Forcepoint Web Security Reviews

I feel that this is one of the better options out there that offers more flexibility than some of their competitors. This solution can be used if you are looking to offer a singular filtration for all systems or it can be configured to offer a variety of filtering options depending upon groups and user's rights and needs. I am not sure of a scenario where this would be less appropriate.

Forcepoint Web Security does a great job filtering websites and an OK job with SSL inspection. I don't think that the SSL inspection issue is necessarily on Forcepoint but more on other websites that are not fans of the SSL inspection certificate that Forcepoint uses.

We generally like Forcepoint, but whitelisting of BioMed devices and frequent inexplicable (no actual Forcepoint block page) blockages of traffic prevent the ability to completely understand the security risks presented by each case. We can't tell what the BioMed device is actually doing once it's whitelisted so it could be going to malicious sites but our whitelisting makes it impossible to tell. Some sites appear to be unsuccessful at loading and there's no explanation as to why. They show up as approved in Forcepoint but FP support isn't terribly useful in suggesting other options that could be causing similar results—all they provide is "our product is operating as designed".

In my organization, we use Forcepoint Web Security primarily to control internet browsing per BU specific requirements as well as across the company as a whole. I think the Forcepoint excels in making sure that the specific browsing policies are enforced. It also does a good job of making sure that users don't stumble across websites that might contain malicious content. There is definitely some room for improvement, but overall it does a good job.

This product is useful when you have to control access to various categories, websites, or restrict various users while allowing others. It is very scalable.
This product is not as useful in more open environments where the web is generally considered 'open' by the staff, or in closed, very secure environments where the internet isn't available.

It is very appropriate when dealing with sites such as Office365 as you don't have to "open" any related sites which are many. You don't have to do any configuration for access to Office365 sites/applications. It is appropriate for scenarios where an organisation has users with different needs in terms of Internet access e.g PR users having access to social media sites and other departments not having access, Technical divisions having access to YouTube and other streaming sites while other departments do not. It is very appropriate in terms of reporting Internet use in the organisation and proper action taken to "bandwidth vampires" which affect the productivity of other users. It is good at reporting as it can keep data for a long time depending how long it is kept (for us it is 3 years) and can be used during IT audits

We deployed it across the entire company. We are using just the Web Security Gateway portion of the product at this point. We use a 95% virtualized workstation environment (VDI). We were able to add the agent to all of our VDI clients before resynchronizing them and we used GPO to push out the agents to our physical devices. We are leveraging the cloud based system and it is working very well for us.
Our previous solution would not allow us to download at speeds greater than 1Mbps and ForcePoint allows us to leverage our full bandwidth.
It allows us to monitor and block web pages as necessary. We now only need to block on content and productivity since Forcepoint always scans the content. This is a specific distinction because many people block webpages due to risk and with Forcepoint, we don't have to worry about risk. We can focus on productivity factor of the websites instead.
Due to the flexibility of the product, I cannot imagine the product not being able to handle any scenario.

Forcepoint Web Security is the perfect option to monitor all inbound traffic and prevent malicious/phishing activity.

I don't really have any particulars to share.

In an organization of my size, it's good that you don't have to manage it often. But with a lot of turn over it is not as user-friendly as some other systems.

Overall, it is a good product and runs without much intervention after the initial setup and configuration. If you intend to block https sites, this product is not for you.

Works well for computers connecting through a fixed IP address. The endpoint client has been problematic (see response to previous question).

The cloud variant of Forcepoint Web Security can help you protect your end users and devices from malicious web content no matter where they are in a simplified manner. The on-prem variant can do this as well, but additional environment configuration is required. This product shouldn't replace endpoint protection as it doesn't take USB sticks or local files into account.

Forcepoint Web Security is well suited for diverse environments. It has a load of capabilities. It works well in both inline and explicit proxy situations. There are many authentication methods that give you many deployment options as well. Either used as a traditional Windows server, Linux install or appliance, you can really choose any form you like. The only scenario I can think of where it would not be appropriate would be one where the product was overkill for the organization. I'd say maybe a very small office setting.

While we had some challenges implementing, once it was in place it's been largely a "set it and forget it" product. As an understaffed organization that is quite valuable. One challenge we constantly run into is issues with collaborative sites (Webex, Educational streams, etc). Unblocking those is a constant struggle.

Forcepoint Web Security is well suited for a smaller organization that needs easy management of web URL filtering. It allows IT to quickly discover inadvertently blocked sites and correct. It does appear to have some reporting functionality but as we are not using it, I can't say for sure. I would say that it appears it could use a more robust set of reporting tools.

Forcepoint Web Security is well suited for environments where admins need to control users' access to websites, and to also keep track of loss of data, such as if documents or information containing PII isare being sent out of the company.

Forcepoint Web Security may be less appropriate in very small environments--less than 1,000 users--or where there might not be an admin to maintain the system frequently.

Forcepoint works very well onsite; we've had great protection for our onsite users.
When Users are traveling, we do get protection from the hybrid client, but it has caused several issues preventing all web access in certain scenarios, While there are a couple of ways to implement the hybrid client, none work perfectly.

I have used Bluecoat prior to Forcepoint Web Security. Bluecoat has a very easily manageable console and rich features. But it costs many times over Forcepoint. Forcepoint is suitable for a medium-size company with its reasonable cost and software application without the requirement of a hardware appliance. It provides a dependable gateway security web protection against social engineering websites.

Great enterprise tool, uses existing directories for user, group, and IP-based custom permissions against common site category groupings for policies. The exceptions allow date expiration, which helps keep exceptions limited instead of going into perpetuity. It uses Microsoft technologies, which helps make it manageable within the skillsets of SQL and Windows administrators.

Good for high-level Internet filtering, because it is URL-only-based, but not very granular as far as functionality (i.e., distinguishing between file uploads and downloads for online storage sites). Also, Forcepoint Web Security is not able to handle Office 365 traffic efficiently (the recommendation is to completely bypass all 100+ Office 365 sites completely, leaving us with no visibility.)

Forcepoint is well suited for the specific tasks that it performs, e.g. web and content filtering as well as web security. We are evaluating the other aspects of the Forcepoint toolsets to see how they enhance our portfolio. It is appropriate for all of our current scenarios.

Forcepoint Web Security does a very good job of filtering traffic and blocked malicious websites. We are able to investigate alarms from our SIEM to see the actual sites that a user visited that made a call out to command and control the server and act accordingly. Forcepoint Web Security also has the capability to whitelist or blacklist websites as well.

Forcepoint does well in filtering and DLP scenarios, however, the interface is frequently difficult to work with. There have been some improvements made the last few years under the 8.x codebase but having recently reviewed some demos with competing products, such as Cisco's Umbrella, there is still a VERY long way to go. Detailed reporting on files is non-existent, and some detailed web reports are very difficult to read or navigate through.

ForcePoint would be a much better solution if the product did not encounter so many glitches and if support were able to resolve issues more timely.