Microsoft Defender for Business vs. Microsoft Forefront (Discontinued Product)

Microsoft Defender for Business is well suited for any size organization using the Microsoft 365 Suite. As an included feature in the mid and upper tiers of the 365 suites, it can quickly address antivirus protection for any sized company. It's compliance and security dashboards can help guide sole proprietorship owners in better understanding their security standing. The software also scales to give mid-sized and enterprise originations the in-depth information needed for compliance.

Incentivized

In large deployments, I have found Microsoft Forefront to be very effective at combating the majority of threats faced by our users. It provides the base platform for catching threats that would otherwise threaten our users and their data. If you have an environment that is under constant malware threat, then a secondary program may be needed as required.

Incentivized

• Monitors the health of endpoints
• Protects endpoints with antivirus
• Allows for policy configurations that can be deployed to endpoints

Incentivized

• SCEP is a light weight client which is minimally impactful on the user end.
• Forefront's management console provides excellent monitoring and reporting.
• Setup and configuration is very easy.

Incentivized

• Finding blocked programs in the UI is not intuitive if the alert message is dismissed.
• The admin portal changes often with features coming and going.
• Admin portal interface is cluttered and sometimes not intuitive.

Incentivized

• Malware detection is not quite 100%. We have to use a secondary program occasionally.
• On low ram and weak CPU systems scanning can freeze the machine.
• The same reporting tools that are on the console version, aren't on the client.

Incentivized

So far we have found no alternative that would overall offer us more than we are getting from Microsoft Defender for Business!

Incentivized

Microsoft Defender for Business is user friendly but requires some IT knowledge to adapt to its full potential. Microsoft 365 business will likely be more adaptable and have less of a learning curve than new users when configuring settings or security policies. Overall, I would say that strengths outweigh weaknesses and the unknowns can be learned

Incentivized

Microsoft Defender for Business, I believe, is a "light" version of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint. While they both have some of the same features, Microsoft Defender for Business has far less, and the more complex you want to get with your configurations, you may need to dip your toe into the InTune Admin Center to deploy certain policies.

Incentivized

The biggest advantage that MSF and SCEP provide over Norton is: One: Far less client overhead required. Both Norton and McAfee are highly intensive client side when in use. Two: We've had far better luck using the Microsoft system with its detection capabilities, versus the others. Three: It is tied right into the Microsoft updating system, which provides central updating capabilities of av/mal/windows updates.

Incentivized

• Improved cybersecurity
• Learning curve
• Resource consumption

Incentivized

• Less turnaround on virus based issues.
• Helps reduce malware issues over time.
• Can breed overconfidence in the system, so people don't always try a second tool.

Incentivized