Symantec Endpoint Security Reviews

We are using it for endpoint security and EDR and as an antivirus. We are also using it for threat detection purposes.

It is on-prem. We didn't migrate to the cloud.

The features are very nice. We are getting updates continuously from the Symantec side regarding any attacks, such as zero-day attacks. Symantec helps us in mitigating any attacks or threats early. 

Whenever we have any issues regarding the endpoints, Symantec is very helpful in resolving those issues.

They provide the updates of the client, and those clients need a reboot after the upgrade, which is something we don't like. We don't like to reboot the server after the upgrade because we have live applications. If we do a reboot, it can impact the business as well.

It sometimes behaves unusually. It sometimes stops our full services, and if we didn't upgrade to the better version or current version on the server, many a time, it blocks Microsoft patch upgrades. 

I have been working with this solution for around four years.

It is good. We don't have to worry much about bugs. We had a bug only once where we had not allowed for automatic upgrades, but it was upgrading. From the perspective of bugs, Symantec is fine.

I would rate them an eight out of 10. Sometimes, it takes a lot of time to connect to Symantec through a call. They usually reply by email. They are also reachable on call, but it takes lots of time to connect to them by phone.

Positive

It is complex. All servers report to SEPM, then after SEPM, they report to EP. It is complex and not straightforward. We have different environments for inside, outside, and DMZ. So, for that, it is kind of complex.

Its price is fair.

It is a very good solution. Symantec is a traditional antivirus, and among all traditional antivirus solutions, Symantec is very good. It has good updates.

I would advise others to go for the cloud environment. The cloud environment is very good, and there are a lot of new features.

I would rate it an eight out of 10.

The use case for the solution was basically this: any computer or anything used for any sort of official business needed to have endpoint protection and needed to have some sort of antivirus protection. The thing was somewhat more than just an antivirus, it also included a firewall that operated in addition to the Windows or Mac firewall.

The university policy basically required that all endpoint devices used for official business have to meet certain requirements and one of them was to have an antivirus.

The solution probably caught some malware a certain percentage of the time and that helped the organization. By the time we abandoned it, it was actually less effective, at least on Windows 10 machines, than the built-in antivirus that you get with the Windows 10 Defender Antivirus. It became, in the end, sort-of a liability.

It also became a liability when the company was sold to Broadcom. The name is actually different now. I don't think it's called Symantec Endpoint Protection. It's called Broadcom Endpoint Protection. We had a very difficult time even getting in touch with the technical support from that company, especially after Symantec was sold. It wasn't a very robust solution.

The solution detects malware very well.

It wasn't a very good solution overall, which is why we ended up replacing it.

Most organizations are choosing a next-gen antivirus, one that's based on artificial intelligence. Symantec Endpoint Protection was one of those legacy products that have been around forever. Symantec was a spinoff from Norton. Norton Antivirus was one of the very first antiviruses to come out in the 1980s. Symantec was very highly rated at one point in its life. It never really caught on to the new trends and antivirus protection. And so it still relied on things like a database of virus signatures that would need to get downloaded and then files would be checked for those signatures.

Modern antiviruses don't do that. They're based on behavior. They're based on intelligence algorithms. They're honed by artificial intelligence and machine learning from data collected all over the world. And so for that reason, the next-gen antiviruses are much more efficient at detecting viruses. They also take up a lighter load on the computer.

Next-generation is behavior-based detection rather than signature-based detection. Symantec tried to be a hybrid between the two. It had a behavior-based component called SONAR, however, it was still mostly a signature-based software antivirus application. For that reason, you can never keep up with all the mutations and viruses, and you can't keep up with malicious behavior that isn't based on viruses. Things like downloaded PowerShell scripts, things that computers can do with the components that they already have without needing to put any virus on the computer. A lot of malicious attacks, government-backed attacks, don't use any kind of foreign software. They take advantage of vulnerabilities within existing operating systems like Microsoft Windows or the various versions of Linux or the Mac operating system. They don't need to put additional software on the computer to compromise them.

That, in a nutshell, is why we switched to a next-gen antivirus. Next-gen antiviruses have probably been around for about five or six years. Some of the old companies made the transition to them seamlessly. Symantec didn't. It remained wedded to the old technology and that made it, you could say, a has-been.

I've been using the solution for many years. It's probably been about ten years at this point, at least a decade.

The stability was not the best. There were times when antivirus updates broke it. It wasn't necessarily self-updating - at least, not in terms of the virus signatures. It updated in terms of the executable files. Therefore, when Windows updates would come out, they often couldn't be installed, or the computer would hang due to the fact that the updates weren't compatible with the antivirus. I give it pretty poor score for robustness.

