Cisco Duo Reviews

With Duo, MFA allows the network to have an authenticated user sign-on seamlessly. If someone's entering a password and their user credentials and they want to get access to the network, the Duo app will have a code that the end-user has to input, which then authenticates them. It's a second layer of security before they can access the network. Even if a third party gets your username and password, without that Duo access, they won't be able to access your network.

We don't have to worry so much about the end-user that's logging in.

Multifactor authentication is the most valuable feature.

As for establishing trust for every access request, that's exactly what this solution does. Outside of having a username and password, you have to get authentication from Duo as well.

You can never eliminate trust, but what Duo Security does do is add an extra layer of security. When it comes to the internet, networks, inbound traffic, and outbound traffic, you're always subject to a potential threat. Duo Security just adds another layer.

It's a great addition to the security of any network infrastructure.

In terms of helping workers feel safe, everyone knows that the information within the enterprise is safe because the people that are logging in have been authenticated in more than one way.

It's pretty easy to maintain network connectivity once it's set up; the end-user uses it to log in. It's not something that you have to constantly manage and deal with apart from pushing updates. It's pretty much self-managed.

In terms of consistency across workspaces, it works all the time, except for when a forced update is needed.

It helped us remediate threats more quickly. For instance, if someone accesses your credentials or you leave your laptop open and someone gains access when it times out, you still need the Duo code that is sent. A new code is always needed to be able to access that laptop or even that phone. Then, from there you're able to safeguard the information that your company has.

Nowadays, data is the number one commodity, so protecting that at all costs is really important. Duo helps with that with end-users. The thing about end-users is that they are volatile. You can't really control what someone does. So, Duo security helps with managing that by having them implement a new time code that's always sensitive.

Technical support could be improved. I don't think all support should have to go through an agreement.

I've been using this solution for seven years.

It's very stable. There aren't many issues with Duo.

The scalability is just fine. If you scale a certain amount, you have to upgrade and update your license. Outside of that, it's fine.

We are a large organization that deals with a lot of high transactional payments, and we have a large number of users, maybe 100,000 a day, and inbound user traffic.

If you open up a TAC case and they get to you quickly, it's fine. If you have a service agreement that says that they will get back to you within one to two hours, that's fine because you can resolve an issue. Now, if you don't have that agreement and are just a regular user, they take 48 hours to get back to you, and if you and the network team or the security team can't figure out the issue, a lot of money could be lost in two days.

Because there's always room for improvement and because I don't think all support should have to go through an agreement, I would rate technical support at eight on a scale from one to ten.

Anytime your network is secure and it's not breached or there's no downtime or infiltration of your perimeter, there's always an ROI.

With regard to pricing, for a small business buying a one-off, it's pretty expensive. If it's an enterprise that has thousands of employees, however, it's really nothing to protect your data because if your network goes down or it's breached, you're losing millions of dollars every minute. When it comes to a large enterprise, it's priced where it should be because you're talking business to business. You're not talking business to consumer.

To leaders who want to build more resilience within their organization's security, I would say that you can't go wrong with Cisco products when it comes to security. You can start with Cisco Umbrella, then go down to their firewalls, and then the next-generation firewalls. Then, you can move down to their end-user security endpoints.

The whole lineup through their security portfolio is really strong. If you're spending $50,000 on a suite and a $100,000 total contract value, you can enter a 3.0 Enterprise Agreement. Then from there, you can lock in prices for one, three, to five years. So, when it comes to any enterprise, when you're talking about security, if you use all of Cisco's security features, from end-user out to your data centers, you'll be pretty well off.

If you have security concerns, implement Duo for your end-users.

Overall, I would rate Duo Security an eight on a scale from one to ten.

We use it for two-factor authentication for end-user and administrator login. We wanted to secure our endpoints.

The single pane of glass management is very important and it is part of the reason we went with Duo. Anything we can do to save time for our administrators, help desk staff, and engineers, is valuable to us.

