Acunetix vs Microsoft Defender for Business

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Our analysts compared Acunetix vs Microsoft Defender for Business based on data from our 400+ point analysis of Endpoint Security Software, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

Microsoft Defender for Business Software Tool

Product Basics

Acunetix is an application security testing platform that helps its users safeguard web applications, websites and APIs. It combines dynamic and static scanning technologies and utilizes a separate monitoring agent to detect vulnerabilities.

It offers vulnerability management and compliance reporting functionalities. It is designed for small businesses, pentesters, web professionals and enterprise customers to address vulnerabilities across their critical web assets.
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Microsoft Defender for Business is a comprehensive security solution designed to protect small to medium-sized businesses from cyber threats. It offers advanced threat protection, endpoint detection and response, and automated investigation and remediation capabilities. This software is particularly suited for industries such as healthcare, finance, and retail, where data security is paramount. Its unique benefits include simplified deployment, centralized management, and integration with other Microsoft services, providing a seamless security experience.

Key features include real-time threat detection, vulnerability management, and detailed reporting. Users appreciate its intuitive interface and robust protection mechanisms, which are often highlighted in user reviews. Compared to similar products, Microsoft Defender for Business stands out for its ease of use and comprehensive coverage. Pricing details can vary, so it's recommended to contact SelectHub for a tailored quote based on specific needs. This ensures businesses get the most accurate and relevant pricing information for their requirements.

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$1,995/User, Annually
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Tailored to your specific needs
$3/User, Monthly
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Tailored to your specific needs
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Windows
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Linux
Android
Chromebook
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Linux
Android
Chromebook
Cloud
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Mobile
Cloud
On-Premise
Mobile

Product Assistance

Documentation
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Live Online
Videos
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Documentation
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Live Online
Videos
Webinars
Email
Phone
Chat
FAQ
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Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support
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24/7 Live Support

