AlgoSec Reviews

We use the solution for firewall management (with AFA - AlgoSec Firewall Analyzer) and application network visibility (with AppViz).  

We are running multiple firewalls and hundreds of users who request firewall connectivity.  

When it comes to a large organization with many vendors/partners, our firewalls are more easily managed using the AlgoSec AFA component.  The ease of use, visibility, compliance, and efficiency is unmatched in the industry. 

We have used AlgoSec AFA to have more visibility into the network and know what firewalls to activate. 

AlgoSec AFA has great search tools and firewall cleanup functionality. 

The Algsec AppViz is a newer Algosec element that we will use to improve application security and visibility in our complex network.

The firewall management tool and AppViz for application visibility and security in the network are great. 

The user-friendliness, visibility, compliance and efficiency are unparalleled in the industry. We have more visibility into the network and now we know what firewalls to activate. 

AlgoSec AFA has great search tools.

The firewall cleanup functionality is helpful. 

We also enjoyed the use of AlgoCare which speeds up the ticket troubleshooting process with AlgoSec Support.

I would say that the cases opened with AlgoSec could be solved faster or escalated sooner to the senior engineers/2nd or 3rd tier. AlgoSec Support is very good at responding very fast (faster than the required SLA) and very timely. Their engineers are based either in India or Israel. Each region has its sales person and technical engineer person.  

Another pet peeve is that there are hotfixes for new issues or bugs at least once a month, if not more frequently.  Overall, AlgoSec is trying to improve its case-resolution support team and process, and we are optimistic that our issues or bugs will be fixed much timelier.

We've used the solution for over three years.

It is a very stable product.

The solution is very scalable.

Customer service and support are very prompt, always complying with SLAs. However, the time to resolution can be improved.

We did not use a different solution previously.

The initial setup is very straightforward, and the online documentation and AlgoSec engineer support are more than adequate.

We set up the solution in-house.

I am not privy to the financial benefits or ROI for this product.

I am not privy to the cost of the product, as I am a Network Specialist.

The AlgoSec solution was selected before I joined the organization.

We use AlgoSec AFA (AlgoSec Firewall Analyzer). We use the solution to configure the firewall rules automatically. 

We have two data centers where we use Check Point and Palo Alto and about 30 percent of our operation is on AWS and about another 30 percent is on Azure.

Before AlgoSec, an analyst had to configure the rules one by one but now, when rules are needed, they are configured automatically.

Another benefit is that it has reduced the time it takes to implement firewall rules. That's why we bought it. We used to have two or three people just configuring rules and now we only have one. It has saved us two FTEs. I'm also completing requests faster. Before, I used to take three, four, or even five days to do one request, but now it's half a day or less.

It helps us maintain compliance very well because everything is automated, meaning that everything should be right. When there are humans doing things, there can be mistakes.

Another reason we chose AlgoSec was that it integrates well with multiple solutions. We have Check Point and Palo Alto, and it's better using AlgoSec to automate things.

Rule configuration is the most valuable feature.

It also provides very good visibility into the risk involved in firewall change requests and that is very important to us.

I've been using AlsoSec for about a year or a little bit more.

The stability of the solution is good. I never have problems with it.

Their tech support is okay.

Positive

This is our first automation solution. We went with AlgoSec after asking partners and other companies and everybody said, "Use AlgoSec."

Deploying it is easy. We spent some time on it because, in the beginning, we didn't have a lot of guys to work on AlgoSec. But when we designated one guy to do it, it took him about two weeks or three weeks.

It's worth the cost. But it's not just the cost. I'm faster than I was and that's what matters to me.

The pricing could be better.

We use AlgoSec Firewall Analyzer and AppViz. We have bought the FireFlow license, but we do not use it currently. We plan to use it, but we are not using it right now. 

Firewall Analyzer is helpful for network assurance and meeting some requirements of PCI DSS. 

We use it to manage only our on-prem environment. Our network environment is mostly on-prem. We do not use cloud networking. We have an internal cloud, which is hosted in the Netherlands, but it is like a private cloud.

It gives us a pretty good understanding of what's going on in our network in terms of network security policies. In terms of the overall visibility that it gives into our network security policies, I would rate it a nine out of 10.