I wouldn't mind seeing some options for remembering a device for a short period of time or a specific login, particularly for administrative engineering staff, as we may be logging in to four or five different services. We're having to use it a lot. I understand it, it's just part of it. That's not specific to Duo. That's two-factor authentication in general.

I've been using Duo Security for about a year.

It's stable. We haven't had any downtime that I can recall or any problems with maintaining network connectivity.

Any issues we've had have been local to a specific user. Maybe the phone number was not set up right or there was some conflict as a result of somebody changing a device, but it's always been pretty straightforward to get that kind of thing resolved.

We started off with a small deployment and, in one or two steps, sent it out to everybody and it scaled fine. We didn't have to change anything in our setup.

We have about 1,200 users across 60 branches around the U.S. We occasionally have people using it internationally and we're able to handle that fine with our geographic location blocking or allowing, as the case may be. It's a fully virtualized environment. We have a lot of remote users, people who work in remote fields. As long as they have a cell signal, it works.

I have not had to deal with any support for Duo. The less I have to talk to support the better, for sure.

This is our first venture into two-factor authentication.

We didn't have a specific problem we were trying to solve when we got it. We were just trying to add more and more security. We did have regulatory requirements for two-factor authentication and that is what drove it.

The deployment of Duo Security was mainly a project done by our network and security team, but I was involved in it to some extent. I found it pretty straightforward. As enterprise-wide security solutions go, it wasn't too bad.

We got it integrated with Active Directory. There were some struggles there that I don't know the specifics of because our network team was working on that. But once everything was set up, it was pretty easy to add a new user and do whatever we wanted to.

It took a little time for our users to get used to it, but everybody took to it pretty well. The users don't really have to interact with it other than getting their push notifications. For them, it's easy. It requires minimal training. It pops up and it's all pretty self-explanatory.

It's pretty easy to use as two-factor authentication systems go. We evaluated a few others, including the Microsoft two-factor authentication, a little bit, and one other, and Duo ended up being our favorite. Part of that was because we're in that Cisco ecosystem and we were able to integrate it with our other services that are all cloud-based. It fit in pretty well for us, and it would for anybody with a similar setup.

Duo was also the least obtrusive to the user and the ease of administration through the administrative portal was a little better.

Fortunately, we haven't had to evaluate it when it comes to helping us remediate threats more quickly, but we're confident that it will.

Regarding resilience in cyber security, two-factor is definitely a must-have. We're satisfied with it as far as that goes, in addition to it fulfilling our regulatory requirements.

For our use case, for logins, it just works.

We use it for MFA to secure our Outlook webmail and some other applications as well. We use Duo for pretty much anything that uses MFA. 

We were looking for increased security. We wanted to make sure that the person who is trying to log in to our services is actually who they claim to be. We wanted to lock down our applications more and provide extra security.

We have some on-prem servers for the gateways and it's in the cloud as well.

It has definitely made our company more secure. It's pretty easy to incorporate into any sort of application you want to. We also use it for single sign-on for certain applications and that has been nice. People hate passwords.

It's really great for remote workers and a hybrid workforce nowadays, for people who are trying to access their VPN or any applications from outside of the company. It helps us make sure it's someone who should be accessing those things. It does a good job.

It's definitely a factor in achieving that Zero Trust.

In a way, it helps us remediate threats more quickly. If someone is trying a brute-force attack, trying all the passwords they can, and they're not getting a response through Duo, you can see certain security threats that are happening and remediate them.

Duo has also had a big impact on employee morale. People like it. They feel that their data is more secure. Resiliency is very key to keeping people doing their jobs. Cyber security resilience has been very important for us. It used to be that security was not to be the main focus, but it's extremely important now. There are a lot of ransomware attacks and people need to be very cognizant of that. It's important to have redundant and resilient systems in place to support that.

It's nice to have that push notification with the app and it's pretty easy to use. Our users are usually pretty open to it, and it's pretty easy to onboard people.

It also seems like it's accurate, and you can add multiple devices to your account.

In addition, typically, if it detects that you're on an internal network, you can bypass the Duo portion of it. That way, people don't have to do MFA when they're on campus.

