Sophos Cyberoam UTM Reviews

Secure SSL VPN out of the box appliance. It just works; good web and spam filtering.

All in one UTM appliance.

Smaller CR15 units don’t have a hard disc or built in IView software. These units could do with that feature.

Very early CR15 unit prone to freeze.

No, as long as you specify the user capacity you should be OK.

When Cyberoam owned the product it was excellent. Now Sophos owns it and it's not as good.

We used to use Fortinet UTM, but Cyberoam is much better in terms of virus scanning, web filtering and spam filtering.

Very easy to set up.

Licensing is very good value for the money.

No, we didn’t evaluate other products apart from Fortinet.

Training is essential.

Site to Site VPN, and local web filtering.

The ability to have a site to site VPN, yet have the users use their local internet rather than sending all traffic back to our main site is crucial to their day to day operations. Remote VOIP phone system routing through the VPN we have extension connections to those remote campuses.

We have issues with IPS and DoS attacks taking down a couple of our sites. I've changed the IPs of the external interfaces yet the attacks still happen and the Firewall will disconnect the VPN connection as well as stop all internal traffic from flowing externally. I am still able to HTTPS to the external interface, but it takes a full reboot of the appliance to get any traffic flowing again.

Deployment only has one snag. Our VOIP system initially tried to communicate over the internet before the VPN connection is active. Once that happened, unsuccessfully, the phone switch stops trying. But support was able to diagnose the problem and come up with a solution to keep traffic blocked going to the internet, causing it to wait for the VPN to be active and traffic flow successfully.

Seems like the main instability I have found is with my Austin site and the DoS attacks that take down the VPN and internet ability for the local site. I have 7 remote sites and this is the only one that has these issues regularly.

Yes, currently with the Sophos buy out of Cyberoam. My CR15iNG models show not to be upgradable to the new Sophos IOS. Meaning I have to purchase new equipment to get any of the new features and performance. Causing me to investigate other firewalls.

I have always had great luck with customer service. I have been with them for so long that they know me and are pretty responsive to any issues I've had. I have had hardware issues in the past and received a replacement the next day. I've also been on the phone for quite some time for them to diagnose an issue I have and come up with a good solution. While their support is not in the US, I have not had a problem getting someone on the phone when I call.

There is always another level. First level of support is very capable of helping with configuration issues. While when something more complicated is in need they have engineers to speak with and view your appliance to be sure they have all the information and diagnose appropriately.

We used Cisco firewalls prior. They worked great, were more complicated to setup and cost significantly more initially and to renew each year.

Very straightforward for setup. I had a few issues with my VOIP setup but once that was figured out setup for all other sites was a snap.

In-House deployment.

Much less travel expense. Even when I have issues, as with my Austin site, I'm able to rectify them remotely in most cases. With the Cisco I had to travel if I was needing to change the configuration.

These, CR15iNG remote/small office firewalls, units are pretty inexpensive and renewal pricing is well worth the support cost. They do not have a hardware replacement support agreement at this time with Cyberoam. I do believe Sophos is changing that portion of the support agreement though.

Not really, we had the Cisco in place. We had a vendor at the time that was really high on Cyberoam as they have done the evaluation of others for us.

I liked the product so much I purchased one for my home as well.

Prior to Sophos taking over I had a great sales support staff and technical staff. Since that has lagged a bit. I'm hoping that with my upgrade to the Sophos OS that will change, if I stay with their product.

Most valuable feature I am using I would say is the bandwidth management for users. I have users who misuse the net and I have given them caps so it is properly utilized. Another feature I use is the VPN. I have an entity that requires 24x7x365 connectivity and the Cyberoam is very simple when it comes to monitoring that or refreshing that connection.

A simple example would be the bandwidth usage. We do not have misuse of bandwidth and the firewall and anti-spam filter work great for me. I see a lot of dos attacks that are stopped which is also a plus point. So organizations productivity is higher thanks to the Cyberoam as users are restricted from unnecessary websites and bandwidth is capped and company functions do not suffer.

Not many things would need to be added but I strongly feel it could be made more robust. For example, the cooling system in the device could do with a good revamp. There are times when the device gets too hot and begins to misbehave. Other things that could be improved are the password complexity policy and the password history policy. One thing that could be done as well is to create role based users like we have in the active directory. There are times when we have users who are not admins but need to monitor the device and access levels do not exist for such users.

We don't contact Sophos directly. It is usually through a local partner/vendor.

I would recommend for others to go and view the demo. Make sure this device will suit you needs especially in terms of expansion. Also look into support as not many times support is available. It is a simple to understand product but does require some skill to manage and maintain the device for optimal usage.

It's easy to manage and handle. BW management and BW quota with limitation policy is easily deployed.

Flat network was there and internet surfing was high. To minimise the risk and BW allocation, Cyberoam is used and it is very productive.

The dashboard could be improved.

Since 2013

We've had no issues with deployment.

We've had no issues with stability.

We've had no issues with scalability.

8 out of 10

9

Yes

The setup was not complex.

We implemented it in-house.

The ROI is satisfactory.

We evaluated Dell Sonic.

• NG Firewall
• Application Filter
• Web Filter 
• IPS

All these features are valuable to us because we can block malicious and unproductive application and sites to improve productivity and security in our network, audit users and machines and protect us against exploitation.

