Cisco Secure Firewall Reviews

Our primary use cases lie mainly with high availability and the security features available doing Layer 3 routing that we would need on our internal network.

It has simplified the internal network, so we don't have to worry about one device failing and losing connectivity. High availability is always there.

Our top three features are the high-availability features, the VPN and the IPSec.

It has fantastic visibility. It's a 10 out of 10. 

Cisco Secure Firewall is fantastic at securing our infrastructure from end to end so we can detect and remediate threats. We have already caught things that have tried to get in. 

Cisco Secure Firewall has improved resilience by a huge margin. It has been a great help.

Cisco Secure Firewall has freed staff because we don't have IT staff worrying about a lot of the threats. We trust the device that we are going to catch the threat. We are going to get a notification and be able to act upon that. Cisco Secure Firewall has saved at least 25 hours a week

The newer versions have made it so that we do not have to worry about other appliances with feature sets that are already built into the Cisco firewall.

The solution has had a huge effect, especially from physical density when it comes to securing our infrastructure. A lot of people don't think about power availability and cooling aspects. You have a limit to how much power you can push, and every little bit helps. 

We chose Cisco because of its understanding, customer service, warranties, and the quality of the product

We would like to see dual power supplies for some Cisco Firewall products. Having to get an ATS in the Data Center application because there's an A+B power feed on such a vital device with high availability may be something that I want to put in there.

We have been using Cisco Firewall for the last 20 years.

The solution is very stable.

The solution is scalable because Cisco keeps up with new technology, the security application, bandwidth, optics, and the kind of speed that one can use.

Customer support has been very responsive, whether it is a hardware failure or calling for any kind of technical support.

Positive

We have seen a return on investment in the total cost of ownership.

The pricing is fair compared to competitors. Cisco is the Cadillac in its field. You get what you pay for. 

Cisco is amazing at upgrading, so even if we did have to upgrade a device, it is plug-and-play because of that availability option.

Cisco is doing a great job with all the improvements that are coming; they are allowing for GUI setups where many people aren't so used to CLI. Many of the younger grads coming into our field are more used to APIs and automation, so having that GUI feel is a lot better than CLI.

I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

We mainly use it for policy-based VPNs to IPSec one of the businesses. We also use it as a firewall solution for remote VPN users. We have vendors who have access to our VPN solution, and they get a dedicated network.

We can automate the VPN. The build process and how we've standardized it makes it very easy for us to focus on other tasks. We know that an end user can push a button, and the VPN will get built. They only bring us in for troubleshooting or higher-level issues with the other vendor. Because of that program, the ability to use Cisco ASA every time, in the same way, makes our job easy.

Once we started standardizing and using the same solution, we've been able to correlate that so we know what we are doing. We can train even less experienced and newer guys to do the tasks that in turn frees up the higher-level engineers. It has cut out the VPN work for higher-level engineers. They may have been spending ten hours a week previously, and now they may spend ten hours in the quarter.

It has improved our cybersecurity resilience. It has allowed us to see some differences with partners using weaker ciphers, which allows us to validate what we're using and reevaluate it. We put exceptions in cases where we have to. The security risk team is as well aware of those, and they can essentially go back on a buy-in or see if the vendor has upgraded to plug in a security hole. It has given us that visibility to see where we are weak with our vendors.

Being able to use it as a policy-based VPN is valuable. It's very easy to understand. 

It's very easy to troubleshoot. It may be because I'm comfortable with it or because I've used it for so long, but it's easy to use for me. I don't have any problems with how to set it up or use it.

For what we use it for, it ends up being the perfect product for us, but it would help if they could expand it into some of the other areas and other use cases working with speeding up and the reliability of the pushes from the policy manager.

We've been using Cisco ASA at least for the last six years. That's how long I've been in this organization, but my organization has been using it longer. 

We don't open bugs for it. It just works for what we've used it for. The last time we opened up an ASA bug would have probably been three years ago. From a reliability standpoint of what we're using it for, it's fantastic.

We've had no problems with scaling our business. We went from using probably 200 active VPNs an hour to over 600 VPNs without blinking an eye at that.

