Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps Reviews & Insights

Score7.7 out of 10

37 Reviews and Ratings

Community insights

TrustRadius Insights for Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.

Pros

Insightful User Actions Tracking: Users have appreciated the detailed insights provided into user actions and connections, aiding in managing shadow IT, identifying suspicious activities, and offering strong protection for sensitive cloud information.

Efficient Automation Features: Reviewers have praised the tool for its easy automation capabilities, helping with tasks like implementing policies and templates for app control, investigating threats, receiving alerts on suspicious behaviors, and assessing security posture of internal domain controllers seamlessly.

Strong Security Measures: Customers have highlighted the product's robust security features such as automatic checks for integrations, detailed threat severity distinctions, compatibility with Microsoft tools and Azure, as well as effective filters to enhance data protection.

Reviews

12 Reviews

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps a viable CASB solution

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

February 12, 2026

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

In my organization we use Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps as a CASB and also to investigate security events. As a CASB we use it primarily to detect Shadow IT, over permissive applications, risky application and blocked content from being downloaded onto non-managed corporate devices. The integration to Microsoft Entra ID is seamless which allows Conditional Access to redirect session to Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps for it to take actions (Block or Monitor).

Pros

The integration to Microsoft Entra ID is seamless, which allows Conditional Access to redirect the session to Microsoft Defender for Cloud App for it to take actions (Block or Monitor).
Tracker users' activity is very good when troubleshooting or running an investigate.
Detecting risky users through tight integration with Microsoft Entra ID is a very good feature.
Detecting mass downloads and blocking the download of files from non-manage company devices is a very good feature as well.

Cons

Sometimes the activity data takes a while to be presented in the portal. Updating this data fasting would add immensely to the performance of this tool.
Ingesting logs from some firewalls do not work particularly well.
I don't like that when you implement blocking or monitoring of websites the message is not very customizable.

Likelihood to Recommend

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is well suited when working with other Microsoft Applications. For example, if you are working with Microsoft Office 365 it works very well when implementing CASB features. It works when implementing monitoring or blocks on Sanctioned applications however customizing the message to users is not that great.

Verified User

Contributor in Information Technology (5001-10,000 employees)

Vetted Review

5 years of experience

Great product for E5 customers

Rating: 7 out of 10

Incentivized

January 13, 2025

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We utilize Microsoft Defender for Cloud apps for several functions including web filtering, SaaS app management and control, and Data Loss Prevention. The cloud inventory works well and provides a simple interface with all of the discovered SaaS apps accessed by the organization. By utilizing the sanctioned and unsanctioned tags, we are able to control the SaaS apps by blocking outright or allowing with controls and monitoring. For DLP, we utilize the alerting to report on suspicious or unusual file transfers.

Pros

SaaS application discovery
Detection alerts
Integration with other Microsoft Defender products to enhance the capabilities.

Cons

Integrate better with Purview for DLP rules
Onboard more supported applications with fine grained controls.
Provide more reporting aside from shadow it report

Likelihood to Recommend

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is part of the E5 license suite. For organizations that have the E5 license in place, I would recommend using Defender for Cloud Apps as it provides a good level of functionality and the cost is already covered in the E5 license.

If an organization does not have the E5 license, I would suggest looking at alternative solutions like Zscaler or Netskope.

Overall, Defender for Cloud Apps is a decent product but does not provide as many features as their competitors. The real advantage to using it is when an environment has the E5 license and is utilizing all of the other Microsoft security products that are part of the license. They integrate extremely well and provide a high level of security.

Verified User

Director in Information Technology (51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

4 years of experience

Great visibility for the Microsoft 365 stack.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Incentivized

May 31, 2022

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps to gain visibility over user actions inside of our environment, as well as assessing the connections they make with third party services. We also use Defender for Cloud Apps to gain limited DLP visibility, as well as understanding data exfiltration to third party applications.

Pros

Insight into user actions
Insight into user connections
Cloud file scanning

Cons

Easier to understand UI
Further clarity into user search
Better third party cloud connections

Likelihood to Recommend

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps should be used and considered if you are within the Microsoft stack, especially using E3 or E5 licenses. While I would not wholly recommend this as a full cloud protection suite, this works perfectly within the stack and relevant SaaS apps. Provides much better visibility into users than most third party tools, given that this is a Microsoft built tool meant to bring in data from primarily Microsoft services.

