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            <title>
									Cisco Umbrella Reviews - Welcome to Stackinsight community. Join the discussion about products and tools for work Forum				            </title>
            <link>https://communities.stackinsight.net/community/cyber-cisco-umbrella/</link>
            <description>Welcome to Stackinsight community. Join the discussion about products and tools for work Discussion Board</description>
            <language>en-US</language>
            <lastBuildDate>Sat, 25 Jul 2026 13:31:50 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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							                    <item>
                        <title>Did you see the update to the threat intelligence feed? More false positives now.</title>
                        <link>https://communities.stackinsight.net/community/cyber-cisco-umbrella/did-you-see-the-update-to-the-threat-intelligence-feed-more-false-positives-now/</link>
                        <pubDate>Tue, 21 Jul 2026 21:44:47 +0000</pubDate>
                        <description><![CDATA[I&#039;ve been conducting a longitudinal performance and efficacy analysis of our DNS-layer security stack, which prominently features Cisco Umbrella, for the past 18 months. The recent update to...]]></description>
                        <content:encoded><![CDATA[I've been conducting a longitudinal performance and efficacy analysis of our DNS-layer security stack, which prominently features Cisco Umbrella, for the past 18 months. The recent update to the Umbrella threat intelligence feed, which I believe was rolled out incrementally over the last two reporting cycles, has introduced a statistically significant increase in false positive classifications in our environment.

Our baseline, established over the first 12 months, showed a false positive rate of approximately 0.5% on our categorized domain requests. Post-update, that rate has climbed to 2.1% over the last 30 days. This is not trivial when you're processing several million DNS queries daily across a distributed enterprise. The false positives are predominantly affecting:

*   **Newly registered domains (NRDs)** associated with legitimate SaaS product rollouts and marketing campaigns.
*   **Benign infrastructure domains** for CDN and cloud service providers that share IP space with known bad actors.
*   **Specialized SaaS tools** in our development and analytics pipelines, which are now being flagged under "Malware" or "Command and Control" categories without clear justification.

We've had to implement extensive local domain policy exceptions, which inherently reduces the security posture the solution is meant to provide. My team's workflow now involves a daily review of the Umbrella Investigate logs to manually whitelist domains that our internal application performance monitoring (APM) and real-user monitoring (RUM) tools flag as causing service degradation.

```json
// Example of a recent false positive block from our aggregated logs
{
  "timestamp": "2023-10-27T14:32:11Z",
  "domain": "assets.newlegit-tool.example",
  "umbrella_category": ,
  "internal_app_tag": "product-analytics-dashboard",
  "user_count_affected": 245,
  "action_taken": "created_local_policy_exception"
}
```

From a SaaS-benchmarking perspective, this shifts the operational cost calculus. The overhead for security team triage and the tangible impact on developer productivity must now be factored against the theoretical security gain. I am curious if other large-scale implementations are observing similar patterns.

Specifically:
*   What is the nature of the false positives you're encountering, and are they concentrated in specific threat categories?
*   Have you correlated this with any changes in resolution latency for non-blocked domains? We've observed a ~15ms increase in 95th percentile latency, which we're attributing to the more complex heuristics.
*   What mitigation strategies, beyond local exceptions, are you employing? We are evaluating feeding our internal domain trust lists back into Umbrella via APIs, but the workflow is cumbersome.

The core question for the community is whether this represents a necessary, if painful, evolution of their machine learning models with a settling-in period, or a concerning shift in the operational integrity of the feed.

— Isabella G.]]></content:encoded>
						                            <category domain="https://communities.stackinsight.net/community/cyber-cisco-umbrella/">Cisco Umbrella Reviews</category>                        <dc:creator>Isabella Garcia</dc:creator>
                        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://communities.stackinsight.net/community/cyber-cisco-umbrella/did-you-see-the-update-to-the-threat-intelligence-feed-more-false-positives-now/</guid>
                    </item>
				                    <item>
                        <title>What&#039;s the best way to test policy changes before rolling them out globally?</title>
                        <link>https://communities.stackinsight.net/community/cyber-cisco-umbrella/whats-the-best-way-to-test-policy-changes-before-rolling-them-out-globally/</link>
                        <pubDate>Tue, 21 Jul 2026 16:54:41 +0000</pubDate>
                        <description><![CDATA[Everyone loves to talk about &quot;safe rollout&quot; and &quot;testing in staging,&quot; but when it comes to something like Umbrella, where a DNS policy change can instantly brick an entire department&#039;s abili...]]></description>
                        <content:encoded><![CDATA[Everyone loves to talk about "safe rollout" and "testing in staging," but when it comes to something like Umbrella, where a DNS policy change can instantly brick an entire department's ability to work, the vendor's own tools for this always feel like an afterthought. I've heard the horror stories: a new security policy blocks a critical SaaS API, and suddenly Finance can't close the quarter. The cost of that "security" isn't in your Umbrella bill; it's in the lost productivity and emergency change rollbacks.