For preparing for audits and ensuring that our firewalls are in compliance, Firewall Analyzer gives a great overview of what's going on with the firewalls in terms of rules, etc. It offers a great input for auditors or for reporting to auditors.

We use Firewall Analyzer in order to monitor the PCI DSS network area. It is helpful for meeting some requirements of PCI DSS.

We work with multiple security vendors. It works when it comes to integrating it with the leading vendors. We didn't have any problems integrating with the solutions of our top three vendors.

Firewall Analyzer and AppViz are the most important features because they provide a lot of information regarding network segmentation. For us, this is a valuable input in order to provide network segmentation for various applications that we have developed in-house or that we bought from vendors. Our network is not properly segmented right now, but we plan to do it using AlgoSec. This is the most important feature for us right now. We also plan to use FireFlow in order to automate the firewall change management.

The Firewall Analyzer module can be improved to implement a vulnerability management solution, or they can link Firewall Analyzer with a vulnerability management solution in order to get a better overview of what's going on in our network in terms of vulnerabilities.

We started implementing AlgoSec in April this year.

So far, so good. We didn't have any problems. It is pretty stable.

From what I've heard and what I've read on their portal, it is pretty scalable. There are no issues around this.

We have not opened any tickets on the portal. We have a dedicated support person who assists us in the deployment. They are pretty fast to react. If I ask them a question today, they will respond very quickly.

We didn't have a different solution.

It was pretty straightforward. We started implementing AlgoSec in April this year. We are not fully into production, but we have been using it since May. Technically, it took less than a month, but we still have to do some paperwork in terms of security procedures, security monitoring, etc. So, it has been all paperwork from May till today.

The patching process of this solution is also pretty straightforward. They provide monthly patches, and it doesn't take a whole bunch of people to maintain it. Just one or two people can do the job.

Even though we had a reseller involved in this process, we did it on our own but with a little help from AlgoSec.

We have not yet seen an ROI. We are currently at the beginning of implementing the solution, and there is still a lot of time before we see a return on investment.

Price is not my concern. If a tool does its job, it is not my concern to obtain a good price for it. If a tool is needed, we are going to buy it.

We evaluated other solutions such as Skybox, Tufin. We found the graphical user interface of AlgoSec to be very user-friendly. It provides the information that you need. The information that you need is very well organized as compared to other solutions.

It depends on your needs. If you want to have a better overview of your network, AlgoSec is a tool that you can rely on. You can have an overview of your network by using your own equipment, but you have to dig in deeper. AlgoSec provides better visibility with a little amount of effort.

We haven't had any breaches in the past. We have not used it to implement and manage microsegmentation initiatives. We use it for network segmentation, which is done at the network level which includes firewalls, switches routers, and so on. Network segmentation is an ongoing process. 

I would rate it a nine out of 10.

I mainly use AFA and FireFlow. The majority of the network is internal. We have a very limited footprint in the cloud right now. But what we do have in the cloud is private. Being a financial institution, everything is very secure. So we don't have anything in the public cloud.

We're primarily using AlgoSec for firewall management and change validation. So we use it for monitoring all the firewall changes and security ratings. Any kind of firewall change is monitored and we have our own process that we use AlgoSec for to validate that changes are implemented according to the requests and go through all of the change approval processes.

We are using it for the firewall change auditing process for our department. They are one of the leaders that we found in this area. There is a very limited group of vendors that provide this kind of functionality and we've gone through the majority of them. AlgoSec still stands out as the leader, in our opinion.

We primarily use AFA for the change management portion of it. But the security ratings also are used by our security group to ensure compliance and validate that nothing is being configured that is not in our best interest.

The overall visibility AlgoSec gives into our network security policies has been very good. We are happy with the way the application works. It is very intuitive and easy to use. I would give that a very high rating.

AlgoSec provides full visibility into the risk involved in firewall change requests as well. It definitely allows us to drill down to the level where we can see the actual policy rule that's affecting the risk ratings. If there are any changes in ratings, it'll show you exactly how to determine what's changed in the network that will affect it. It's been very clear and intuitive as far as that.

I don't know if it has reduced the time it takes to implement firewall rules in our company. We don't use it for implementing changes because our network is very in-depth and we're very particular with our security on that, that we do manually make all of our firewall changes. So we're not using the automated functionality of AlgoSec to do that for us. But I think that's more because of the restrictions that we have in our own network.

