McAfee Total Protection (discontinued) vs. Varonis Data Security Platform

I think McAfee is great to have whether it's for work or for personal use. While it has some drawbacks, I like the peace of mind of feeling safe when I'm browsing the web/email, especially when my computer has sensitive/confidential information, knowing that McAfee will immediately detect any threats. The UI is extremely easy to navigate, which makes it easy for users regardless of how tech-savvy they are.

Incentivized

The most highlighted feature of Varonis Data Security Platform is the data analyzing mechanism. It analyzes your data all the time with some special algorithms to detect any unusual activities so that it can identify any unusual behavior or users and
take necessary action to save your sensitive data. They also offer a complete dashboard solution for their customers to control across different data stores, see their current state, and any security breaches to be addressed manually.

Incentivized

• Excellent protection of all internet connected assets on our VPN.
• Constant updates of needed security patches that ensure our network and systems are protected from current and emerging/potential threats.
• Prompt and reliable customer service that provides needed answers and expertise in a crisis.
• Strategic whitepapers on emerging cyber threats and McAfee solutions to resolve them before they become a problem for my team or our clients.

Incentivized

• Varonis logging is very robust and captures all audit events being sent from the file servers.
• The ability to report and alert on Active Directory account events works very well with file activity monitoring. It can show the complete picture of what an account did while being used.
• Have a customizable dashboard is great for being able to show upper management information that only pertains to them.

• Price - Extremely high price tag for many of the solutions.

Incentivized

• Implementation can be challenging in some areas and can only be executed by the vendor
• Implementation can only be executed by the vendor and additional work can be chargeable
• Licensing can be improved upon
• Agent based so implementation can be longer than expected

Incentivized

McAfee has consistently delivered on its stated goals of providing comprehensive protection for our networks and systems. Due to their excellent work and follow through I have been, and will continue to be a loyal customer.

Incentivized

Because the tool delivers on its promises and forces us to explore each functionality. Using the tool leads us to seek more knowledge and apply it to our environment, mitigating risks, reducing the attack surface, increasing the team's technical knowledge, and boosting team growth. It also demonstrates to senior management that the tool is extremely necessary for the environment.

Support has always been very responsive and addressed any issues we may have had in the past. Some local engineers are willing to come onsite or work over a web session to discuss creating a new rule set or look at some issues. Getting issues address has never been a problem. There was one feature we had trouble getting to function correctly, but support and local engineers were willing to work with us as much as needed to get it working correctly for our organization.

Incentivized

I haven't used Norton for a while, but when I did use it I felt that it slowed down my computer and had constant pop-ups, which were both equally frustrating and annoying. It was also very difficult to remove from my computer. Malwarebytes is a great, straightforward program I've used for virus scanning. It's pretty bare bones but I think if you just want something to scan for viruses it gets the job done quickly and reliably. In my opinion McAfee offers similar benefits as Norton but its more intuitive and doesn't impact system performance.

Incentivized

Actually, we didn't expend much time evaluating other file auditing platforms. We chose Varonis just after a serious incident and we had already heard about Varonis at a Netapp event. So it was an easy choice. We called Varonis and asked them for a PoC, that's it. The PoC became a production and it is running until this day.

Incentivized

• Blocks unsafe websites
• Virus detection and removal
• Protects sensitive data

Incentivized

• We have identified data classifications issues that our organization was not aware of prior to the implementation.
• The tool does take a dedicated resource for it to be effective.
• Varonis has improved the speed with which we can fulfill audit requests, leaving us more time for other tasks.

Incentivized