB. For us it's OK but I bet it would be a deal-breaker for others.
• I don't see a whole lot of evidence that Intercept X is any different than any other anti-virus, so maybe their admin alerts just don't clearly identify when they have identified a zero-day threat or maybe we just haven't had any zero-day threats.

Incentivized

The product is stable and accurate in detecting security threats. There are very few or no false positives in detecting security threats or unusual behavior and has very sharp heuristics. The product does the job very well including saving us money in getting 3rd party patch management tools as the business is already using Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager which is Microsoft product specific and the product patches these third party products e.g Adobe Flash Player

Incentivized

The last time we renewed Malwarebytes, we renewed for a 3 year renewal. That should describe the confidence we have in the product. Plus the cost savings impact year after year.

Incentivized

We have gotten a great product for the price. Easy to maintain and set up on new devices. Support is great and easy to work with and understand.

Incentivized

I will give Kaspersky a score of 9 out of 10 for scalability, as it allows businesses to easily expand their security infrastructure. This means it won't cost them a lot to add further protection and security. It won't also require them to purchase other hardware and services for their required protection.

Usability-wise, it's pretty good, and it gets the job done. But once that's finished, the nags, the pop-ups, and the fact that it slows older systems down recklessly really cost it rating points. It becomes a clutter, and one of the first things we check when we receive reports that a PC is slow is whether it's running malware. Once we uninstall it, the PC is usually easily 40-50% faster. That's too much in the way of resources for something that wants to always run in the background.

Incentivized

The usability has never been a problem. Sophos Intercept X is a program you can install and let protect your company without much intervention. Apart from a few policies, Sophos will keep you protected better than most any product on the market. Sophos Intercept X works quite well when you are looking to "tighten your grip" on user's access to websites, programs, and add-ons.

I've used the on-premise server. I've only experienced one time that we couldn't open the console, and that was a server issue. It seems to be a dependable solution. It's there, and it's stable.

Incentivized

Users don't notice any slowdown with the antivirus running on their systems. There have been issues when the systems have missed a scheduled scan, and it was checked to run at [a] first available time, they will start a full scan at startup. This has caused some lag. Normally there are also some issues with the workstation, but it is something to note.

Incentivized

I give the maximum grade because we have no complaints; we never had any failure, serious error, and serious threat to the company. All of its features work very well. The great advantage of having a product supported by an industry-leading security company is that regularly updated security protocols will protect the system against all emerging threats.

Incentivized

The Malwarebytes customer support team is awesome! They really go above and beyond to help you with whatever issue you may experience. It is not that we need to contact their support team often, but the few times we did, we would speak to someone who knew what they were talking about and able to solve our problem. It is a comfort knowing that aside from a great product, you are getting a reliable support structure.

Incentivized

Most of the support reps are fantastic. There have been a few though that have had to be escalated via Account Manager when they haven't followed up but this is a rare instance, and often followed up by the Support Manager for APAC.

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Make sure to provide awareness campaigns on changes that will be implemented and WHY the business is doing it and the benefits reaped. Benefits reaped is very important for the justification of why things have to change and emphasizing the importance of security. This will reduce user disgruntlement and total bitterness on use of their workstation or laptop

Incentivized

Best thing was the help pushing out via group policy and was able to get instructions for that on sophos site

Incentivized

Kaspersky is a leader in endpoint protection, but its ties to potential adversaries are unsettling. Kaspersky has a great threat research team and quickly identifies malicious software and its signature. Its web-based protection is also top notch. This is a great product but as with everything has its place.

Incentivized

Avast and Norton's products were part of the testing for us but the cost was very high for them and the products were not light on the machine. They took up a lot of memory and slowed the computers down. Malwarebytes although may lack some feature, is a very light software.

Incentivized

Webroot Endpoint Protection is not even in the same league as Sophos Intercept-X. I have tested and compared both sides by side, run simulations and it's not even close. Plus the Sophos central management is so much better. Easier to view user activities and apply policies and remediate threats. Sophos is the clear winner between these two products.

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You can create groups and create different policies for each group. You can customize many parts of the software before it is deployed. You can create different tasks and schedules based on the groups. It is customizable.

Incentivized

• It reduced the incidents of infections and so reduced the efforts needed by the IT department to mitigate problems.
• It made it difficult to manage the security of our growing mobile user base due to infrequent contact with our on-premise management server.

Incentivized

• Positive Impact: Have not had to remediate malware/virus infections since installed.
• Positive impact: As far as browsing goes, we can boldly go where no man has gone before. No, really, I am confident when I am clicking on search engine results that if something get past my trained eye, Malwarebytes will pick of the slack.

Incentivized

• Once our technical and commercial areas got certified, the ROI over the time spent, is great. Actual customers, and/or new ones with other tools, feel safe and advised, once they get in touch with us.
• When Sophos EndPoint is being compared against Web Management Tools (competitors), we have failed to deliver, nevertheless, there is a version of Sophos Central (Cloud) which achieves this requirement at 100% and more, since is Cloud Based (on AWS).
• We are grateful to be on Sophos "Radar" as a Platinum Partner, and "The Americas" valued partner, we have seen our business grow, thanks to this kind of technology, throughout the years.

Incentivized