AlgoSec is very good when it comes to preparing for audits and ensuring our firewalls are in compliance. The security ratings are a major factor in that lately, as well as being able to show the configurations and how they affect the risk ratings. Whenever we do need to address any issues, it's very clear to show us exactly what the effects of the ratings are, as tied into the firewall policies.

We work with multiple security vendors. I'm not on the security team any longer. I went from network group to security and then back again. But our security group does work with AlgoSec and they use it very intimately for different functions.

Some of the auditing functionality needs improvement. Our major focus is the firewall validation process and tracking and verifying that changes are implemented correctly. We are actually doing parts of the auditing process manually. And getting any one of the vendors to bring out a good auditing process has been very difficult. AlgoSec does a good job of showing us the changes, but we're doing a manual process to actually audit it and do documentation that we can provide to our auditors that shows we're validating everything, and on top of it, that nothing gets implemented without being caught. Part of that could be improved upon.

I have been using AlgoSec since 2016, so it's been around five and a half years. 

The stability has been great. We had a minor bug with the latest version and development. I did work with support to get that ironed out. They resolved it so right now, it looks to be very stable. And we are looking to put that into production shortly.

The scalability seems very good. I haven't seen any restrictions if we were to bring in other hardware or other devices in terms of how to scale it out, either size-wise or vendor-wise.

We have our network group, which we use AlgoSec for, for investigating the risks, configuration issues and things like that. The security group uses it for risk ratings and compliance verification. Then we have a separate group, which is a different group of security that uses it for the firewall validation process. They're the ones that use it on a daily basis to investigate any firewall changes and tie those back to the original request and validate that they were implemented properly.

The support has been very good. They're very responsive, very quick to get back to you, and very helpful. They bring in developers very quickly and easily to get into the details. Our last issue we had seemed to be very unusual, and with their support, they brought in the actual developers that were working on this software and resolved it very quickly.

We used a couple of different solutions and they all have their problems. We thought we had a good solution at one point until we found out that it wasn't working properly. When you trust in an application like this and you believe in the numbers that it's giving you, you go with that as gospel until you find out that it's wrong. That vendor's support was just not on the level that we wanted. We were getting no response from them for a long time. So we finally gave up on them until we went to AlgoSec, and it was a much better solution for us.

The initial setup is very straightforward. It is very easy to integrate network devices into AlgoSec and manage them. It's even getting easier with the latest version. We integrated Palo Alto devices into AlgoSec and it is very simple to bring it in. We have a development server that we're testing out the latest version on, and that came in in minutes. It brought it all in automatically.

The earlier versions of AlgoSec, especially when they came out originally, would not integrate properly with Panorama. So at that point, we had to integrate AlgoSec to actually reach out to every firewall individually for configurations and change status. The current releases are now integrating directly into Panorama. It's just basically one connection into Panorama and it pulls in all of the configurations from there. It's much more simplified.

I don't really get involved in ROI. But I definitely think it's valuable to us and I think it is a good solution for us.

I don't get into the pricing aspect of it that much. But from my beliefs of it, I believe it is very cost-efficient compared to other vendors. Their licensing is very straightforward and they're easy to work with.

There were three main players at the time, we went through proof of concepts with each of them, and AlgoSec was definitely the strongest vendor in that group and we don't regret it at all. I think it is a good solution.

The other vendors were promising a lot more than they were actually delivering on when it came time to actually putting it onto our network and evaluating it. We were finding that things that they were telling us that they supported and were part of their packages were not actually functional at the time. So we did not go forward with them because of that. AlgoSec actually had everything working properly. It was very easy to set up and use and it did what they promised.

Their sales engineers have really been very helpful and very good at working with us. I have nothing bad to say about them. They were excellent and I have a good relationship with them. If I ever need anything, I'll reach out to either our sales executive or our SE anytime and they respond immediately to us.

I would say the biggest thing we've learned with it is how much information it does give you. It is a nice platform. It definitely drills in a lot of layers of security and efficiencies that you can do. We're not using it to its full potential for cleaning up policy rules. As most companies are now, they are short-staffed and overworked. But it definitely can be used a lot more than we are using it for. Overall, it's a great solution and I have not seen another vendor in this marketplace that does any better than this.