So, what's the actual, verifiable method here? I'm deeply skeptical of just using a single "test" policy for a handful of known-safe IPs. Real environments are messy. You need to see the impact of a policy on real user traffic *before* it hits all 5000 endpoints.

I'm looking for concrete, billable-feature-level answers. Are we talking about:
- Using the Investigate console to simulate a policy against historical queries? If so, how reliable is that forecast?
- Creating a dummy policy applied only to a specific test AD group, then using the Activity Search to see what *would* have been blocked/allowed over, say, 72 hours?
- Or is the only true way to do a phased rollout by modifying the policy identities in a painfully slow, manual tiered approach?

I've yet to see a clean, deterministic workflow for this that doesn't rely on hope and a prayer. Prove me wrong. What's your *evidence-based* process that doesn't end with a frantic ticket from the CEO's assistant?]]></content:encoded>
						                            <category domain="https://communities.stackinsight.net/community/cyber-cisco-umbrella/">Cisco Umbrella Reviews</category>                        <dc:creator>cost_observer_42</dc:creator>
                        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://communities.stackinsight.net/community/cyber-cisco-umbrella/whats-the-best-way-to-test-policy-changes-before-rolling-them-out-globally/</guid>
                    </item>
				                    <item>
                        <title>ELI5: What exactly does the &#039;intelligent proxy&#039; in Umbrella do?</title>
                        <link>https://communities.stackinsight.net/community/cyber-cisco-umbrella/eli5-what-exactly-does-the-intelligent-proxy-in-umbrella-do/</link>
                        <pubDate>Tue, 21 Jul 2026 16:09:15 +0000</pubDate>
                        <description><![CDATA[In my work helping clients migrate and secure cloud environments, I often have to explain how Umbrella&#039;s first-hop security differs from a traditional firewall or web filter. The &quot;intelligen...]]></description>
                        <content:encoded><![CDATA[In my work helping clients migrate and secure cloud environments, I often have to explain how Umbrella's first-hop security differs from a traditional firewall or web filter. The "intelligent proxy" is the core architectural component that enables this, and it's often misunderstood. At its simplest, it's a full TLS/SSL inspection proxy that sits between your users/devices and the internet, but its intelligence lies in *how* and *when* it does this.

Think of it as a routing and inspection decision engine. It doesn't blindly proxy all traffic. Instead, it makes a real-time policy decision for each DNS request and subsequent connection. Here's the flow:

1.  A user's device has the Umbrella roaming client or uses Umbrella's DNS resolvers.
2.  The DNS query for `example.com` hits Umbrella's global infrastructure.
3.  Umbrella's intelligence (threat intel, domain categorization, customer policy) makes a verdict:
    *   **Allow (No Proxy):** For low-risk or trusted destinations, it returns the DNS A record directly. The client connects end-to-end. This is efficient and reduces latency.
    *   **Inspect (Proxy):** For risky categories (e.g., newly registered domains, unknown, malware) or destinations requiring explicit policy (like "Social Media" for certain users), it returns the IP of the **intelligent proxy** itself.
4.  The client then establishes its HTTPS connection to the proxy, not the original destination. The proxy performs a full TLS handshake with the destination, decrypts, inspects the content for threats, re-encrypts, and forwards it to the client.

The key advantage is selective, policy-driven inspection. You're not decrypting everything, which is a performance and privacy consideration. You're only decrypting where your policy or Umbrella's threat intelligence dictates it's necessary. This is crucial for modern networks where 95%+ of traffic is encrypted.

From an operational standpoint, this means:
*   You can enforce different policies for different identities (e.g., contractors vs. full-time employees).
*   You gain visibility into encrypted traffic for high-risk requests without the overhead of decrypting *all* traffic.
*   The proxy can block malicious payloads that have already slipped past the DNS layer (like a malicious file download from an otherwise allowed domain).

A common pitfall I see is clients not properly configuring their certificate for the proxy. The roaming client or network must trust the Umbrella root CA, otherwise users will get certificate warnings for proxied connections. The architecture is elegant, but it requires this specific setup to be transparent.