I enjoy Cisco's tech support. Just like any tech support out there, you could get a great or fantastic engineer, or you may get somebody who has just learned, so you just have to work with it. However, working with Cisco TAC, you find less of that than you do with other companies. 

Just to give them a shout-out, whenever we hit the Australian TAC, they're absolutely fantastic. Sometimes I feel that we should wait our hours when we open a ticket just so that we get one of them. They know their stuff. They absolutely do, so whoever they're hiring there, they got to keep that up and spread that out. I'd rate them a nine out of ten.

Positive

I've worked with Check Point's firewall, and I've worked with Palo Alto's firewall. Things like packet capturing and packet tracing that I can manipulate to pretend I'm doing traffic through the firewall are a lot easier to do with ASAs than with other products.

We have other firewalls in our environment. We still use Palo Alto. We do have a little bit of a mix with Palo Alto in our environment, but in terms of VPN specifically, the way that Palo Alto does route-based VPN by default doesn't flow well with most people out there. It works great with cloud providers. Cisco can do route-based VPNs too. We have a route-based VPN solution with Cisco as well. We just use an ISR for that instead of a firewall.

I've been part of the deployment. Specifically, how NATTING and the firewalls work, that part is not difficult at all, but there are some challenges when you take any product and manipulate the order of operations, but that's not a Cisco challenge. You're pairing different information. There are some tools that usually try to help with those conversions, but most of the time, I find it just easier to develop what you need and just build it from scratch.

We implemented it on our own.

We've seen an ROI in terms of our high-level engineers having to work less on the product. I've been able to provide it to the NOC because of the use of the solution. They see value in that.

Pricing is more for my leadership, but I give them the quotes, and if they approve, they're happy. They've never wavered, so I wouldn't say it's out of the realm where they're considering another product. It must be in the direct price range for our leadership to not blink an eye when we give it to them.

To those evaluating this solution, I'd say that it's a solid product. It works. It does what we need. It gives us peace of mind to sleep at night. I'd definitely put it up there with some of the other firewalls to consider.

I'd rate Cisco ASA a nine out of ten.

I use the solution mostly to separate internal networks.

Being able to create and apply new policies to the firewall has been helpful. It is an object-oriented way of doing things that helps a lot because we can build and apply new policies. We can also test it and revert to the old one if it doesn't work.

The monitoring dashboard is valuable to us for troubleshooting. It lets us see if the packets get from the source to the destination correctly.

With the new FTD, there is a little bit of a learning curve. The learning curve could probably be simplified a little bit. I've come around that learning curve, and I'm able to get around it.

I have been using the solution for 15 years.

Cisco is known for its general stability.

The solution’s scalability is excellent. I don't know if the scalability has a downside or even a limit.

The support is really good. I have a good team that supports us, and I'm able to always reach out to them. It's nice to have somebody on the cell phone and just be able to reach out to them.

Positive

Years ago, I used different firewalls like Juniper, but mostly, it's been fixed to ASA and FTD. We switched to Cisco because our customers were using Cisco.

The initial setup had a little bit of a learning curve, especially because I came from ASA. I needed some help from Cisco. However, I knew what I was doing once it was set up, especially with FMC and Firepower.

We used Cisco’s support to deploy the product.

In general, we have seen an ROI on the product. Using it, applying policies, setting it up, and leaving it alone is helpful. It helps save resources.

I don't use the product for application visibility and control. I tend to worry more about blocking or allowing certain things versus looking deep into the servers and applications and how they work.

The product is great for securing our infrastructure from end to end. I'd like to be able to test out some of the other products, like dashboards and IPS/IDS, that work with it. For the most part, I set up a firewall, and I set up the rules. If things don't work, I monitor it through the monitoring dashboard and try to figure it out.

Cisco Secure Firewall has helped free up a lot of time for our IT staff. Apart from monitoring, unless somebody needs a firewall rule change or anything like that, there's no need to mess with it. Once we set it up, it just runs.

The solution has helped our organization to improve its cybersecurity resilience. Being a firewall, by definition of the term, the product has improved our organization’s security.