It's improved productivity as well as user and network security.. It's helped with internet access management and provides security against external attacks.

We have had issues with malicious sites and external scans.

We didn't have any issues with deployment.

We haven't had issues with stability.

We haven't had issues with scalability.

You should hire a Cyberoam specialist to manage it.

Cyberoam is our low-end product that we use for smaller customers or ones where application security is not a priority. Cyberoam has good AD integration for user configuration and web controls which we like a lot and it’s easy to manage and maintain.  We mostly use the virtual models in VMware.

The virtual cyberoam has allowed us to segment our cloud customers via a virtual firewall instance per customer as a second level of security behind our primary systems firewalls.  This allows the customer granular controls at their level and then allows us overriding controls at a parental level.  Makes for great security.

You can now load the Sophos software onto a Cyberoam box to use the new feature set, although it would be nice if it came with it.

Sophos bought Cyberoam a short while ago and they have amalgamated the Sophos technologies with the existing Sophos ones and some from astaro which they previously bought..  So there is now a Sophos firmware which you can install onto the Cyberoam instead of the Cyberoam one. Because it’s Linux based it’s very portable.

Great product for the price.

Cyberoam was bought by Sophos and the new Sophos firewalls take the next step adding more functionality and capability in the box. Cyberoam was bought by Sophos and the new Sophos firewalls take the next step adding more functionality and capability in the box.  

• Management Console
• Security
• Bandwidth management

I've used it for six years.

Yes once when we updated a new firmware, then we again rolled back to previous one.

Customer service is very poor.

They have good technical support.

When we purchased it, it was complex, but now it’s straightforward. The SSO is introduced in our premise only. At that time we only had the requirement of SSO.

The first time through the vendor, and the second time our own in house team did it.

Pricing and licensing is high.

• Web filtering
• Application filtering
• IPS
• QoS

I used to work for a Cyberoam distributor. In one of my projects, I deployed it in a university with 1500 users (students), all of whom had different QoS and web category policies, different authentication policies. I then had to connect the university’s branches, in different cities, with a Site to Site VPN using AD authentication available for just the account. This was to restrict access only to the accounting application server of the other branch. It was quite complicated to do, but it was very successful.

In another project for a bank, I secured a banking application server and attached a database using two Cyberoam devices on the edge, with a Juniper device in the middle. This was for securing three different segments - internal users, internal developers and external visitors. The final topology was so secure that, even for some testing purposes, we were not able to break in to change the configuration and access the system as a third party.

Not very often, but there are some minor bugs in the products. I think their quality control can improve.

I’ve used it since 2008, so seven years so far.It is a complex product so I’d rate the performance and number of features as 10/10, and 7/10 for the consistency and programing.

Generally speaking, the Cyberoam development is quite simple, easy and straight forward. Overall it depends on the network complexity.

Compared to a Cisco router, Cyberoam UTMs need to be restarted more often. From my point of view, this is acceptable, since many aspects of the product functions in layer seven, while a Cisco router just routes!

Since all the products models from the smallest to the strongest have the same features and capabilities, I can say that the product is extremely scalable. However, if you need to upgrade the whole device to a stronger model, I would say scalability is 8/10, which considering the differences between the number of ports in different models (I could even give 9/10, but let’s stay with 8/10!).

It really depends on the retailer, representative and local distributor. Nothing much to say.

One of the most considerable advantages of Cyberoam over the competitors is the after sales support. The 24/7 support assists the customers, even from minor to very major issues, and they chase up the issue until the final resolution by email and phone. They are really trustworthy.

In a different continent, a different company, and as a customer (not a distributor) I still used the same brand, Cyberoam! It’s cheap, flexible, easy to configure and easy to manage.

I’ve been using the product for ages and I have deployed it in hundreds of networks and complexities. However, using the configuration wizard, the initial configuration is extremely easy and straightforward (depending on the network complexity of course).

I have always installed it myself.

It's hard to estimate, as it depends on the complexity, and scale of the network.It takes anywhere from one day to less than a week in normal situations.

I have evaluated Juniper, WatchGuard and a couple of minor brands. So far, I can still raise the flag of Cyberoam.

Since the features on the model are the same, and it is just the hardware that gets improved for higher models, I usually advise a model one and a half times bigger than the number of the network users. For instance a 1000 user network can be easily served by a 1500NG. However based on my experience, since not all the users are active simultaneously, even 1 to 1 is sufficient. Considering the capability of HA, expansion is simple if needed.

There are many features that are valuable, but the Bandwidth Management and Web/Application Filter policies are the most valuable.

It has minimized the bandwidth consumption as a result of which many other applications run smoothly.

The most important improvement Cyberoam needs is the multiple ISP segregation.

I used this solution from 2012 through 2014.

Sometimes the proxy server turns idle, then we need to restart the service.

It's one of the best.

It's one of the best.

I have not used a previous solution.

The initial setup is straightforward and simple.

We used a vendor team.

• Firewall rules
• Full control on access management
• It's simple

The scalability needs work.

I've used it for four years.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

It needs improvement.

8/10.

8/10.

We used Cisco, but it was complicated and expensive so we switched.

We used a vendor to do the implementation, and they were 8/10.

Cisco