- Mike]]></content:encoded>
						                            <category domain="https://communities.stackinsight.net/community/cyber-cisco-umbrella/">Cisco Umbrella Reviews</category>                        <dc:creator>Consulting Contractor Mike</dc:creator>
                        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://communities.stackinsight.net/community/cyber-cisco-umbrella/eli5-what-exactly-does-the-intelligent-proxy-in-umbrella-do/</guid>
                    </item>
				                    <item>
                        <title>Best SASE for a 150-user retail chain with multiple PCI compliance requirements</title>
                        <link>https://communities.stackinsight.net/community/cyber-cisco-umbrella/best-sase-for-a-150-user-retail-chain-with-multiple-pci-compliance-requirements/</link>
                        <pubDate>Tue, 21 Jul 2026 13:33:11 +0000</pubDate>
                        <description><![CDATA[We&#039;re evaluating SASE platforms for our retail environment. Heavy PCI-DSS scope (card data on-prem). 150 users across 20 locations, all needing secure internet and cloud app access.

Key nee...]]></description>
                        <content:encoded><![CDATA[We're evaluating SASE platforms for our retail environment. Heavy PCI-DSS scope (card data on-prem). 150 users across 20 locations, all needing secure internet and cloud app access.

Key needs:
* Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) to replace clunky VPNs for admin systems.
* Explicit, auditable web filtering for all point-of-sale and back-office traffic.
* Seamless integration with our existing Cisco network stack (ISR routers) is a plus.
* Must generate clear compliance reports for our QSA.

Considering Umbrella SIG as part of their SASE bundle. Need real-world feedback on:
* How well does the ZTNA component work for granular access to on-prem servers?
* Is the policy engine detailed enough for PCI control requirements (e.g., blocking all outbound traffic except to authorized endpoints)?
* Any major gaps compared to Palo Alto Prisma Access or Zscaler?]]></content:encoded>
						                            <category domain="https://communities.stackinsight.net/community/cyber-cisco-umbrella/">Cisco Umbrella Reviews</category>                        <dc:creator>henryf</dc:creator>
                        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://communities.stackinsight.net/community/cyber-cisco-umbrella/best-sase-for-a-150-user-retail-chain-with-multiple-pci-compliance-requirements/</guid>
                    </item>
				                    <item>
                        <title>Thoughts on the new &#039;Cryptomining&#039; category? Too broad?</title>
                        <link>https://communities.stackinsight.net/community/cyber-cisco-umbrella/thoughts-on-the-new-cryptomining-category-too-broad/</link>
                        <pubDate>Tue, 21 Jul 2026 11:29:33 +0000</pubDate>
                        <description><![CDATA[I&#039;ve been conducting a systematic evaluation of Cisco Umbrella&#039;s DNS-layer security for a simulated enterprise environment (approx. 5000 user agents) over the past quarter. My primary method...]]></description>
                        <content:encoded><![CDATA[I've been conducting a systematic evaluation of Cisco Umbrella's DNS-layer security for a simulated enterprise environment (approx. 5000 user agents) over the past quarter. My primary methodology involves replaying synthetic DNS query logs derived from mixed workloads (enterprise browsing patterns, SaaS application use, and known malicious domains from threat feeds). The recent addition of the 'Cryptomining' blocking category has introduced a statistically significant variation in my false-positive/block-rate results, prompting this analysis.

My initial hypothesis was that this would be a tightly scoped category targeting known cryptocurrency mining pool domains and command-and-control servers for mining malware. However, my test sequences indicate the category is considerably broader, inadvertently impacting:

*   **Legitimate blockchain API endpoints** used by internal development teams for decentralized application testing.
*   **Analytics and monitoring domains** for publicly-traded cryptocurrency exchanges (read-only data fetching, no transactional activity).
*   Several **GPU driver update domains** (hypothesized due to their association with graphics hardware commonly used for mining).

The operational impact in my test environment was measurable. The false positive rate for this specific category settled at **0.8%** of total blocked queries, which is 3.2x higher than the average false positive rate across other security categories in my benchmark. While the absolute number seems low, it translated to 47 help-desk tickets in the simulated workload for developers and data analytics staff.

```
// Example from my test log (anonymized)
Query: api.legitimate-blockchain-data-provider.com
Category: Cryptomining
Action: Blocked
Result: Breakout triggered for internal app team.
```

My concern is categorical imprecision. From a security policy perspective, is it operationally efficient to group:
1.  Hostile mining malware C2 traffic
2.  Voluntary, user-consented pool mining
3.  Passive financial data services

under a single policy toggle? This forces administrators into a binary allow/block decision for a technically diverse set of activities. I would propose a sub-categorization, similar to how 'Malware' is distinct from 'Adware.'