Another feature is the single pane of glass management. That's important for analytics and also for troubleshooting. It means there's one place that you go to at least start the troubleshooting process. It also helps with the user experience because you can manage all the user accounts from that one spot, including setting up new users, making adjustments, editing their preferences, et cetera.

It could be a little bit more intuitive when it comes to the sign-up process. I know they send out an email, but sometimes our users get a little confused. It could be an end-user problem, but Cisco could work on that a little.

I've been using Duo Security for about two years.

It seems very stable. I don't think there has been any point at which people have tried to use it and it has failed.

The scalability seems fine. As long as you get the licensing to support it, you can add as many users as you'd like.

We have five or six offices locally, and a few more in different states in the US. We also have one in Shanghai, but they're doing their own thing there. But everyone in our US offices uses it, they all get enrolled. Typically, people will install the app on their phones although they don't have to.

I don't think we've had to use technical support too often, which is a good thing about the product itself.

We didn't use an MFA before Duo.

When the solution was rolled out, I wasn't with the company, but we then expanded it in different ways and I have been involved in that. In terms of the initial deployment, from what I can tell, it was relatively straightforward. And from what I've seen since, it hasn't been too hard to expand it to other services.

It's definitely a valuable product to have.

We may have evaluated other options at a surface level, but we didn't really go too deeply into them. We pretty much went with Duo out the gate.

I would tell leaders who want to build more resilience within their organization to do it right now. It's definitely important and there are a lot of resources out there that can help them on that path. Duo helps with that.

It does what it's marketed to do.

Essentially, we use it as a two-factor authentication for our users when they are trying to log into the corporate network or another dev network that we have.

Overall, it provides functionality and security with the two-factor authentication. We can ensure whomever is logging in isn't someone else who might be sharing a username or password.

It is a good source of security as far as ensuring that there are no rogue agents attempting to access the network. Duo has enabled us to mitigate rogue access requests to our network.

With everything that went on over the past three years, we can authenticate through the VPN, or anywhere that you are at, giving our workers the ability to work hybridly and tackle day-to-day jobs without having to come into the office.

Our workers know what they are doing is secure. They don't have to worry about buying other equipment and we don't have to worry about supplying other equipment. We can just use Duo to facilitate, making it easier to do their day-to-day jobs.

The ability to work online and offline with two-factor authentication is the best feature. Usually, with products, you have two different tokens. For this product, there is just one. 

It is a good product to assess the access. Overall, it has a timely response as far as when you need to click. It is very interactive. It is not like you have three seconds, then it is gone. It gives you the time to do it.

It provides single-pane-of-glass management, which is pretty easy and straightforward. Because we manage multiple access tiers, it allows us to essentially manage everything from one viewpoint and not have many viewpoints for the same product. This is important because it is a time and resource saver. It also saves us money.

The single-pane-of-glass management user experience is pretty good. It is one of the best ones that I have worked with so far.

The biggest challenge is integrating it into all our end user utilities. We use it for other networks, not just our personal network. So, the challenge is just integrating it across the board.

There is not much improvement as far as the front-facing part of it. For the back-end, there could be a few more security features applied. Obviously, as they grow, it will get better.

I have been using it for about seven months.

The stability works well with what we have, and we have a big Cisco infrastructure. It is pretty seamless for us.

Maintaining network connectivity with Duo is pretty easy. The timeout isn't too bad. It obviously depends on your security thresholds, but it is pretty easy.

It is pretty scalable. We have run it through its paces.

I haven't had to work with their technical support division. I am guessing it is good since I haven't had to deal too much with them.

This is the first time that I have worked in a VPN environment.

I would give it about a nine out of 10 because nothing is perfect.

Our web developers use Duo Security as a WordPress plugin to provide security for our websites.

Duo offers dual-factor authentication for our logins. I put in my credentials and hit go. Then I get an alert on my Apple watch, and I approve it. That part is just phenomenal. 

Duo has some issues that we're trying to work through. For example, if I install it on a WordPress site and another admin needs to log in, they can't because Duo hasn't been set up for them. It doesn't appear that I can add permissions on a user-by-user basis. It's not obvious.  