Product Insights

  • Vulnerability Scanner: Includes web vulnerability tests in SecDevOps processes to save resources and avoid late patching. Uses a unique scanning algorithm, SmartScan, to quickly find vulnerabilities and save resources during penetration testing due to low false-positive rates. It can be deployed locally on macOS, Microsoft Windows and Linux operating systems. 
  • Manage Security: Discover multiple vulnerabilities, including weak passwords, misconfigurations, exposed databases, XSS, SQL injections and out of the band vulnerabilities. Scan complex multi-level forms and password-protected areas through advanced micro-level technology. 
  • Improved Results: Verifies real vulnerabilities and assesses the severity of issues to provide actionable insights. Eliminates lengthy setups and onboarding times to facilitate quick scanning, preventing network hogging and server overloading. 
  • Enables Automation: Schedule and prioritize full or incremental scans according to traffic load and business needs. Handle identified issues using built-in management functionality or integration with its current tracking systems. Scan new builds with the latest CI tools like Jenkins and import pre-seed crawl data from Burp, Fiddler, Postman, Paros and more. 
  • Seamless Integrations: Track and protect against identified vulnerabilities through integrations with third-party applications. Development teams can streamline collaboration and manage work using issue trackers. Create appropriate rules to protect against attacks targeting vulnerabilities with web application firewall integrations. Offers a Jenkins plugin to discover and track vulnerabilities early on in the software development lifecycle.  
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  • Enhanced Threat Detection: Microsoft Defender for Business leverages advanced AI and machine learning to identify and mitigate threats in real-time, reducing the risk of data breaches.
  • Automated Response: The software automates the response to detected threats, ensuring swift action to contain and neutralize potential security incidents without manual intervention.
  • Comprehensive Protection: It provides end-to-end security across devices, applications, and data, ensuring a holistic defense strategy for your business environment.
  • Cost Efficiency: By integrating multiple security functions into a single platform, Microsoft Defender for Business reduces the need for multiple security solutions, lowering overall costs.
  • Scalability: The solution is designed to grow with your business, easily scaling to accommodate increasing numbers of devices and users without compromising performance.
  • Regulatory Compliance: Helps businesses meet regulatory requirements by providing detailed reporting and audit trails, simplifying compliance with standards like GDPR and HIPAA.
  • Reduced Downtime: By quickly identifying and addressing threats, the software minimizes downtime and ensures business continuity, keeping operations running smoothly.
  • User-Friendly Interface: The intuitive dashboard and easy-to-navigate interface make it simple for IT teams to manage security tasks and monitor the overall security posture.
  • Integration with Microsoft 365: Seamlessly integrates with Microsoft 365, providing a unified security solution that enhances the protection of your existing Microsoft ecosystem.
  • Proactive Threat Hunting: Enables proactive threat hunting capabilities, allowing security teams to identify and address potential vulnerabilities before they can be exploited.
  • Customizable Policies: Offers customizable security policies tailored to the specific needs of your business, ensuring optimal protection without unnecessary restrictions.
  • Expert Support: Access to Microsoft's extensive support network and resources ensures that your business can quickly resolve any security issues that arise.
  • Employee Training: Includes tools and resources to educate employees about security best practices, reducing the likelihood of human error leading to security incidents.
  • Real-Time Alerts: Provides real-time alerts and notifications, enabling immediate action to address potential threats and minimize impact.
  • Data Encryption: Ensures that sensitive business data is encrypted both in transit and at rest, protecting it from unauthorized access and breaches.
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  • Automated Penetration Testing: Manually identify web application vulnerabilities like cross-site scripting, SQL injections and more before starting a penetration test. Allows vulnerability assessment and management with integration options, including an API for building personal integrations. Follow up with further manual tests using GUI-based and command-line penetration testing tools. 
  • Website Security Scanner: Run scans to probe sites and find application risks. Examine web applications built with Java frameworks like Struts, Spring and Java Server Faces. Scan password-protected pages automatically using the Login Sequence Recorder. Utilizes AcuSensor technology to inspect web application’s source code. Replicates user actions to execute scripts like a browser. Employs black and gray box testing to focus on the entire attack surface. 
  • External Vulnerability Scanner: Scans perimeters for network-layer vulnerabilities and misconfigurations. Provides options to schedule external vulnerability scans at a specific time to run regular scans. Generates technical, regulatory and compliance reports like OWASP top 10, PCI DSS, HIPAA and more. Export vulnerabilities to third-party issue trackers such as GitHub, GitLab, Atlassian JIRA, Bugzilla, Mantis and Microsoft TFS. 
  • Web Application Security: Defends against known and website or web application vulnerabilities that include sites built with hard to scan HTML5 and JavaScript SPAs. Scan website files through custom form authentication or other access controls and session management. Assess and minimize security risks with out-of-the-box vulnerability management tools, including prioritization and historic trends. 
  • AcuSensor Technology: Enables interactive application security testing and works with applications written in PHP, ASP.NET and Java. Provides additional information from the server back end during web application scanning to offer ease of remediation, greater precision and full coverage. It can be installed on staging servers to perform IAST analysis. 
  • AcuMonitor Technology: Increases the scope of vulnerabilities detected by Acunetix scanner and enables out of the band detection. Identifies vulnerabilities like host header attacks, blind XSS, blind server-side XML/SOAP injection, out of the band remote code execution and SQL injection, email header injection, server-side request forgery and XML external entity injection. 
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  • Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR): Provides advanced threat detection and response capabilities to identify and mitigate sophisticated attacks on endpoints.
  • Threat and Vulnerability Management: Continuously scans for vulnerabilities and provides actionable insights to prioritize and remediate risks.
  • Automated Investigation and Remediation: Uses AI and machine learning to automatically investigate alerts and remediate threats, reducing the burden on IT teams.
  • Next-Generation Antivirus: Offers real-time protection against malware, ransomware, and other malicious software using advanced heuristics and behavior analysis.
  • Attack Surface Reduction: Implements policies to minimize the attack surface by controlling the applications and scripts that can run on devices.
  • Integration with Microsoft 365: Seamlessly integrates with Microsoft 365 services, providing a unified security experience across email, documents, and collaboration tools.
  • Centralized Management Console: Provides a single pane of glass for managing security policies, monitoring threats, and viewing security reports.
  • Customizable Security Policies: Allows businesses to tailor security settings to meet their specific needs and compliance requirements.
  • Cloud-Based Threat Intelligence: Leverages Microsoft's vast threat intelligence network to stay ahead of emerging threats and provide up-to-date protection.
  • Device Control: Manages and restricts the use of external devices such as USB drives to prevent data leakage and malware introduction.
  • Incident Reporting and Analytics: Offers detailed incident reports and analytics to help businesses understand and respond to security events effectively.
  • Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): Ensures that only authorized personnel have access to security settings and data, enhancing overall security posture.
  • Scalability: Designed to scale with your business, providing robust security for small to medium-sized enterprises without compromising performance.
  • Compliance Management: Helps businesses meet regulatory requirements by providing tools and reports for compliance management.
  • 24/7 Threat Monitoring: Offers continuous monitoring and alerting to ensure that threats are detected and addressed promptly, regardless of the time of day.
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Product Ranking

#53

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Endpoint Security Software

#68

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Endpoint Security Software

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User Sentiment Summary

Excellent User Sentiment 64 reviews
Fair User Sentiment 1 reviews
90%
of users recommend this product

Acunetix has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 90% when considering 64 user reviews from 2 recognized software review sites.