I would rate AlgoSec a nine out of ten. We would like to see the auditing functionality improved. But that would be the only shortcoming at this point. I do think that they are top of the marketplace for this.

Our primary purpose right now is Firewall AlgoSec Analyzer so we can ensure that our rules are nice and tight. We also use the configuration report to make sure that the firewall configuration is nice and tight. 

We are starting to use modeling. AlgoSec Firewall Analyzer enables us to input details about what we would like to do to see what firewall changes would be required, if any. Also, if we are having problems with getting an application running across the network, then we can use that to establish what firewall rules might be giving us problems.

As a small branch office focused on wholesale banking, we have a very flat network that we are trying to improve upon. Over the course of last year, everything has been flat and accessible. Now, we are breaking into VLAN segmentation. That is where Firewall Analyzer will really come into good use, because it will help us to limit the traffic to only what is necessary. 

We have some cloud. Our core banking is with a different organization, which is in the cloud. We also have a couple of other treasury cloud applications in the cloud. However, a fair amount of our network is within our data center and office. So, we have a hybrid model.

We are very simple. The benefit of AlgoSec Firewall Analyzer right now is to give us skills that we don't already have with our people. Also, when we get into our periodic reviews, AlgoSec enables us to do it without adding additional staff. Something that we are not able to do because that is controlled in the Chilean head office. So, we need to make the best use of the best tools to secure our environment with a minimal number of people.

AlgoSec reduced the time it takes to implement firewall rules in our organization. Before, our firewall rule review was always done manually. When we installed the appliance and ran the report, we quickly found half a dozen areas where we were more exposed than we needed to be. The manual process used to go on for weeks. The AlgoSec process right now, as we develop and become better with it, takes only a matter of two or three days. We can have a good solid review, then we can get into very specific details about any rule or configuration with the objective of ensuring least privilege. Only the things that are needed to support business activities are allowed.

We are a regulated industry: financial services. We are obliged to at least annually review our firewall rules for risk. Are they too permissive? Are they not needed? Because we have this tool, we can now do that once a quarter. Before, we only did it once a year. 

We are a small branch of a much larger organization in Latin America. The rules that were set up allow free flow of information back and forth, i.e., network connections. Right now, with ransomware being what it is, we are starting to review those rules because they are too permissive. Another way that AlgoSec is helping us, internally, is working with our head office to make sure that they are treated with least privilege. Something that is not normal. Something that didn't happen, "Just because."

I have been with this organization for about two years. All the wide-openness of the network communications was just a bad event waiting to happen. AlgoSec Firewall Analyzer has given us the great ability to dig down into the details and work at a level above the skills that we already have, making sure that we are in a process. It started months ago and will continue for seven more months. That network traffic in and out of our perimeter is the least that it should be.

We work with multiple security vendors. For just IT alone, we have three primary vendors and a couple others that pitch in when needed. AlgoSec Firewall Analyzer helps us to make sure that we allow only what they need and that we keep them to the internal assets. They are external third-parties. We have high assurance that they are only able to access network assets that are part of the contract. Another vendor manages our firewall. The reason we have them do it is because we don't have the expertise amongst our people. So, the addition of the AlgoSec Firewall Analyzer enables us to have the intelligence of what is good and what is less than good. Thus, we can help keep that third-party on the rails, that they are doing good things for us, and we have the evidence to prove it.

We are getting into using AlgoSec to implement and manage micro-segmentation initiatives. One of our audit concerns was the flat network, and we started to work based on what we already know to create a test segment. However, AlgoSec is helping us to validate the traffic that will be allowed into that new segment, restricted to only that which we need. No sense in creating an isolated network if bad things can still flow back and forth between test and production. So, AlgoSec is a tool that is helping us make sure that we have all the isolation that we need. But, because of the syslog counters, we can also tell over time whether we did a good job in the first place and whether the remaining rules that we configured to be nice and tight are still needed for business purposes.

The most valuable is helping us determine where our rules are too permissive. Based on previous human review of our rules, they are very cursory. We know why we do something, but we don't get into the details of whether the rule is nice and tight. What Firewall Analyzer lets us do is understand the risks presented by our rules. The tool does a calculation of all the traffic that could be allowed and we can match that to whether it should be allowed. Another thing that we have recently started to do, but only about 100 days ago, is collect syslog events from the firewall that now tell us whether the rules that might be well-configured are actually being used by people or traffic. Our next step will be to start eliminating well-formed rules that just aren't needed.