People should always evaluate other products. If you’re looking for a solid firewall, Cisco makes the choice so much simpler, especially now with FMC. We are able to apply policies easily and control different firewalls at the same time.

Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

We have some in our DMZ. We have some located in several locations throughout our state. Then we have our local Egress and VPN firewalls that we use.

The VPN is our most widely used feature for Cisco Secure Firewall. Since we were forced into a hybrid working situation by COVID a few years back, VPN is the widely used feature because everybody is working remotely for our agency. So it came in very handy.

Cisco Secure Firewall’s customer support could be improved.

I have been using Cisco Secure Firewall for 20 years.

Cisco Secure Firewall is a very stable solution.

We bought scalable products, and we're in a good position.

With Cisco Secure Firewall's technical support, it's always hard to get somebody that knows what they're doing on the line. However, when you finally get somebody on the line, it's pretty good. Having to deal with the licensing and be able to open a TAT case based on the serial numbers was very difficult. The individuals we get support from are pretty good, but the solution's support is two out of ten because of the process of having to get to that point to get support.

Negative

I have previously used Juniper. Our company decided to go with Cisco Secure Firewall because of the cost and ease of use. Also, the people in our team knew Cisco versus other solutions.

Cisco Secure Firewall's initial setup was pretty straightforward. They have a wizard, which helped in some instances, but there's also a lot of documentation online that helps a lot.

We have a reseller that we go through, and they helped implement Cisco Secure Firewall for us.

The application visibility and control with Cisco Secure Firewall is pretty great. We have the FTD, the firewall threat defense, and FMC, the management console we use, and we have great visibility using that product.

Cisco Secure Firewall's ability to secure our infrastructure from end to end is really good. We always find things and or block things before they even happen. So it's great, especially with Talos.

Cisco Secure Firewall has helped free up our IT staff for other projects to a certain degree. We still have to review logs in the firewall, and hopefully, someday, we'll have AI to help do that for us too. The solution has probably saved our organization about ten hours a week.

We use Talos, among other threat advice tools, and it's very good. Talos automatically updates us on the threats out there, and we can deploy those to our devices if we deem it fit to deploy them.

Cisco Secure Firewall has helped our organization improve its cybersecurity resilience. We've used Cisco for so long, and we've never had a data breach up to this point.

Overall, I rate Cisco Secure Firewall ten out of ten.

We are currently utilizing the Cisco Secure Firewall, partially due to its historical relevance and partly because Cisco continues to maintain a prominent position in providing client VPN access.

We have employed Cisco Firepower and ASA on Firepower to facilitate client VPN access and to enforce fundamental layer four security policies.

We utilize security products in central locations to provide VPN access for clients throughout Europe.

The implementation of the Cisco Secure Firewall has had a positive impact on our organization, as evidenced by our ability to use our store apps on mobile devices through AnyConnect even when Wi-Fi is unavailable. This is made possible by the utilization of 3G, 4G, or 5G internet access while maintaining a secure connection on our mobile devices.

Cisco Secure has enabled my organization to save time, as demonstrated by our ability to swiftly open new stores by utilizing applications on mobile devices without having to establish the entire infrastructure at once. The amount of time saved varies depending on the country we are operating in, ranging from weeks to months.

The most beneficial aspect of the Cisco Secure Firewall is the AnyConnect component within the firewall package, which we selected specifically for VPN usage due to its exceptional integration with various third-party devices and applications.

The overall licensing structure could improve to make the solution better.

I have been using Cisco Secure Firewall for approximately 15 years.

My experiences with the Cisco Secure Firewall support have varied. Since we access it through a partner, some issues are quickly resolved, while others require more time and effort.

I rate the support from Cisco Secure Firewall a six out of ten.

Neutral

While I have not personally utilized other security products, our organization also employs FortiGate devices and applications for security purposes alongside Cisco Secure Firewall.

Acquiring licensing for Cisco Secure Firewall can be a bit cumbersome, therefore a more straightforward licensing process would be preferable. 