60%
of users recommend this product

Microsoft Defender for Business has a 'fair' User Satisfaction Rating of 60% when considering 1 user reviews from 1 recognized software review sites.

4.5 (32)
n/a
4.5 (32)
3.0 (1)

Awards

Acunetix stands above the rest by achieving an ‘Excellent’ rating as a User Favorite.

User Favorite Award

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Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Automated Vulnerability Detection: Acunetix excels at automatically finding vulnerabilities like SQL injections and cross-site scripting, which are common ways hackers exploit websites.
API Security Testing: Acunetix can automatically test the security of RESTful APIs, including those without a web front end, ensuring comprehensive API protection.
Detailed Reporting and Remediation Guidance: Acunetix provides detailed reports with proof of exploit and clear remediation guidance, enabling developers to understand and fix security issues efficiently.
Integration with Development Workflows: Acunetix integrates with popular CI/CD pipelines and issue tracking systems like Jira and GitHub, streamlining security processes and facilitating DevSecOps practices.
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Strong Protection: Safeguards your business from various threats like ransomware and malware, ensuring your data and operations remain secure.
Streamlined Management: Offers a single dashboard to monitor and manage security across all devices, simplifying administration for your IT team.
Proactive Defense: Identifies and addresses vulnerabilities before they can be exploited, minimizing the risk of successful attacks.
Automated Response: Takes immediate action against threats, even outside of business hours, ensuring continuous protection without manual intervention.
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Limited Customization: While Acunetix offers various scan types, users have reported limited control over specific vulnerability checks within those scans, potentially leading to less targeted assessments.
False Positives: Acunetix may occasionally flag vulnerabilities that are not genuine issues, requiring manual verification and potentially slowing down remediation efforts.
Scan Duration: Some users have found Acunetix scans to be time-consuming, particularly for large and complex applications, which could impact development and deployment cycles.
Supplementary Testing Required: Acunetix recommends additional security measures, such as manual testing and network mapping, suggesting its automated scans may not be as comprehensive as some users expect.
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Complex Setup: Some users have reported that the initial configuration of Microsoft Defender for Business can be more complicated compared to other security solutions, potentially requiring additional time and resources.
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User reviews from the past year suggest that Acunetix, developed by Invicti, is a well-regarded tool for managing endpoint security, penetration testing, and website security. Users have praised its comprehensive vulnerability scanning capabilities, highlighting its ability to detect a wide range of threats, including SQL injection and cross-site scripting. One user commended Acunetix for its "good OWASP scans and reports and automation," emphasizing its effectiveness in identifying and addressing security risks. Another user lauded its user-friendliness, stating that it "makes me feel a part of the test." However, some users have pointed out limitations. One criticism targets the licensing model, with a user describing it as "the worst I have ever used" due to its inflexibility in reallocating target URLs. Another user cautioned against relying solely on Acunetix, noting that "some vulnerabilities still can't be detected" and recommending manual vulnerability assessments as a supplementary measure. Despite these drawbacks, Acunetix is generally viewed favorably by users, who appreciate its robust features, accuracy, and ease of use. Acunetix appears to be a suitable choice for organizations of all sizes that prioritize web application security. Its comprehensive scanning, automation features, and integration capabilities make it a valuable asset for security professionals and developers alike. However, potential users should carefully consider the licensing model and the need for manual vulnerability assessments to ensure it aligns with their specific requirements and risk tolerance.

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Is Microsoft Defender for Business truly a defender of businesses, or does it leave them vulnerable? User reviews from the last year reveal a mixed bag. On one hand, Defender for Business is praised for its robust security features, particularly its effectiveness in combating ransomware and malware. Users highlight its integration with other Microsoft products as a key strength, allowing for a centralized security management experience. For instance, its seamless compatibility with Microsoft 365 streamlines security workflows and reduces the need for third-party solutions. This integration is particularly valuable for businesses heavily reliant on the Microsoft ecosystem, offering a unified and cost-effective approach to security.However, the initial setup process is a common pain point, often described as complex and time-consuming. This complexity might pose a challenge for businesses lacking dedicated IT expertise. Additionally, while Defender for Business excels on Windows platforms, its performance on other operating systems like macOS or Linux is reportedly less impressive. This limitation could be a dealbreaker for businesses with diverse device ecosystems. Overall, Microsoft Defender for Business is best suited for small to medium-sized businesses heavily invested in the Microsoft ecosystem, prioritizing strong security features and seamless integration over cross-platform compatibility. Its robust protection against modern threats, combined with its user-friendly interface once set up, makes it a valuable asset for businesses seeking a comprehensive yet cost-effective security solution.

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