I would also like to see password-free login. There used to be a password-free product where you used your phone and looked at the screen. I can't remember what it's called now, but it was great. It used blue wavy lines that constantly changed, so nobody could ever screen capture and use them to log in. That was by far the best solution. 

Duo bought them out and did away with them. They probably saw it as a threat because it was a better solution. And a couple of companies have tried to mimic that, but they have never come close. If Duo were to go back to something like that, I would be ecstatic. Passwords are supposed to be a thing of the past.

I've used Duo Security for about two years.

Duo Security is stable.

I don't know how Duo would scale. If I've got a hundred websites and I install it on several of them, scalability just means adding it to a new website. It would be as easy as adding it to the first. 

That's not an issue, but I  still haven't figured out how to add new users to a site that already has it installed. I checked their online documentation and haven't found an answer yet,  so we temporarily took it off on that particular site.

We tried several authentication solutions before, but I liked the way Duo works better. 

I rate Duo Security eight out of 10 for ease of deployment. It takes a minute or two to download and install the plugin. 

Duo Security is free.

I rate Duo Security nine out of 10. Duo is a solid solution, but it still has some minor issues with adding users. 

When our users are connecting to our Cisco VPN, Duo effectively ensures that they are who they say they are by taking a second factor into account, such as the cell phone that was used to create their profile. To do this, it sends them a second mode of authentication, such as a PIN or push confirmation. It also geo-locks who is allowed to actually log into our systems. We have it locked to the continental United States and Puerto Rico, and one outsourcing firm that we work with.

Once you have it set up, all you really have to do is add people to a group in the active directory and send them the instructions on how to do it. If you have a lower technical user base, you may have to walk them through it. But once it's set up, it really is automatic.

Not a single person from our IT staff really needed anything other than the instructions. Of the 15 people in our test group, nobody actually needed instructions on how to use it either — beyond what I just wrote up and sent them.

As we get to the older population in our company, the less technical population, we're probably going to have to walk them through it or hold their hands a little bit.

Within our organization, there are currently 15 employees using this solution. Eventually, we will have all 221 office staff users with it set up. Still, we'll probably top out at about 80 users a day.

We will increase the overall usage as our users increase. So, if we hire another 10 people, then we'll buy another license.

The multi-factor authentication process and the geo-locking features are great. It provides us with statistics about the devices that are used to perform the second authentication factor.

Upon successful connection, it tells us where and what device is being used to perform the second authentication factor. For example, when I log in with it, we'll see that I have my iPhone 11 and that it is located in the area via its IP address.

We had some trouble with the password reset function. When a user's password is expired, you can prompt them using Cisco AnyConnect — a password management feature — to change their password in the same channel during the login process. We had a lot of trouble configuring that. As a result, we now have a second channel that bypasses Duo to allow them to reset their password.

For this, we needed Cisco support, Duo support, and our network administrator all lined up. It should have just been something that they could have just configured, but they weren't able to do it in the same channel. We had to actually create a second channel. When you do this, people will try to log on and it'll tell them that their password is incorrect. They'll realize that their password is expired because it's been 90 days. Afterward, they'll have to then go back to AnyConnect, change the channel that they're logging into, attempt to log in, get the password prompt, disconnect from the AnyConnect, and then reconnect using the Cisco Duo multifactor authentication — this is extremely complicated.

Still, it's really only a problem for a small subset of users. The ones who ignore the notifications 10 days before saying, "Hey, change your password."  So, it's not as big of a deal as it sounds. Just by having a functional way to do it, it makes it so that if nobody's on staff, the user can reset their own password without having to call us in the middle of the night on a Saturday, because that's the best time for those passwords to expire. 

Also, it would be nice if it was easier to modify the splash screen that comes up when entering your username and password.

We actually just configured Duo Security — we're in the process of pushing it out. Currently, we've been using it for the past three to four months.

Scalability is definitely up there. It could easily handle many, many, many more authentications than we are currently or ever would use. It could definitely go far beyond what we are currently using.

