AlienVault USM Implementation Review
Updated January 02, 2018
AlienVault USM Implementation Review
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with AlienVault USM
We use AlienVault USM to monitor our data center, network traffic, and key workstations. Our goal is to protect the systems from loss of PII, from malware, and from intrusion.
- Alerts are emailed to us for many types of configurable concerns. Such as intrusion attempts.
- Network traffic can be monitored for PII that may be transferred across the network or off-site that is not authorized or that is sent unencrypted properly.
- Key systems can be monitored for malware, intrusions, and network traffic.
- The menu structure could be broken down by categories that make it easier to locate sub-menus.
Various Open Source solutions
Tenable Security Center
Tenable Security Center
Using AlienVault USM
2 - Data Center Operations personnel. Systems Engineer and Systems Administrator Team.
2 - Data Center Operations personnel.
Systems Engineer and Systems Administrator Team.
Systems Engineer and Systems Administrator Team.
- IDS
- Malware
- FERPA Compliance
- Monitor PII
- IPS
- Ransomware
- We have been able to use Custom Written plugins to monitor our off-brand switches and routers.
- Watch for PII being send across the network or off-site in an unencrypted format.
- Identify scans on the network from on and off-site in order to proactively block them at the firewall's.
- Monitor critical systems, servers, an applications up-time.
Evaluating AlienVault USM and Competitors
Yes - Open Source Solutions - We had tried various open source solutions such as snort and others. We found them difficult to set up. And even more difficult to cipher through the data they produced. We also used a couple of various inexpensive commercial tools to help out. They did not really do they type of monitoring that we needed. With those at least we would get alerts, but now real IDS alerts. We had to do a bit of customization to get information out of them that we wanted. Of course that was very time consuming and we had to manually create what we needed. The Open Source solutions were also very time consuming and really needed a staff person dedicated to just that. With AlienVault it does all the work for us. After we have it tweaked we can mostly just wait for it to tell us a problem is occurring - other than we do log in just to check on things and watch traffic in real-time if we just want to keep an eye on a particular.
- Price
- Product Features
- Product Usability
- Product Reputation
- Positive Sales Experience with the Vendor
The Demo presented by AlienVault was excellent.
As well as their online product videos.
Along with many positive articles online about AV USMs features.
As well as their online product videos.
Along with many positive articles online about AV USMs features.
The eval and selection went well and as we had hoped.
AlienVault USM Implementation
- Implemented in-house
- Professional services company
In house implemented with support from Terra Verde remotely and they were a great resource.
Yes - Hardware setup, AV USM setup, Network config, End Stations Config, Custom Configs
Change management was minimal - n/a
- no significant issues were encountered
AlienVault USM Support
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Quick Resolution Good followup Knowledgeable team Problems get solved Kept well informed No escalation required Immediate help available Support understands my problem Support cares about my success Quick Initial Response | None |
Not Available - Security is our priority.
No - no
Follow up is absolutely amazing.
Using AlienVault USM
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using Familiar | None |
- Monitoring of Alarms
- Looking at the logs of monitored systems.
- Install and Setup up of Agents on servers.
- Plugins are a bit difficult - but just something that needs to be learned.
- Some directives setup can be a bit difficult to do the first time - But, it just requires a little hands on practice.