It was scalable just due to the fact that had to be installed individually on individual computers. For the unmanaged workstations, it was as scalable as you wanted it to be. There was a new download and a new install on a new computer. There are no limits on that. I'm not sure, however, how true that is, as it wasn't within my area of responsibility. I'm not sure if the managed work points overloaded the servers that were meant to monitor them. I don't think that was the case. The scalability was probably pretty good there too. I never heard any complaints about it not being scalable.

We likely had between 10,000 and 20,000 users on it. The roles would include, since it's a university, students, faculty, staff, and researchers. That pretty much covered the type of people that work at a university.

We don't plan to increase usage as we've completely phased out the solution.

Once Symantec was sold to Broadcom, it became very difficult to reach out to technical support, and they just stopped being responsive. By the end, we were very unhappy with their level of support.

I've been at the organization for 21, 22 years. Originally, before we had Symantec, it was McAfee antivirus. We had that up until maybe about 2010 or so. Now, we are using CrowdStrike Falcon.

The initial setup was not complex. It was simple.

The deployment was always ongoing due to the fact that, as a university with something like 16,000 employees, computers were getting bought and repurposed all the time. The initial rollout was in fact not a managed version of the antivirus. It was just a standalone version that users could download from a website when they provided their credentials. After that, they would just double click on a downloaded file and run the installer and they'd have the antivirus.

However, it was completely unmonitored. The antivirus program on their computer was not sending its data anywhere. It couldn't be helped by anyone remotely to do its job of protecting the computer.

Therefore, almost all organizations now want to have a managed antivirus solution where there's software installed on the computer, but it communicates with the cloud, and IT administrators at the organization can control this behavior and learn from it.

In terms of the staff required to handle the deployment and maintenance, there was probably the equivalent of maybe two to three full-time staff that were dedicated to antivirus endpoint protection issues. 

We handled everything ourselves in-house. We didn't need the help of a consultant or integrator.

We pay on a yearly basis. However, I'm unsure of the exact amount.

We did evaluate a number of other vendors. We entertained some RFPs and we did testing on four other competing products. There was one other competitor that was close. The main factor that tilted us toward CrowdStrike is that they did make a last-minute significant cut in price to their offer. I think they reduced it by something like 30% or 40%.

CrowdStrike has been in the business longer and is a bigger company than the runner up as well. To us, that mattered. If there is winnowing out of competitors, if the market actually shrinks and there are a few big players in five years, we want to be sure that we're with one of the big players that are going to make it.

The solution is a kind of a mix between an on-premise managed server that managing some machines, and other machines just had an unmanaged client that was distributed to students. It's not actually a cloud, it's a server. It's an on-premises server. It's not a cloud-based server that is being used. The antiviruses report to the server and policies can be set on the server.

I'd advise users to be aware that there are better solutions out there than this. I've learned that technology can change and your solution may be great now, but in a few years, it may drop to the bottom of the barrel. That's what happened here.

I'd rate the solution one out of ten. In order to get any sort of higher rating, they would need to start it over again from scratch. Instead of trying to make a legacy product better, they should abandon it and invent a new product.

We use it to maintain a minimum of security in our office. It's very important to have an antivirus in our environment. The main object of the solution is to maintain stability so that our environment is protected from any websites that can harm our solution.

To prevent attacks you need a full range of protection: antivirus, anti-spam, proxies, and firewalls. Symantec provides the antivirus piece.

It has reduced our attack surface and that's why we keep using the solution. It helps prevent cyber attacks and spam. Symantec Endpoint Security is an important element for maintaining security in our company.

One of the most valuable features is the ability to manage antivirus security. There is an admin console that helps you make policies and do deployment of the clients, to make them reachable and to deploy updates.

Using the management console is a bit complex. There are many features that we cannot use and we could use some help. We need some assistance to make them work better. They need to add features to make it simpler.

It may also need to be updated for new attacks.

I have been using Symantec Endpoint Security since I started this job three years ago.

The stability is good.

We use it for every laptop, locally. We have about 50 users.

We have not used the technical support so far.

I have also used Kaspersky, in another job.

The deployment does not take very much time, maybe 15 minutes, under good conditions. But it depends on many factors.

It's affordable.

We haven't compared the pricing with other solutions. When our license renewal arrives we will look at our needs and we will evaluate every option possible so that we can choose the right one.

When I came to this company they were already using Symantec.

Symantec is a good solution. I recommend it over some other products. There are two or three products that can help, such as Kaspersky. Every solution has its advantages and disadvantages. It depends on your choice or needs.

We don't know how to use it to block attackers that are attempting to gain control of Active Directory. I don't know if an antivirus can interface directly with Active Directory. Our aim is to secure all solutions, not only Active Directory.

Overall, Symantec Endpoint Security is an important tool to help our factory make progress. Symantec has a good reputation and I would recommend it.

We were facing many problems related to AV definitions not being updated and viruses, and we could solve these problems with the help of Symantec. 

