CrowdStrike vs. Microsoft
Who watches the watchers?You can’t expect breach prevention from the vendor behind some of today’s biggest vulnerabilities.
Department of Homeland Security:
"Microsoft’s security culture requires an overhaul."
In a recent report, the Department of Homeland Security’s Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB) found Microsoft’s cascade of security failures resulted in a catastrophic breach.
Choose a solution that delivers security without compromise. Choose CrowdStrike.
Why customers choose CrowdStrike vs. Microsoft
Coverage gaps leave you vulnerable to breaches
Microsoft’s security is based on legacy, signature-based antivirus (AV) that misses modern threats. With protections tied to the operating system (OS) that change with each OS edition and version, customers are left with massive security gaps and a crippling operational burden.
See the CrowdStrike difference
CrowdStrike difference
Consistent protection from our unified, cloud-native agent covers all endpoints, regardless of OS edition or version. AI-powered detection capabilities with integrated threat intelligence stop the most sophisticated adversaries.
Complexity kills security
Maintaining Microsoft security is incredibly complex, frequently requiring multiple consoles, leaving staff with a crushing operational burden to deploy, manage, and keep tools up to date.
See the CrowdStrike difference
CrowdStrike difference
Our single, lightweight agent deploys in minutes to hundreds of thousands of endpoints and updates automatically to simplify operations. With a single-console platform, customers can streamline workflows and enable faster, more efficient security operations.
Compromising on security leaves you in crisis
Don’t trust breach prevention to the vendor behind some of today’s biggest vulnerabilities. Microsoft products, including vital cloud infrastructure, are top adversary targets, with 4 of the top 12 (more than any other company) exploited vulnerabilities found in their portfolio,¹ and 1,000+ new vulnerabilities each year.² Who watches the watchers?
See the CrowdStrike difference
CrowdStrike difference
CrowdStrike is built from the ground up as a security platform and designed by security experts on the front-lines of adversary intelligence and incident response. We’re trusted to protect organizations from the industry’s most sophisticated threats and vulnerabilities, including those targeting Microsoft products.
Proven by MITRE
CrowdStrike dominated each of the two latest MITRE ATT&CK evaluations — one open book and one closed book — scoring highest among all vendors tested and far outpacing Microsoft.
Figure 1. CrowdStrike detects 143 (100%) steps during the MITRE Engenuity ATT&CK Evaluation: Enterprise Round 5 with high-quality analytics (Tactic and Technique). Updated November 2023. Source
Figure 2. CrowdStrike detected 99% of adversary techniques during MITRE ATT&CK Evaluations for Managed Security Services Providers. Source
Compare CrowdStrike to Microsoft
Microsoft
Deployment
Seamless deployment for immediate protection
Single, lightweight agent deploys to thousands of endpoints in minutes with consistent coverage across major operating systems — Windows, macOS and Linux. No OS prerequisites. No complex integrations. No fine tuning needed.
Microsoft
Complicated deployment hinders security
Defender for Endpoint isn’t a product; it’s a feature built-in to the Windows OS, and changes with each OS edition and version. Customers need to run the current version and premium edition of Windows OS to have full functionality.
Maintenance
Set and forget
Agent updates automatically and receives continuous security updates without requiring reboots, enabling immediate enforcement of the latest protections across your endpoints. There are no tedious platform and signature updates, ensuring analysts can focus on stopping breaches, not maintaining the platform.
Microsoft
Burdensome process to update and maintain
Security that is inextricably tied to the OS management process. Maintenance requires device reboots for annual OS feature updates and monthly AV engine platform updates, with multiple daily signature updates. This disrupts business processes, and can require additional staffing to handle maintenance cadence.
Ease of use
Optimizing the analyst experience
Single, integrated console gives you a central command center to manage endpoint, cloud, and identity workloads across your estate. Get full attack visibility, real-time threat context, and accelerate investigation and response with free customizable workflow automations and a broad selection of partner integrations.
Microsoft
Disjointed user experience
There’s no single package that contains all Microsoft Defender options. Security configuration, reporting and response are rarely contained in the same console, with configuration options often delivered from non-security centric product lines. Platform complexity leads to confusion, dependencies on IT functions beyond security, gaps in security, and longer mean time to detect and respond.
Detection coverage
Advanced threat detection
Cloud-native platform automates agent updates without requiring reboots. Get high-fidelity detections that use cutting-edge AI, behavioral indicators of attack (IOA), and expert insight to detect the most advanced threats — including zero-day threats, unknown malware, and hands-on-keyboard activity.
Microsoft
Ineffective detection coverage for modern threats
Detection capabilities are centered on legacy signature-based AV, and require daily signature updates for latest protections. Ecosystem complexity leads to confusion around what is included in product bundles.
Augmented expertise
World-class expertise
CrowdStrike's MDR had the highest detection coverage in the first-ever MITRE ATT&CK® Evaluations for service providers. Falcon Complete MDR provides 24/7 vigilance, forensic analysis, and incident handling to surgically eliminate threats across your digital infrastructure at the first sign of an intrusion.
Microsoft
Incomplete managed detection and response
“Defender Experts” mainly uses human-trained AI rather than real people. “Defender Experts for Hunting” is an additional paid subscription, and largely relies on generalized threat intelligence to provide context to low-level alerts rather than proactive threat hunting.
Total cost of ownership
Predictable cost structure
No hidden costs. Transparent licensing makes it easy to budget, and a simplified security management cycle removes potential business disruption to free up staff and reduce training costs.
Microsoft
Unpredictable, unaccounted costs
With complex licensing and burdensome operations, Microsoft’s security solutions cost much more than the price to license them. Customers have to absorb ongoing business disruptions, and need additional staffing to handle Microsoft’s update cadence.
Support lifecycle
Support that goes the extra mile
No limitation on technology based on the OS release version. We’ve supported discontinued Windows versions — even extending beyond Microsoft’s end of support — ensuring customers receive the latest sensor patches, updates for existing functionality, and minimize disruptions as they transition to new versions.
Microsoft
Restrictive support lifecycle
Endpoint security is bound to OS-releases, and thus is bound to their support cycle. There’s no consistency in the support lifecycle across different platforms, with many releases supported for as little as 18 months. Endpoint OSs need to be frequently updated and upgraded or are at risk of becoming undeployable and unsupported.
Leadership validated by industry analysts
More than 23,000 customers trust CrowdStrike to protect what matters most
Goldman Sachs
"We look to CrowdStrike to fill the gap for us. To help us detect that lateral movement inside of our network and not just the moment of intrusion. And we've been very happy with CrowdStrike. It was incredibly easy for us to deploy and that's given us a lot more comfort in the level of defensive depth we've got to stop those sophisticated adversaries."
Andy Ozment, CISO
Goldman Sachs
State of Oklahoma
"Bad people are out there every day, around the clock, trying to compromise our computers. It’s our job to provide protection that doesn’t ever compromise."
Matt Singleton, CISO
State of Oklahoma