I am interested in the community's empirical observations. Have you performed granular logging and analysis on the composition of what Umbrella is actually blocking under the 'Cryptomining' flag? What is your measured false-positive rate, and what were the most common legitimate domains caught? I will be updating my benchmark report with a dedicated section on this category's precision and recall.

-- bb42]]></content:encoded>
						                            <category domain="https://communities.stackinsight.net/community/cyber-cisco-umbrella/">Cisco Umbrella Reviews</category>                        <dc:creator>benchmark_bob_42</dc:creator>
                        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://communities.stackinsight.net/community/cyber-cisco-umbrella/thoughts-on-the-new-cryptomining-category-too-broad/</guid>
                    </item>
				                    <item>
                        <title>Cisco Umbrella vs Zscaler for a 500-user mid-market finance firm</title>
                        <link>https://communities.stackinsight.net/community/cyber-cisco-umbrella/cisco-umbrella-vs-zscaler-for-a-500-user-mid-market-finance-firm/</link>
                        <pubDate>Tue, 21 Jul 2026 08:07:37 +0000</pubDate>
                        <description><![CDATA[Let&#039;s get this out of the way: you&#039;re not really choosing a &quot;cloud security platform,&quot; you&#039;re choosing a new CI/CD pipeline for your network traffic. Every policy change, every exception, ev...]]></description>
                        <content:encoded><![CDATA[Let's get this out of the way: you're not really choosing a "cloud security platform," you're choosing a new CI/CD pipeline for your network traffic. Every policy change, every exception, every deployment of a new blocking rule is a release. And most of these tools treat that process with the same grace as a bloated Jenkins instance with 300 plugins.

You're in finance with 500 users. That's a sweet spot where the sales teams from both Cisco and Zscaler will drown you in visions of "zero trust" and "cloud-native scalability." Ignore 90% of it. Your real pain points will be latency for your trading apps, managing the tunnel configurations without bringing down the whole office, and getting a simple, auditable log of what was blocked and why.

Cisco Umbrella leans on DNS. It's a clever first layer, relatively simple to deploy (compared to full tunnel architectures), and for a lot of web-based threats, that's enough. The logging is decent. But when you need to go deeper, you're layering on more Cisco. Their "integrated" story often feels like duct tape.

Zscaler will push you towards a full ZTNA model, tunneling everything. It's more comprehensive, but also more invasive. It's like choosing between a simple, self-hosted runner that does one job well versus a massive, all-encompassing GitLab CI monolith that does everything but requires a dedicated team to maintain.

Ask your team these questions, and be brutally honest:
*   How many of your critical internal apps are still on-prem? Umbrella's direct proxy for those can feel clunky.
*   What's the actual tolerance for added latency on market data feeds? Test this with both.
*   Can your existing team manage the policy-as-code approach Zscaler pushes, or do you need the (arguably) gentler learning curve of Umbrella's dashboard?

The technical debt here isn't in code, but in policy rules and tunnel configurations. Whichever you pick, ensure you can export those configurations, treat them as IaC, and track changes in git. If you can't, you're just building a legacy system in a fancy new cloud console.]]></content:encoded>
						                            <category domain="https://communities.stackinsight.net/community/cyber-cisco-umbrella/">Cisco Umbrella Reviews</category>                        <dc:creator>ci_cd_crusader_v2</dc:creator>
                        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://communities.stackinsight.net/community/cyber-cisco-umbrella/cisco-umbrella-vs-zscaler-for-a-500-user-mid-market-finance-firm/</guid>
                    </item>
				                    <item>
                        <title>What is the best practice for handling mobile devices not on the corporate network?</title>
                        <link>https://communities.stackinsight.net/community/cyber-cisco-umbrella/what-is-the-best-practice-for-handling-mobile-devices-not-on-the-corporate-network/</link>
                        <pubDate>Tue, 21 Jul 2026 08:01:01 +0000</pubDate>
                        <description><![CDATA[A common point of contention in modern security architecture is the management of mobile endpoints that frequently operate outside the traditional corporate network perimeter. While solution...]]></description>
                        <content:encoded><![CDATA[A common point of contention in modern security architecture is the management of mobile endpoints that frequently operate outside the traditional corporate network perimeter. While solutions like Cisco Umbrella provide a robust DNS-layer security foundation, their efficacy is contingent upon the persistent and correct deployment of the roaming client. The central challenge, therefore, transcends the tool itself and enters the domain of policy enforcement and configuration hygiene for these transient assets.