Verified User

Director in Information Technology (501-1000 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

Excellent defender to our Cloud Apps

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

January 5, 2022

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

The entire organization depends on Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps to protect all our Cloud Apps that we normally use and helps to identify those Apps our employees are using which are risky and does not comply to our organizational needs, in order to keep our organizations Cloud assets secure from external attacks and shield us from internal accidents with excellent reporting capabilities.

Pros

Helps to discover and manage shadow IT.
Suspicious activity identification.
Perfect protections to sensitive Cloud information.

Cons

In the event of Cloud traffic it is not easy to monitor and identify attacks.
Difficult to protect unmatched Cloud devices.

Likelihood to Recommend

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is best suited to organizations using multiple Cloud SaaS and in situations where risky Apps are being used by employees which are not compliant to organizations needs and [it] helps secure sensitive information from external attacks. [It] also shields them from internal accidents and helps organizations with a secure environment when moving information to the Cloud.

Daisy Cooper

Restaurant Manager in Finance and Accounting at Hilton (10,001+ employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

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Security Review of MCAS

Rating: 7 out of 10

Incentivized

December 8, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Microsoft Cloud App Security to protect against data breaches or data theft. Currently, we use it to protect data within Office 365. We have a lot of documents and files within OneDrive, Work, Sharepoint, and other O353 tools. The problem we were facing [was] team members [used] their personal machines to download data and remove it as part of their separation from the company. MCAS was able to help us detect and alert on such occurrences

Pros

Integrates with Microsoft Products
Has a fair share of popular SasS connectors
Is constantly releasing new connectors for new SaaS platforms

Cons

They need more Saas integrations
Some of the integrations are lacking data or feeds that are needed

Likelihood to Recommend

Currently, we have an Enterprise license with Microsoft so MCAS is included. For a tool that is "free" to us, it works well. This compares to a tool that we would have to purchase and then put in a lot of time to configure. For us, there is a cost savings component that makes this worthwhile use.

Verified User

Manager in Corporate (10,001+ employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

Unparalleled insights that help you improve your cloud security posture with Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

November 26, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Our organization started to expand further with more people joining and diverse types of devices being used, as the world shifted due to the pandemic, and with employees need to use their own personal devices for work, we relied heavily on Microsoft Cloud App Security (Now Called Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps), we were concerned with app security, what type of apps are people using? are these apps secure? are these apps compromising the device security? should this app be trusted? are there any invalid attempts by this app? all these questions were answered with Cloud App Security. Not only that, the visibility provided by the Cloud App Security connector for internal network authentications and activity were invaluable to our secure operations, the out of the box recommendations for our overall security posture helped us optimize/fine-tune the configuration of our network devices and domain controllers, the product works really well!

Pros

Application Usage Monitoring
Security Posture of Internal Domain Controllers
Policies and Templates to control apps
Threat investigation and remedy
Alerts and Notifications on suspectious app behaviors

Cons

Refining Search and Drill Down in the Management Portal
Better Filtering UI, Locating Right Events/Activities is Relatively Difficult
More Policy Templates to Cover Wider Scenarios
Better Guidelines on How to Rectify a Problem/Security Issue

Likelihood to Recommend

Overall, I think that every organization with Windows-based devices need Cloud App Security, especially in these times, CAS is very useful for such organizations, it would give you very detailed and comprehensive insights on your overall app security posture, types of apps, sensitivity, whether there are recent breaches for a specific app, etc... Cloud app security becomes less useful if most of your users are macOS based users, although it can detect apps regardless of the OS, some features are tailored around windows networks that cloud security does a great job at, nonetheless, in both scenarios, CAS still provides value and great insights that are truly invaluable.

Verified User

C-Level Executive in Information Technology (201-500 employees)

Vetted Review

Reseller

4 years of experience

Good for storage

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

November 25, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

The Microsoft Cloud App Security is used in my organization to store documentation and forward documentation between staff and clients. The App allows us to take documents off our servers and easily transfer and edit them between staff and clients. My team routinely stores documents on the cloud and can easily organize and access them.