The licensing process can be frustrating, as it requires selecting between on-box or per-client options and other related considerations. Simplifying this process would be beneficial.

We are using access switches, routers, catalysts, and ISR products. Additionally, we are using Cisco as a platform, which is somewhat old, and Cisco ASA on Firepower devices.

I would advise others to thoroughly evaluate their requirements before selecting a security solution. While some products may seem like an obvious choice, it is important to take the time to assess the available options and determine which one best suits your specific needs. This approach is wise and can ultimately lead to a more effective security solution.

I rate Cisco Secure Firewall a seven out of ten.

We use them for some of our border firewalls in our data centers and also as our VPN concentrator. 

It's the VPN side of things that has been most useful for us. It allows us to secure our users even when they're working from home. They are able to access all of our resources, no matter where they are in the world.

I don't have any specific improvements to recommend. However, when you compare the throughput of a Cisco firewall to the competitors, especially Fortinet, what you find is that Cisco has lagged a little bit behind in terms of firewall throughput, especially for the price that you pay for that throughput.

We've been using Cisco firewalls for probably 10 years.

We have 105,000 users, and they all have access to use a VPN to connect back into our network. We found that it works very well for us, and it's very scalable to the number of users that we have. That's why we continue using it.

It's very good. Cisco has excellent support. It's better than most of our vendors. I'd rate their support a ten out of ten. 

Positive

I don't believe so. We've used Cisco, at least for this specific use case, for a long time.

The enterprise agreement that we have has helped with the pricing because it allows us to consume licensing in more of a consumption model versus a per-user type model. That has helped us a lot.

I don't know. I wasn't with the organization then.

We don't use Cisco Secure for securing our infrastructure from end to end to be able to detect and mediate threats. We have other products that serve as our endpoint detection and especially for the end-to-end side of things. That's not really our strongest use case for it. Cisco Secure hasn't helped save our organization any time or operations expenditure because we have other products that we use for that.

Overall, I'd rate Cisco Secure Firewall a ten out of ten.

We are one of our Swedish municipalities. We use this solution to support our environment and keep it safe and secure.

At the moment, Cisco SecureX is just for the monitoring part. We are migrating servers from an old infrastructure to a new one. It monitors how they're behaving on the network.

We have 500 sites using it. It's a mix of remote sites and connected sites. We have a lot of devices. We are a Swedish municipality, so we do everything from healthcare to taking care of the roads. We have a wide spectrum of users, so we have to supply everyone with what they need. So, we have a lot of devices in our network.

Cisco SecureX is doing a good job for us in terms of securing our infrastructure from end to end so that we can detect and remediate threats. It's detecting what we want it to detect, and it's protecting us from what we want to be protected against. So, it does its job. That's our need at the moment.

It has saved us time. Attackers are constantly trying to get hold of our environment. We've had around 20 to 30 breach attempts to get ahold of our environment. It protects us from that. It also protects us when an attempt is underway. We can see them starting to get into our network, so we can prevent it in time. The time saved varies. It can be days of work.

Its efficiency and security are the most important. We are more efficient and more secure.

We use Cisco switches and firewalls, Cisco DNA, and Cisco SecureX. The integration between various Cisco products is working very well. It's quite seamless for us.

There should be more integration with Microsoft Identity.

We get customer support through ITEA for a bunch of solutions. We get the help we need. I'd rate them a nine out of ten. You can always do better.

We haven't used any other solution for a long time. We have been a Cisco customer for a long period.

I was involved in its design. Some parts of the initial setup were quite easy and some parts were quite complex. We were quite early adopters of some parts of the Cisco brand, so we had some challenges, but overall, it was quite straightforward.

For some parts, we took the help of a third party called ITEA. Our experience with them was good.

We haven't calculated the overall ROI. There are different areas we use it for. For some management areas, we can calculate ROI, but in some areas, we can't.

You get what you pay for. It's always priced based on what you get and what it can handle. It's acceptable.

To those evaluating this solution, I'd advise finding out what you want to use it for. Our usage is quite basic. Overall, I am quite satisfied with what we are using it for.

Overall, I'd rate it a nine out of ten.