The overall visibility that AlgoSec gives me into our network security policies is perfect. We think about separation of duties. As the information security officer, I shouldn't be logging into the firewall and playing around. What AlgoSec does is give me the ability to see everything about the firewall: its rules, configurations, and usage patterns. It gives me all the visibility that I need to make sure that we are doing what we should do to keep it tight. There is no perimeter anymore. We have to be very careful what we are letting in and out, and Firewall Analyzer helps us to do that.

Another very useful feature of the AlgoSec Firewall Analyzer is it will alert us to changes in firewall rules and configuration. So, we have a third-party who manages our firewall. AlgoSec gives us notification, if they go in and make changes either to the configuration or rules, so we can keep track and make sure that only authorized changes are occurring.

We are using AlgoSec directly against our Cisco Firepower. At first, AlgoSec didn't work with Firepower. It didn't know how to read the logs. So, improvement has been made. Now, the feature that was available on the older generation firewall is available on the current one, but this is a problem which has already been dealt with.

I became familiar with AlgoSec Firewall Analyzer way back in 2004. I was trying to do some independent consulting, and part of that is a good firewall review. So, I started to look for tools. That is when I had my first discussion with AlgoSec. Since then, I have used it a couple at different organizations, including the one where I work now. It has been quite helpful with making sure that our firewall configuration is all that it should be.

It is set and forget. I don't have a lot of Linux or Unix experience, at least not in the last 20 years. So, that has been removed from me. The appliance comes and we connect to the command line. Anything I need to do is menu-driven. So, it is easily maintained by people whose skill set changed from hands-on to management quite awhile ago.

Scalability is not something that I have had to concern myself with right now.

Currently, we have five people who use it to either tune the rules or find out answers to questions about the network and flows.

We have a customer success manager, Matt, who is terrific, very responsive, and always there for us when we need it, providing quick answers. This also applies to the support desk if we raise a ticket. I did have a problem after we installed the A32 version, where I was getting some errors in the email. The engineers got into the code and found some code that needed to be corrected. I don't remember exactly what the problem was, but it took less than two hours to find and correct it. So, the support has been superb.

At this bank, it replaced the manual solution, where if you were not a Tier 3 Network Engineer, then you were probably not going to be able to get into the details and nuances of any of the rules and configurations. So, they get glossed over. The firewall review done manually is more of a sanity check. "Do we need the rule at all?" is really the question that gets asked, not whether the rule is done correctly to support privilege and least access.

The setup was quite easy. 

if I were to take out the fits and starts that were our responsibility, the installation was less than four hours. Then, the upgrade was done because we went from version A30 to A32. That took about an hour and a half. It was very simple and straightforward. Now, when I need to do regular releases, i.e., patches, I can do them myself. It is menu-driven. It's pretty easy.

AlgoSec's support was there for us. We worked with them. They did all the heavy-lifting. It was easy to schedule as well as very flexible, as we got our act together. Organization is important. 

One staff member would have been sufficient for deployment and upgrades, but I made sure that our IT staff population representation was there so they understood the tool, where it was going, and how it would be used. However, it easily could have been done with only one person on our end.

In the end, I did a calculation. When I think about the number of people, when we did the manual way, who had to be involved, and how long did it go? Did we risk being out of compliance with regulations? There is a big cost to that. It is cheaper operationally to work with AlgoSec than to try to do this manually.

AlgoSec has absolutely helped to simplify the job of our security engineers. It gives us a level of expertise that we didn't have within our own staff. AlgoSec showed us that what our staff could do wasn't good enough. So, it is a force multiplier. It enables us to have the expertise that we don't have, but it also gives us the cycles, e.g., the actual ability to extract the rules, evaluate them, and then assemble them into a form that we can present to auditors and regulators, if needed. This greatly helps us. As a tool that has so many features, there are certainly more that we can grow into, but the ones that we are using right now have been of a substantial value to us. This is even being commented by our auditors from one review period into another.