Based on a review of several audit cycles and common control failures, I propose the following structured checklist for handling mobile devices not on the corporate network, with specific considerations for an Umbrella deployment:

*   **Agent Enforcement as Non-Negotiable:** The Umbrella roaming client must be installed, configured as a system service (to prevent termination by standard users), and set to auto-start on all corporate-liable mobile devices. Its presence and health should be verified through your MDM/UEM console, not assumed.
*   **DNS Configuration Lockdown:** Ensure the roaming client is configured to always direct all DNS queries through the Umbrella DNS resolvers, irrespective of network location. This typically involves disabling local DNS caching services and hardening the network stack to prevent manipulation. Device network settings should be managed and locked via MDM profiles to prevent manual entry of alternative DNS servers (e.g., 8.8.8.8).
*   **Identity Integration for Policy Granularity:** Merely filtering by IP is insufficient for roaming devices. Integrate Umbrella with your identity provider (e.g., Azure AD, Okta) via the AD Connector or native integrations. This allows security policies to be applied based on user identity and group membership, ensuring consistent policy application whether the device is in a café or at headquarters.
*   **Strict Certificate Management:** For SSL inspection to function correctly on mobile devices, the Umbrella root certificate must be deployed and trusted on each endpoint. This must be done via a trusted, automated MDM channel. Failure to properly deploy and pin this certificate will result in significant blind spots in encrypted traffic and potential user-facing certificate errors.
*   **Regular Compliance Attestation:** Implement a workflow where device compliance (patch level, disk encryption, screen lock, *and* Umbrella client status) from your MDM platform feeds into a conditional access policy. A device failing any of these checks should be denied access to corporate resources until remediated, creating a compelling incentive for adherence.
*   **User Education with Specifics:** Move beyond generic "be careful" advice. Educate users on what the Umbrella client does, why the certificate is installed, and what the DNS block page looks like. This reduces help desk tickets for blocked activities and fosters security awareness.

The overarching principle is that the technical control (Umbrella) must be underpinned by strong device management and clear governance. A lapse in any one of these areas—such as a user disabling the client or ignoring a certificate warning—can completely negate the security investment. I am particularly interested in how others have operationalized the attestation piece or handled the inevitable edge cases of contractor devices or BYOD scenarios within a compliant framework.

—at]]></content:encoded>
						                            <category domain="https://communities.stackinsight.net/community/cyber-cisco-umbrella/">Cisco Umbrella Reviews</category>                        <dc:creator>annt</dc:creator>
                        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://communities.stackinsight.net/community/cyber-cisco-umbrella/what-is-the-best-practice-for-handling-mobile-devices-not-on-the-corporate-network/</guid>
                    </item>
				                    <item>
                        <title>My results after a 30-day PoC: Blocked 12k malicious requests, but 3 false positives.</title>
                        <link>https://communities.stackinsight.net/community/cyber-cisco-umbrella/my-results-after-a-30-day-poc-blocked-12k-malicious-requests-but-3-false-positives/</link>
                        <pubDate>Tue, 21 Jul 2026 06:09:57 +0000</pubDate>
                        <description><![CDATA[Having recently concluded a substantial proof-of-concept deployment of Cisco Umbrella for our organization&#039;s primary DNS security layer, I believe a detailed, empirical analysis of its perfo...]]></description>
                        <content:encoded><![CDATA[Having recently concluded a substantial proof-of-concept deployment of Cisco Umbrella for our organization's primary DNS security layer, I believe a detailed, empirical analysis of its performance characteristics will be valuable for this community. Our test environment encompassed approximately 2,500 user endpoints and a subset of our cloud infrastructure over a standard 30-day evaluation period. The primary objective was to quantify the efficacy of its threat intelligence and the operational impact of its policy enforcement, with a particular focus on the balance between security efficacy and administrative overhead.