Pros

Organization
Communication
Storage

Cons

Features
Details
Graphics

Likelihood to Recommend

Microsoft Cloud App Security is well suited for companies that create and store documents to share between staff or other clients and which to keep them organized. I would say it would be good to store a medium amount of trafficked files. Large files may be better suited for another program.

Cara Jay

Manager in Sales at Places for People (201-500 employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience

Microsoft Cloud App Security live up to Expectation

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

November 19, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We Use Microsoft Cloud App Security in our Microsoft Technology Department like Azure, Power apps, and .Net department. We use MCAS for threat detection vulnerable checkpoints in web applications, mobile apps, or servers. As it is mostly used in the Saas category. Mostly our clients want to switch to azure and apply MCAS for security purposes.

Pros

Security and Auto check for integrations
Detail distinguish according to severity of threats
Work well with Microsoft tools and Azure
filters are also good

Cons

Not smooth working with other cloud service provider like aws
sometimes not updated with latest threat or very late threat detection.
Can be more UI side attractive
Not a cheap price
slow with real time data

Likelihood to Recommend

It is well suited if your team is working with Microsoft tools and Azure services. but if you are using other cloud service providers and don't want to spend efforts in learning integration with third-party software then this is not a great fit for you. overall we are very satisfied with the product. If your corporation with Microsoft tools then I would recommend it.

Sneha Sharma

Assistant System Engineer in Information Technology at Tata Consultancy Services (10,001+ employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

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A good value when bundled with Defender, but lacking overall

Rating: 5 out of 10

Incentivized

November 18, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We utilize Microsoft Cloud App Security (MCAS) in conjunction with the Defender ATP and Office ATP suite to protect our environment. We utilize it globally for all users to provide insight into cloud activities and abnormalities or user activity as well as to provide insight around in-use cloud applications.

Pros

Easy automation
straight forward dashboard
integration with other Microsoft security tools

Cons

Massive delays between the time an activity occurs and when MCAS alerts, up to 24 hours sometimes
Many false negatives due to the way it tracks IP addresses and things like impossible travel
Some of the default alerts dont trigger emails or dont even support email

Likelihood to Recommend

It's great because it's included with other Microsoft tools like Defender, but it's not worth it on its own. It lacks the speed of alerting, and in the world of security 24 hours for an alert to trigger is simply not acceptable. There is some very nice built-in automation around cloud apps with low scores and the ability to outright block these that is really nice.

Brian Coyne

Senior Microsoft Engineer in Information Technology at MTD Products (1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

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Microsoft Cloud App Security is effective and price worthy with great features for data protection & threat detection in SaaS!! Kudos to Microsoft for Bringing a great feature in Azure

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

November 18, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Provides visibility into the access of apps and data.
Monitors users’ activities.
Classifies and protects sensitive information.
Ensures compliance.

Pros

Detect threats based on user activity logs.
Set manual and automatic alert remediation.
Implement activity policies.
Detect threats based on user activity logs.

Cons

It takes some time to scan and apply the policies when there is some sensitive information.
After it applies the policies, it works, but there is a delay.
It doesn't provide any way to scan Microsoft Teams when an external exchange of images is happening. You can always do the filtering on the documents during the chat, but if there is an image, then some kind of OCR capability is required to detect it. At present, there is no way [Microsoft Cloud App Security] can go and detect those kinds of images and alert us

Likelihood to Recommend

The feature that helps us in detecting the sensitive information being shared has been very useful. In addition, the feature that allows [Microsoft Cloud App Security] to apply policies with SharePoint, Teams, and OneDrive is being used predominantly. It is a kind of unified solution. As compared to other solutions such as Netskope, Symantec, or McAfee, it provides a more unified reporting structure. It also integrates with other technologies. We have Azure Information Protection, and it goes well with the solutions that we are already using.

Sai karthik Satyavarapu

Senior Technical Specialist in Information Technology at HCL Software (5001-10,000 employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience

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