The staff enjoy it. There is always that dynamic between security and IT. IT has projects to do and serve the business. Security isn't quite seen in that same light. So, they enjoy it because they don't have to spend the time to go through the rules, trying to reverse-engineer what is going on, and it takes care of a lot of the documentation for them. It keeps them in the zone that they are used to working with the correspondence that belongs to the rule, allowing them to understand the details. This has helped us understand ourselves better, how we operate on the network layer, and saved us the time of actually doing the rules. So, we are much better with our compliance, audits, and regulatory requirements, but we are also better in our security. Two things that an ISO always has to be concerned with - compliance and actual security. This tool acts like another person on staff, increasing our ability to be very fine-tuned on rules. We will be using it for a while to come.

I am a fan of AlgoSec for its pricing. As a small branch, getting any amount of money, is very difficult. Less than a thousand dollars, that will take some effort for two reasons:

1. Asking for money.
2. It wasn't in the budget. 

The price came in where we really didn't even need to have much of a discussion. That was very good. There are also options regarding what you want to pay for. It wasn't really pushed on me that I have to get all of it or else I can't be an AlgoSec customer. 

There are training and support levels that come in beyond the product itself, and we did subscribe to the training. We also have the support. The pricing has been very approachable, and that is why we have it here.

I have looked at other options along the way, like Skybox. AlgoSec came to the market before the alternatives did. When I become aware of it and something is good, I stick with it. Why change? 

I went to the Gartner page and looked at who the competitors were. I looked at customer reviews and things like that. However, because I have had such a good experience with AlgoSec Firewall Analyzer, I continue to use it. I have found no reason to go with any of the other alternatives.

Our local policy is that I have to be able to compare at least three products when I go to management to ask for money. I did exactly that. I took three alternatives and brought them to our management team. I explained the whys and wherefores for why I was promoting AlgoSec. Now, we have it here in our environment.

I would recommend, "Do it," in regards to implementing AlgoSec. I wouldn't have been with it since 2004 if it wasn't among the best tools. I have tools in vulnerability scanning and SIEM/SOC as well as tools for authentication. There are a lot of tools. As a security guy, I have been doing this since 1997. When you find a product that delivers, you stick with it, and AlgoSec is that type of product.

I have been so pleased with the tool. It sounds cliché, but I haven't gotten to a point yet where the tool hasn't provided for me. This is why I always come back to it. For an organization as small as ours, it gives us a tool that is affordable, easy to implement, and the expertise that we were lacking.

When I need it, it is there. If I have a question about an endpoint or protocol, I am trying to resolve audit points about what ports are listening and why, or I have to figure out how to isolate something more than it already is, AlgoSec is the tool that I go to first to get information and answer some of these questions. In most cases, all the details and rules are all right there. It has been great.

I have seen the capability for AlgoSec to enable us to manage multiple or dispersed environments in a single pane of glass. Because I am such a supporter and have seen the value that AlgoSec can bring to more than one organization, I invited the CSO office in Chile to attend a work session with us so they can start to see everything that AlgoSec might do for them. I knew that it was on their task list, and they have a need to get into the same area. The potential is there that our head office will begin to use the tool, having seen how it has been helping us in just our local office. They need it more because they do have a broader array of firewalls, connections, and things like that. So, I'm looking forward to that.

I know for a fact we are not getting all the value out of the appliance that we can. I know for a fact we are getting more value out of the appliance than we intended when we licensed it. Those are good things. The visualization of our network is helping me. There are diagrams that can be drilled into which help me. When you are small, going over to IT all the time and asking questions isn't always the best thing. It is disruptive. Then, I have to worry whether I got the right answer or not. AlgoSec removes those things. I see what is happening and I know that it is based on the facts. There are five of us using it. I am sure that we use it every week, probably not every day to answer questions, and we are running monthly reports, which are automated, so we have a good history. So, we have the opportunity at any point to identify problems and resolve them.

What we have learned from using AlgoSec Firewall Analyzer: We didn't understand our risk with our firewall. It is good that we relied on a credible third-party, but what we saw was rules could be better configured. These are our protection to the outside world between the bad world outside and inside, between our head office and us. I worked for a Wall Street firm, and we didn't trust anybody. It is a big deal now with zero trust. This tool will help us to get there, dialing things down.

For the AlgoSec experience (the company, product, support, and people), I want to give it 10 (out of 10). Nobody trusts that, but they have been very good to me. The boss who didn't like spending money is very happy with the results. I brought it back to him and showed him what we have been able to do past our manual efforts, and it resonates with him. It makes sense to him. He reads the paper. He sees how quickly ransomware can spread across a network. One of the things that we can do to help protect against that is make sure that we have good segmentation and only the endpoints which really need to talk to each other are allowed to do so.