The technical support agents are definitely knowledgeable; they give us plenty of recommendations on how to do things. They are very quick to send us white papers describing how to fix things ourselves. 

Although they try to push us toward a self-help model, they do eventually get online with us via a WebEx chat with the Cisco reps and help us out. We've never really had any problems finding somebody from chat support that wouldn't jump on to the WebEx meetings with Cisco premium support.

We didn't have anything covering multifactor authentication. We were using Cisco AnyConnect with the tie-in to the active directory, but we just had the single factor — the username and password. Duo allowed us to greatly enhance our security. Now, not only do users have to know their username and password, but they also have to be able to receive the second-factor authentication in order to get in. The same goes for anyone trying to break in.

The initial setup was complex, but due to the support that we received during the onboarding, it was very simple with the exception of the password reset channel that I mentioned earlier that we tried to use but didn't end up doing. The way we have it set up now is actually how it was configured during the onboarding process. It just would've been nice to have had it functionally work — to have that all in one channel.

Regarding deployment, we have an in-house person, but we still had Cisco Duo onboarding support to assist us with the setup. If you have a CCNA, you'll probably be able to do it yourself, but it's just much easier to do it with onboarding support.

The functional part of the onboarding process only took roughly an hour. Including troubleshooting our channel issue, we spent roughly 16 hours before we just decided to go back to the original build.

Our licensing fee is currently on an annual basis.

There are two levels of support with Duo that we were considering. The first level of support is just the two-factor authentication — it doesn't do anything else. But the second level of support provides us with network access control. This basically allows us to say, "Hey, your iPhone hasn't been updated in 10 years, update your iPhone to continue using this service." Or, "Your Windows device does not have updates." It also provided us with the geolocation feature. We were experiencing a lot of break-in attempts from Moldavia. So, thanks to this feature, we just locked out Moldavia. If nobody in Moldavia can connect to our system, then nobody in Moldova can hack us. 

If you're interested in using this solution, be sure to get the onboarding team to set everything up during the onboarding phase. Set up a proxy server if you can and get them to do everything during the onboarding phase — then you won't have any problems.

Compared to the after-purchase support, the onboarding people are a lot more willing to just take over your computer and set things up for you.

Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of ten — it's the best. 

Duo Security provides multi-factor authentication for anything that requires multi-factor authentication. It could be our internal corporate services, such as a single sign-on portal, or applications, such as Google Cloud.

It is very easy for users to enroll. There are a lot of insights that we get from using the app on devices that people use to authenticate.

The push notifications and the integrations they offer are valuable. Their mobile app is very useful. It is very easy to use.

The only time I really had some negative feedback for them was about the UI of their mobile app, but they improved it in the last version. There was no way to (re)name 3rd party OTP accounts so it got confusing when multiple ones were existing. In addition, each account took a lot of space on the screen, they condensed it in the new version to make it easier for people that have a lot of accounts added. Duo has a beta program and actively solicits and listens to feedback which personally I think is great.

It is good on the functionality side, but their pricing model is a little bit weird. Currently, there is no price advantage in signing up for yearly contracts. If you are on a monthly term or a yearly contract, you basically pay the same price, and that is very unusual. Normally, there is a discount when someone signs up for the 12-month system.

I have been using this solution probably since 2014. In this company, we have been using it for two years in total.

It is stable. Over the last six or seven years, I didn't have any issues where something wasn't working.

The maximum number of users that I have had is around 600, and I haven't found any issues there. In my current organization, every employee is using this solution. We have 250 employees.

I have not interacted with them. I never had to open a support case.

We didn't have anything in place.

It is pretty straightforward. I just need to log in to an account and integrate systems that should be using Duo Security. That's basically it. It probably took me an hour to roll out the accounts.

IT support helps users if they run into problems with the application, but that's about it. There is no separate team for its maintenance and deployment. There are a lot of service options for our users. They don't even need to contact IT support. On a new phone, they can even do it on their own.

It has provided ROI.

Their pricing model is a little bit weird. Currently, there is no price advantage in signing up for yearly contracts. There are no additional costs to the standard licensing costs.