It is a good product. It has saved us from external attacks and viruses.

It is easy to use. Its interface is user-friendly. So, anybody can use it very well, which is a good thing.

It is a reliable product, and its performance is also good.

Automation of tasks should be improved on SEPM. It is currently manual, and we should be able to automate installation and deployment from the client side.

I have been using this solution for the last seven years.

Its stability is good. It is reliable.

Its scalability is good. We have more than 50,000 clients in our environment, and Symantec is installed on all the clients. It has been working properly, and it is easily able to detect viruses and malicious files. We currently don’t have any plans to increase its usage.

Their support is good. Every time we are facing an issue, their technical support team is able to help us. I would rate them a ten out of ten.

Positive

I didn’t use any other solution previously.

I wasn’t involved in its deployment. In terms of maintenance, it doesn't require any maintenance.

I would 100% recommend it. I would rate it a ten out of ten.

We are a small enterprise. Our primary use case of Symantec End-User Endpoint Security is for malicious websites and malware attacks.

The solution is easy to use.

The product must be uploaded, keeping all the sites with threats and virus signatures. We have to deploy or push EXE files to the endpoints like Kaspersky.

I have been using Symantec End-User Endpoint Security for two years.

Symantec is stable.

This product is scalable.

Technical support is good.

The deployment was very easy.

Symantec End-User is not expensive.

Before choosing Symantec, I tried Apex One from Trend Micro. Symantec is better because it is more up to date with viruses and malware signatures. 

I would rate this solution a 7 out of 10. You have to follow the updates and monitor Symantec.

Symantec End-User Endpoint Security is easy to use.

I am completely satisfied with this solution.

Overall, the price could be reduced.

We have been using Symantec End-User Endpoint Security for at least five years.

We are using the latest versions.

We have no issues with the stability of Symantec End-User Endpoint Security.

It's a scalable solution.

We have approximately 500 users in our organization.

The technical support provided by Symantec End-User Endpoint Security is good.

I use Google Meet.

We use whatever the customer wants because we are IT, service providers. However, we use Amazon for our internal application.

We also use Linux, most of the time.

The installation is straightforward.

It could be cheaper.

I would recommend this solution to others who are considering using it.

I would rate Symantec End-User Endpoint Security an eight out of ten.

The solution is used for detection and endpoint protection against threats and malware. 

I like that the solution can be scaled to deal with different threats. The same agent will be integrated into different Symantec products, which obviates the need to deploy multiple agents. This keeps things very small and effective. 

The solution should have more integration with other platforms. 

Broadcom's support is friendly and very professional. However, in Pakistan, the support team takes more time than Trend Micro or Sophos to reach to the bottom, as their policies are under review. A strategy should be employed to open this to Pakistan, as well. As such, a delay occurs, something which occasionally comes about indirectly. The support itself is good, but the issue which needs to be resolved concerns the promptness with which an assigned engineer can address each ticket we open.

I have been using Symantec End-User Endpoint Security for over a year.

The solution is stable. 

The solution can be scaled to handle different threats. 

Broadcom's support is friendly and very professional. However, in Pakistan, the support team takes more time than Trend Micro or Sophos to reach the bottom, as their policies are under review. A strategy should be employed to open this to Pakistan, as well. As such, a delay occurs, something which occasionally comes about indirectly. The support itself is good, but the issue which needs to be addressed concerns the promptness with which an assigned engineer can address each ticket we open. 

The installation is straightforward.

The deployment lasts two hours. 

The licensing terms can range from subscription-based to perpetual, to annual, to tri-annual. 

Broadcom's support is friendly and very professional. However, in Pakistan, the support team takes more time than Trend Micro or Sophos to reach the bottom, as their policies are under review. A strategy should be employed to open this to Pakistan, as well. As such, a delay occurs, something which occasionally comes about indirectly. The support itself is good, but the issue which needs to be addressed concerns the promptness with which an assigned engineer can address each ticket we open.

The Symantec footprint in Pakistan was once very big, numbering 40,000 endpoints which were deployed by us and more than 20,000 by other partners in the banking sector, although now it is considerably smaller. 

The solution can be deployed both on-premises and on-cloud. 

At one point in time, we had 20 customers. 

I would definitely recommend the solution to others. 

I rate Symantec End-User Endpoint Security as an eight out of ten. 

It just works. We have a console, and I can see it at a glance. I don't have any problems with it at all.

I can push the client out. All the antivirus updates are managed from a single central point, and it just works. 

It would be interesting if Symantec Endpoint protection could also manage Windows Defender. If they were to add a feature, it would be nice if you could see the Symantec client and the Windows Defender client in case you choose to deploy both.

I have been using this solution for 15 years.

We haven't had any problems with it.

I would rate Symantec End-User Endpoint Security an eight out of 10. We haven't had any problems with it. It just works.