AlgoSec is a very helpful product in carrying out security operations effectively.

It has a user-friendly interface, and we don't encounter any problems during or after installing updates.

We can get quick support from the manufacturer in case of problems.

The ability to automate policy analysis, optimize configurations, and visualize security risks allows organizations to mitigate threats and reduce the risk of security breaches proactively. 

By providing visibility into security risks, compliance gaps, and application connectivity requirements, AlgoSec helps organizations strengthen their security posture.

This product has had many benefits in improving my security posture by fixing many vulnerabilities.

Lack of sufficient resources or expertise to leverage AlgoSec's capabilities to their full potential might hinder the expected improvements.

The ability to automate policy analysis, optimize configurations, and visualize security risks allows organizations to mitigate threats and reduce the risk of security breaches proactively. AlgoSec's reporting and compliance features help organizations meet regulatory requirements more effectively.

AlgoSec offers a centralized platform for managing complex network security policies across heterogeneous environments. This feature enables users to visualize, analyze, and manage policies from a single interface, enhancing efficiency and reducing errors associated with manual policy management. 

AlgoSec's ability to integrate with various security and networking solutions enhances its overall value. Integration with firewalls, cloud platforms, SIEM tools, and other security devices ensures a cohesive security ecosystem and enables better threat response and mitigation.

Enhancements that allow for more automated policy management, change workflows, and orchestration can significantly streamline network security operations. 

Advanced analytics and reporting capabilities that provide deeper insights into network traffic, security policy effectiveness, compliance, and risk management can be beneficial. 

Features that allow security policies to be defined and managed based on specific applications' needs would be ideal.

I've been using the solution for two years. 

We use FireFlow, AppViz, and AppChange. We use them mainly to visualize our firewalls.

We have three data centers, but we are also providing the public cloud as well.

We implemented it to get a better, clearer view. It has supported us very well.

The solution provides us with full visibility into the risk involved in firewall change requests. This is very important for us because we are regulated according to the FDA. It shows us which changes have been made and why. So, it has worked very well for our compliance needs.

AlgoSec is a tool that really supports our work in compliance and our customers' requirements, fulfilling their FDA requirements.

Our security has been stronger due to AlgoSec. We don't have human errors.

The most valuable feature is its ease of use.

It provides a very good, clear view. I really love the product. 

Overall, it gives a better overview of our firewalls. This is a tool that we cannot live without because it is easy to view and maintain.

I have been using this solution for four years.

Overall, the stability is good. It supports our work. We are happy and our customers are happy.

It has very good scalability.

The technical support is fast and very good. I would rate the support as six or seven out of 10.

Neutral

We have seen ROI on time. AlgoSec has reduced the time it takes to implement firewall rules in our organization. It used to take around an hour, and we can now implement them in 20 minutes.

It is a good investment due to the losses that a customer will have if they are not aligning with the FDA. That would be in the millions, so it is a good investment from our side and the customer's side.

Quality has a price. 

We have tried other vendors. This is the best solution that we came up with due to our requirements and demands.

It is good for integrating with leading security vendors.

I would rate the solution as eight out of 10. If you have requirements with very strict alignment for firewall rule processes, then I would really recommend this product.

We use AlgoSec to integrate firewalls. I'm a senior network security engineer and we are customers of AlgoSec.

Security ratings and security rules analysis are two valuable features. In general, it's a very good and stable solution. 

I believe the customization of dashboards should be simplified and more user-friendly. Customization inside the domain level needs to be improved.

The solution is stable although there are occasionally issues with patches, but they are generally resolved quickly. The solution is extensively and regularly used for compliance reports. 

The solution is scalable. We have close to 30 firewall admins.

The technical support is good. The only drawback is that the product is not very user-friendly and it's too expensive to contact support each time we have a problem. 

The initial setup was carried out using professional support and the company was happy with the integrator. We moved our ticketing up to AlgoSec using FireFlow. I wasn't around but I think it took some time.

The license was initially renewed every three years but it's now done on an annual basis. I'm not aware of any additional costs. 

I rate this solution eight out of 10. 