We have all kinds of use cases. Our customers are large enterprises, and they need perimeter security. Zero trust, network access control, and network segmentation are quite important these days.

We are a partner and reseller. We implement, and we resell. As a Cisco Secure reseller, we have all the expertise. Our customers are usually overworked and have no time to learn how to implement these things and get some expertise. That's what we bring in. We help them select the right solution, select the proper design and architecture, and implement it. They basically lack the time and expertise, and we are a trusted advisor who helps them with their issues.

I'm working with security. It improves the security posture of our customers and protects them from threats. We recently saw a bunch of hacks in Germany and our customers are concerned. We help to protect our customers from that, and that's very important.

The analysis tools and encrypted traffic analysis save time. They help detect security threats and incidents that can cause outages for customers. It's a great improvement.

Application inspection, network segmentation, and encrypted traffic detection or encrypted traffic analysis (ETA) are valuable for our customers. I'm from Germany, and in Germany, people are very concerned about privacy. We have a bunch of public customers, and they have an issue with decrypting traffic, even if it's only for security analysis. They have some fears. So, they are quite interested in the capability to detect threats without decrypting traffic.

The usability of Cisco Firepower Threat Defense is an issue. The product is still under development, and the user interface is very difficult to deal with. That's one area where it should be improved. Another area for improvement, which is also related to the firewall, is stability. We are having stability issues, and we had some cases where customers had a network down situation for about one or two days, which is not great.

As a partner, I have been working here for about nine years, but we offered this solution all the time. The company has probably been doing that for at least 15 years.

Cisco Firepower Threat Defense has improved a lot over the last few years, but we sometimes still have really big issues.

Their support is pretty awesome. It doesn't really matter if you have a hardware issue or a software issue. If it's a hardware issue, you get a replacement quickly, and if you have a software issue, you get quick support. There are also some bad examples. I have one from wireless where after a problem was acknowledged, it needed about one year to get fixed. It depends a little bit on how complex the issue is, but in general, it's quite okay.

We are also selling Fortinet, Palo Alto, and Check Point. We sell all solutions, but I'm quite focused on Cisco. It's mostly because I have the most expertise and experience with it over the years. I've been working with Cisco security solutions for 15 to 20 years. That's where my expertise is, and with Cisco, you have a solution for everything. It's not always the best of breed, but in the overall solution frame, you have something for everything, and they interact nicely with each other, which is great.

The deployment model is totally customer dependent. The way we work, we look at the customer environment and develop a proper deployment model for them. Some of them are using enterprise agreements. It's becoming more and more common, so they can use several solutions at once or with some kind of added use price and other benefits.

I'm not always involved in the deployment. I work as an architect. I do not implement all the solutions I design, but I implement some of them. For me, it's important because, for one, I like it, and second thing is that I need to have some kind of hands-on experience to understand the solution so that I can make better designs.

If you do the initial setup for the first time, it's somewhat complex., but over time, you get the experience, and then it's more or less straightforward. 

Our clients rarely used the firewall migration tool. It gives you a starting point for the configuration, but usually, there are so many things you need to rework afterward. We use it sometimes, but it only does a part of the job.

It does require maintenance. The clients have maintenance contracts for that.

In our company in Germany, just for the security solutions, we have about 20 to 30 engineers. They are experienced in different areas. For the firewalls, we have 10 engineers.

Cisco was never a cheap solution. Compared to other vendors, it's more or less at the same level, except maybe Fortinet which is fairly cheap.

In terms of licensing, we still have issues with the subscription model. Many of our customers are used to buying a solution and owning it. It takes time to convince people to go for the subscription model. That's still an issue for us.

We have Cisco Firepower Threat Defense, email security, web security, and Cisco Umbrella. Most of the time, I am working with Identity Services Engine for identity-related things. That's the main product I work with all the time. I have almost no direct contact with Talos, but I know that below the hood, it just improves all their security solutions.

To those evaluating this solution, I would advise being a little bit careful with it. It interfaces well with other Cisco solutions, so it has value, but it's not always the best solution.

At the moment, I would rate it a six out of ten.