Why I didn't pick Darktrace
Rating: 2 out of 10
January 12, 2018
MF
Vetted Review
Verified User
Brought it in to act as an intelligence gatherer for network traffic - specifically to look for anomalies and help identify potential threats and suspicious activity. I installed it at the network core, so it was able to view all traffic (well, mostly all traffic - we had a few issues with some of the VLANs and my switches are configured for fault tolerance, which it also had an issue with) moving from inside to outside.
- It did an ok job of analyzing and collecting data. It used a span (mirrored) port and then using its own algorithm developed flow records.
- It did an ok job of segmenting traffic into networks - not always correctly, but ok.
- It tried to identify devices by type - once again, it did ok, but not that great.
Cons
- Really had a poor time of identifying devices and what the device's purpose was - a simple nmap scan did a better job. The problem is they expect you to fine-tune the results - which is exactly what you would expect - but day one it found over 2,000 servers (and I only have 112).
- Really had a hard time separating network traffic into locations - I use distinct subnets for my buildings, but there was no good way to create a logical map of my traffic internally. Did not garner a sense of trust that it was seeing everything.
- Sat through a few "analyst" reports - which showed me possible threats in my environment. I am already using a few open source tools, and they actually found more than the analyst reports. Also, there was no way to get the reports on your own - you had to work through their analysts to get the information.
- None - we chose not to move forward. The price of the product did not warrant the investment.
We did NOT select Darktrace. OSSIM/AlienVault is a more mature product and it provided better intelligence and reporting. The end user interface is much easier to use - and you can tell built form engineers who have had to do the work. My suggestion for anyone considering Darktrace, is to get the price upfront; do a 30/60 onsite trail; and do the same thing, at the same time, with AlienVault. AlientVault will win every time. I say that because that's exactly what I did.