My main use case is as a firewall analyzer module where it can be further broken down as follow: 

1) Network topology visualization: visualizes a network traffic path during troubleshooting

2) Policy optimization: uses optimization and clean-up recommendations to perform annual housekeeping of the firewall

3) PCI DSS compliance: follow the out-of-the-box checklist to prepare for a PCI DSS audit

4) Risk reduction: uses the recommendation of the risky rules to address all the critical and high-risk rules

5) Monitor changes:  monitor for firewall-config changes in real-time via email alerts

The solution has improved our organization in multiple ways. We can:

• Easily understand and provision application connectivity to accelerate application delivery and minimize outages

• Process firewall changes 4x faster, and eliminate misconfigurations and rework

• Proactively assess the impact of network changes to ensure security and continuous compliance

• Simplify and automate internal and regulatory firewall audits, and reduce time and costs

• Streamline communication across the application, network and security teams

• Deliver a tighter security policy that provides better protection against cyber-attacks

The product is great for:

1) Network topology visualization: reduces network troubleshooting effort which contributes to quickly restoring network or application outage.

2) Policy optimization: reduce/consolidate the number of rules created prior to the existence of AlgoSec Firewall Analyzer in order to free up hundreds of rule capacity before reaching the max rule limit of the firewall.

3) PCI DSS compliance: helps to highlight the area which firewall admin need to take note and address in a streamlined and structured manner.

4) Risk reduction: helps to quickly identify the risk that exists in existing rules and provide useful recommendations that help the firewall admin to remediate with ease.

5) Monitor changes: helps firewall admin to comply with security requirements of providing real-time security alert whenever a change is made, with detailed info on what was the value before and after.

The FireFlow's out-of-the-box workflow configuration/customization wizard could be improved to be more user-friendly and have a shorter learning curve. The current configuration wizard is quite complex and complicated, which will result in the need to engage with an AlgoSec professional services team to perform even the simplest workflow adjustment.

I had tried AlgoSec's direct competitor's workflow configuration wizard and found it to suit most organization requirements even though the customization capability may not be as advanced as AlgoSec.

I've used the solution for six years. 

The setup is fairly straightforward.

We did also consider Tufin.

We have a large setup of multi-vendor firewalls with large in numbers of policies and rules. Handling rules and policy visibility manually are very difficult for clients multi platform firewalls. AlgoSec AFA has eased day-to-day operation, firewalls rules optimization, clean-up for unused policies and reporting, and visibility on policy and rules. All of this improves the firewall performance.

AlgoSec FireFlow workflow change tracking in environment makes it easy to have a central repository also multiple stakeholder approved change management.   

The AFA workflow has helped us to manage firewall rules implementation using multiple stakeholders' approval with an end-to-end lifecycle of change management and tracking. 

Reporting helps us with deliverables, areas of focus for improvement, and much more. Algosec AFA is useful for policy optimization and clean-up and can measure capacity management. 

AFA provides greatly extended support for firewall rule review for risky rules, optimization, and clean-up for unused rules. 

Firewall rule automation for implementation also makes support easy for support firewall administrators.

AlgoSec currently has two useful features: AFA and AFF. 

The AFA workflow helped us to manage firewall rules implementation using multiple stakeholders' approval with an end-to-end lifecycle of change management and tracking. 

Algosec AFA is useful for policy optimization, cleanup, and measuring capacity management. 

AFA provides greatly extended support for firewall rule review for risky rules, optimization, and clean-up for unused rules. Firewall rule automation for implementation also makes support easy for support firewall administrators.

There could be certain improvements such as supporting secure email. We have some cases where the client SMTP /POP email system is discarded, which is very important factor change notifications.

Fireflow workflow rule/change implementation for time-based rules is not currently supported. 

These improvements in upcoming code will definitely help with end-to-end firewall rule implementation. 

NAT rule implementations were in the roadmap. We are expecting this soon. 

Certain optimization of AFA/AFF SMS resources would ease daily operations.

I've used the solution for four years.

While stability is good, further improvement is needed.

The scalability is good.

Technical support is good.

Positive

We did not use a different solution previously.

Some changes in setup are ongoing as we are growing.

I am a vendor partner of AlgoSec.

The licensing is commendable.

We evaluated a few other options before positioning this solution. 

The solution could use improved support.