Defender XDR our go to choice to secure Microsoft ecosystem
December 23, 2025
Defender XDR our go to choice to secure Microsoft ecosystem
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Microsoft Defender XDR
Our organization utilizes Microsoft Defender XDR to enhance security of our cloud and onpremises environments. The product secures our endpoints, identeties, productivity products like Exchange, Teams and Sharepoint and also other cloud applications. Product is one of the most important layers of security for out IT team. The product is deployed on all of our several hundred endoints and it secure several thousand identities.
Pros
- Unified visibility in one tool
- Automated attack distribution
- Threat intelligence
Cons
- For non-Windows devices features are more limited and would need some work
- Sometimes there is alert noise
- UI is somewhat complex as the products scope is large
- Defender has improved our response times against security threats
- Defender has improved our insights to our enviroment and allowed us to proactively improve our security posture
- Automatic response to threats has made our enviroment more secure
We were limited in our understanding of our enviroments threats, be it endpoints, identities or apps. We didn't have sufficient tools to find vulrenabilities, misconfigured settings etc. When security incidents took place, ivestigations took time and were mostly manually done, trying to figure out disconnected pieces of puzzle. Response time was quite long. All this took time resources away from other tasks aimed at improving users productivity.
When Defender notices a threat, in our environment it will automatically respond by disrupting the attack. Defender will even "self heal" after the incident has been dealt with. IT admins will now know more about the incidents and don't need to solve the whole puzzle. We have also gained insight in our environments vulrenabilites and tools to mitigate them.
We use automated response for all endpoints, identies, mail and apps. Our experience has been mostly positive and it has given us tool to rapidly respond to attacks. We still do check high priority incidents and human is in the loop. Seldomly we have to reverse some automatic decisions made by the system, but this has not been major disruption so far.
We have configured Microsoft Defender XDR data to Microsoft Sentinel. It was quite easy to configure, but we still used consultant as this was part of our Sentinel onboarding project. Its cloud-native architecture eliminated infrastructure maintenance, while built-in connectors for Microsoft services made data ingestion straightforward, resulting in a smooth setup experience compared to our old onprem product.
Yes, absolutely. Onboarding to the unified SOC platform is a strategic priority. It consolidates our SIEM and XDR into a single interface, eliminating the need to switch between portals. This native integration streamlines investigations, enhances cross-domain data correlation, and significantly improves analyst efficiency and response times.
Symantec Endpoint Security (and some other products from same software family) was our main endpoint protection for endpoints before Microsoft Defender XDR. Comparison is not really fair as we transitioned to Defender quite while ago. Even so, modern XDR product is really a requirement for large organizations. Of particular note we don’t miss having several onprem servers just for managing endpoint security.
Do you think Microsoft Defender XDR delivers good value for the price?
Yes
Are you happy with Microsoft Defender XDR's feature set?
Yes
Did Microsoft Defender XDR live up to sales and marketing promises?
Yes
Did implementation of Microsoft Defender XDR go as expected?
Yes
Would you buy Microsoft Defender XDR again?
Yes
Using Microsoft Defender XDR
6 - From administrator point if view the product is daily used about half dozen administrators from our security team. Helpdesk users also have limited access to the system. We also do some reporting to management. In regards to end users that the system helps to protect, the number is several thousand.
6 - IT security team is the main user of Microsoft Defender XDR. Skills required include knowledge of endpoint security management, identities, querying and hunting (KQL-queries) and incident management. From soft skills point of view problem solving, analytical thinking and collaborative skills are beneficial. There is plenty of learning material available from Microsoft and third parties.
- Incident management
- Automated attack disruotion
- Proactive threat and vulrenability hunting
- AI has helped in forming KQL-queries
- As the products scope is vast it has helped breaking silos between IT teams
- Defender has through reporting helped secure investment in security from management
- Securing platforms outside Windows ecosystem
- Major source of knowledge for CSOC
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