We looked briefly at Okta Verify. It is the Verify app from Okta to use a single sign-on provider. It had the same price but far less functionality. It was a no-brainer to just go with Duo Security.

I would advise others to look at the integrations that are available and see if they can roll it out to as many applications as they can. Encourage users to use Duo Push versus the six-digit pin code that the applicant generates.

I would rate Duo Security a nine out of ten.

Duo Security is multi-factor authentication, specifically a two-factor authentication. It authenticates users so that you can know they're legitimate in the network. It can be used for mobile banking. For example, when you're doing mobile or internet banking with your phone, when it uses OTP, it is using Duo Security.

The most valuable features of Duo Security are visibility and OTP authentication. The OTP is very important because it is a self-enrollment feature, you are able to enroll users very quickly with a shorter time period.

Duo Security could improve by being more compatible with other vendors.

I have been using Duo Security for many years.

The solution is highly reliable.

Duo Security is sized per user. You can even have Duo Security for five users or 3,000 users. It depends on the size of the organization.

The solution is scalable.

The technical support is of a very high level. If you have a problem they will be able to support you. They are able to log in remotely as an engineer to give assistance. If you have the upgraded license then the support is even better and they will do everything for you if you have a problem. The support is extremely good.

The installation is very easy to do for Duo Security and it can be done with one person in one hour.

We have one person for maintenance of the solution and they do not need a lot of training to be able to do it. There is a manual that can be followed.

The licensing is very good because it does not cost a lot of money. It's affordable for all-sized customers, including enterprises. There is an additional cost for premium support.

The license can be purchased monthly, quarterly, half-year, or annual.

I would recommend this solution to others. I have seen it being used in large banks and there has never been a complaint about them. It is a very good solution.

I rate Duo Security an eight out of ten.

We are using it for perimeter protection.

We are using it to protect the DMZ servers of our organization. It protects our DMZ servers from malware and web attacks.

It meets our security needs very well. It is easy to use, and documentation is also available. 

It is also very stable and scalable, and its support is also very good. We are satisfied with this solution.

Its documentation must be in French because we are a French-speaking country. They should also provide more training documentation.

Its management interface should also be improved. They should also improve its update period. If I compare its update period with other products such as Palo Alto firewalls, this solution is really slow in updates.

I have been using this solution since October 2019.

It is very stable.

It is very scalable. In my company, I have between 90 to 100 users. We also have some users who are working at another site. 

We have plans to increase its usage, but due to COVID, we're mostly working remotely.

Their technical support is very good. They are very reactive. The last issue for which I contacted them was related to an OS update.

We have used Check Point and Palo Alto solutions previously.

It is very easy for me. I work with a lot of solutions like this. Its deployment took two weeks.

Its price is reasonable. It is not highly expensive.

We evaluated lots of options from different vendors.

I would recommend this solution. Duo Security is the best solution for the cybersecurity challenges that we are facing nowadays.

I would rate Duo Security a ten out of ten.

We use Duo Security to access databases, which are in the cloud. It's two-factor authentication mostly.

The two-factor login is great. I receive a message and just have to press okay. And then I am in. Also, the connection is very fast.

I haven't experienced any issues with Duo Security, but I'm only on the front end, I don't see the back end. I don't know what the IT guys are struggling with. From the front end, it's very fast and it hasn't missed a beat, so to say. As soon as I log in, within a second, I receive a message on my mobile, and as soon as I hit okay, that is within a second, then it's already passed on to the database where I need to be. It's lightning-fast, I've never experienced anything like it in the past.

I have had experience with Duo Security for roughly six months.

Duo Security is very stable.

I have not needed to call technical support relating to Duo Security; however, the guys from Cisco are very supportive, but that also has a lot to do with my relationship with Cisco. I've known most of the support guys since the late '90s. If I have an issue, they respond to my requests within five minutes.

For me, the initial setup was very simple. All I had to do was download an app, log in, and that was it. 

I was not involved in licensing negotiations, so I can't speak on this matter.

As a user, I would give Duo Security a rating of nine out of ten.