Cisco Umbrella enables all of our end users to browse the internet and internal networks securely. It can block different things like sites and applications that they shouldn't access according to company policies. For example, we can block different applications or specific site categories.

We also use Cisco SecurePort and SecureX, which is a platform for integrating various Cisco products. We have already integrated Cisco Secure Endpoint and Cisco Umbrella through SecureX, which offers a single pane of glass so you can see all the problems. We have also integrated our Meraki firewalls and access points. We have 500 users, and each of them has the Umbrella agent installed. If you're working in the office, you don't need it because every computer is protected by Umbrella.

The main benefit of Cisco Umbrella is to prevent the end users from becoming victims of phishing attacks or malicious links in an email. It isn't necessarily about making the users more efficient or productive, but it could help with that. For example, if someone mistakenly clicks on a link and their device is infected, we may need to take it offline for a day or two in order to resolve it. We don't have these incidents, so we can ensure that users won't be affected by any malicious activities and can continue doing what they're doing without worrying about other departments getting infected.

Umbrella lets you inspect client Internet traffic as if it were flowing through a traditional data center security stack. The main thing you can do is check the destination they're trying to access, but you cannot inspect the package. You can see the URL, but you cannot fully inspect the way we're actually using it. The primary goal is to block or allow specific URLs. We don't do any inspection or use any proxy to inspect traffic.

I would say that we save money using this product because it's easy to use, so you don't need an expert to operate it. It requires some expertise, but it's simple to monitor and maintain. Also, when we want to set up offices in new areas, it's easy to integrate.

Umbrella is constantly discovering new vulnerabilities. The solution's ability to discover zero-day attacks without significant changes to the platform is crucial. For example, we prohibit certain categories of websites like gaming or gambling, and the categories are constantly updated. We don't need to update the categories to add new websites or constantly check those reports because we know that Umbrella does what it's supposed to.

The interface is well organized, so you can easily find everything. Even if you don't have much experience with Cisco, you can easily navigate the solution and find your way around. Everything has been done well, from the deployment to monitoring.

The application is really stable. We never have problems with Cisco not working for our end users. We have an internal communication hub. The office implementation is integrated with our security systems and firewalls, but we also have users worldwide working from home. Our employees are pleased with the user experience, and we've never had reports about Umbrella not working properly or being unable to access a site. It's integrated with Cisco AnyConnect, so our users can access it through a VPN solution.

Umbrella actively processes and blocks malicious DNS queries daily, which is helpful for us because we're a small team. We heavily depend on the tool to do its job properly. It works nicely out of the box. You have to do a little initial configuration, but after that, it blocks everything we want and nothing we don't. We've gotten some false positives with other products, but we've never experienced that with Cisco Umbrella.

Guest internet access is easy to configure. We set more restrictive policies for our guest users, but it hasn't been difficult to spin up consistent policies in three or four different offices. We just attached the policy that we have for guest users to a specific wireless SSID.

Umbrella combines multiple security functions into a single dashboard. If you use Cisco SecureX, there is a dashboard in Umbrella, but you have to look at different areas. In Cisco SecureWorks, you can add the tasks and dashboards you want to monitor, but Umbrella is more standardized, so you cannot make many changes. In addition to the dashboard, we have some daily reports and email alerts. It does what we want.

Cisco Umbrella hasn't integrated customized reporting yet. With Cisco Secure Endpoint Hub, I can see a report on user downloads and set it up to constantly get an email alert. Based on my understanding, Cisco Umbrella can't do that. You can set it up with third parties, but it would be better if that were built into the platform.

I joined this company a year ago, but they had already been using Cisco Umbrella for more than three years.

I have never experienced any outages or downtime. It works all the time.

I rate Cisco support nine out of 10. We had to open a ticket because we had some issues installing the agents, but we haven't had trouble since then. The technical team responded and fixed our issues quickly.

I used a similar SaaS solution by Palo Alto, but Cisco Umbrella seems to be quite unique because it's a DNS layer. I'm not sure if any other company is doing the same thing. We integrate Cisco Secure Endpoint and Cisco Umbrella to provide end-user detection and prevention. It does what it's supposed to do with most of a lot of admin work. It's a gateway.

I wasn't part of the deployment, but it seems to be straightforward based on what I have seen. It requires a few adjustments to the firewalls and some integration, but it seems relatively simple. We needed to help the users working from home install the agents for Umbrella and AnyConnect, and this was also straightforward to deploy with Kandji, our MDM system.

After deployment, Umbrella doesn't require much maintenance because it's a SaaS application like Gmail. You don't have to do anything except the admin work, such as adding websites or categories. However, Umbrella uses an agent, so we need to update the engine. We can automate all these things, so the maintenance is minimal.

It's hard to quantify a return, but the cost of a malware attack or customers losing private information is potentially very high. I don't have the numbers for those things, but Cisco Umbrella helps us to avoid those issues. A breach can harm our reputation and damage the entire organization.

Cisco Umbrella is reasonably priced for what it does. I don't have any numbers to compare it with because I don't recall what the other solutions cost.

I rate Cisco Umbrella nine out of 10.

We're using that solution to essentially sort DNS attacks. We also use it to add that increased layer of protection at the DNS level for our customers. That's what we're using it for right now. We're trying to cut back on cyberattacks, malware, phishing, man and control callbacks, et cetera.

We had a fairly large DNS attack and that made us realize we needed basic DNS protection in place, however, we wanted something that was a little more advanced. That really pushed us over the edge for that enhanced DNS protection. It's got that ease of installation and billing along with just being a great product that's been tried and tested. That made our decision.

When we had that DNS attack, we saw a huge spike in issues. It's definitely gone down by a fair amount since implementation. We're seeing 800 fewer trouble tickets compared to the previous year. We can see (via the dashboard now) that we have billions of threats coming in every day. We're adding that extra layer of security for our customers. We're breathing a little easier now as it's actively protecting against all these threats that are coming in every day.

It helps us lead processes and blocks malicious DNS queries daily, which is very beneficial. We've seen a reduction of about eight hundred trouble tickets compared to the previous year. The customers are having a better overall experience as less bandwidth is being taken up by DNS acres. We're not having to constantly police that part of our network. It's a little bit of a better process and a better experience for our customers.

We use the Easy Connect product, which works well.

The solution enables you to extend data protection to devices and remote users or distribute the locations. However, most of our use for the product is at the DNS level for our entire network and not really at the device level. We do have another added layer from a different company for the device security component.

The solution is pretty flexible.

With the reduction of trouble tickets, it would be reasonable to say the solution has saved us money on security operations.

Umbrella discovers new vulnerabilities every year. That's absolutely important to us. As our technology changes, the way we're attacked changes and will continue to change. It's important for us to be made aware of new threats and protect against them.

The pricing could be improved.

I've been using it for almost a year, since February 2023.

I did not previously use another solution to this extent.

We've seen an ROI with our trouble ticket call volumes going down. We've saved an estimated $30,000 so far this year.

Start working with your rep early and budget well in advance. Billing is fairly straightforward, but can be expensive.

We're customers and end-users.

We do not plan to purchase any additional security solutions in our environment in the near future. We have other layers of products in place already.

For someone who's researching threat detection and prevention solutions, I'd have them consider Cisco Umbrella. You can see the threats that are being blocked, and you can help customers understand that you're doing everything you can to make sure that their online experience is safe and protected. People are working from home. People are doing telemedicine. There's a lot of more sensitive information being shared online. That in and of itself is a good selling point. You want to make sure that your customers are as protected as possible.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.