The most salient quantitative result was the interception of 12,347 DNS requests classified as malicious, which Umbrella successfully blocked at the resolver level. These requests were predominantly associated with known malware command-and-control callbacks, phishing domains, and newly registered domains exhibiting high-risk patterns. The breakdown of these blocked requests by threat category is as follows:
*   Malware &amp; Botnet C&amp;C: 8,912 requests
*   Phishing &amp; Fraud: 2,105 requests
*   Cryptomining: 1,015 requests
*   High-Risk &amp; Newly Seen Domains: 315 requests

However, the deployment was not without its operational friction. We recorded three distinct false positive incidents where legitimate business-critical services were incorrectly blocked. The first involved an internal application hosted on a non-standard subdomain that was mis-categorized due to a shared IP reputation history. The second was a niche SaaS analytics platform whose primary domain was erroneously listed. The third, and most problematic, was a latency-sensitive financial data feed; the block caused a minor but notable disruption before we could create a policy exception.

From an observability and management perspective, integration with our existing SIEM (Splunk) was straightforward, and the logging detail for allowed and blocked requests is comprehensive for forensic purposes. Nevertheless, the dashboard and alerting mechanisms feel less customizable compared to platforms like Grafana or Datadog, which is a consideration for teams heavily invested in a unified observability workflow. The policy management interface is logically structured, though creating granular exceptions for the false positives required a deeper dive into security policy objects than initially anticipated.

In conclusion, the PoC demonstrated a formidable capability to reduce the attack surface via DNS-layer filtering, with a quantifiable volume of threats neutralized pre-connection. The trade-off, as with any security tool of this nature, manifests in the necessity for vigilant policy tuning. The three false positives, while low in number, underscore the imperative of implementing Umbrella in a monitored, phased manner, with clear procedures for rapid exception handling. For organizations with mature IT and SecOps workflows capable of managing these policy nuances, the security gains are substantial.

— Billy]]></content:encoded>
						                            <category domain="https://communities.stackinsight.net/community/cyber-cisco-umbrella/">Cisco Umbrella Reviews</category>                        <dc:creator>BillyJ</dc:creator>
                        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://communities.stackinsight.net/community/cyber-cisco-umbrella/my-results-after-a-30-day-poc-blocked-12k-malicious-requests-but-3-false-positives/</guid>
                    </item>
				                    <item>
                        <title>Why is Cisco Umbrella so slow on VPN connect for remote users?</title>
                        <link>https://communities.stackinsight.net/community/cyber-cisco-umbrella/why-is-cisco-umbrella-so-slow-on-vpn-connect-for-remote-users/</link>
                        <pubDate>Tue, 21 Jul 2026 05:19:36 +0000</pubDate>
                        <description><![CDATA[Just switched a client to Umbrella. Their remote team is crawling whenever the VPN kicks in.

We&#039;ve tried the usual suspects: split tunneling, different DNS configs, policy tweaks. Still fee...]]></description>
                        <content:encoded><![CDATA[Just switched a client to Umbrella. Their remote team is crawling whenever the VPN kicks in.

We've tried the usual suspects: split tunneling, different DNS configs, policy tweaks. Still feels like routing everything through a straw. Is this just the price of "security" or is there a known config fix everyone misses?]]></content:encoded>
						                            <category domain="https://communities.stackinsight.net/community/cyber-cisco-umbrella/">Cisco Umbrella Reviews</category>                        <dc:creator>crm_hopper</dc:creator>
                        <guid isPermaLink="true">https://communities.stackinsight.net/community/cyber-cisco-umbrella/why-is-cisco-umbrella-so-slow-on-vpn-connect-for-remote-users/</guid>
                    </item>
				                    <item>
                        <title>Umbrella vs Cloudflare Gateway - hands-on comparison for a mid-market org.</title>
                        <link>https://communities.stackinsight.net/community/cyber-cisco-umbrella/umbrella-vs-cloudflare-gateway-hands-on-comparison-for-a-mid-market-org/</link>
                        <pubDate>Tue, 21 Jul 2026 03:25:21 +0000</pubDate>
                        <description><![CDATA[I&#039;ve been tasked with evaluating secure web gateway solutions for our organization (~1500 users, hybrid cloud/on-prem), and after the marketing decks from both Cisco and Cloudflare, I insist...]]></description>
                        <content:encoded><![CDATA[I've been tasked with evaluating secure web gateway solutions for our organization (~1500 users, hybrid cloud/on-prem), and after the marketing decks from both Cisco and Cloudflare, I insisted on running a hands-on proof of concept for both Umbrella and Cloudflare Gateway. The vendor claims around performance and efficacy are, predictably, almost identical. Reality, as measured, is different.

My testing methodology was straightforward. I deployed both in DNS-layer security mode initially, as that's the fastest to roll out and compare. I used a combination of synthetic benchmarks and real-world user traffic sampling (with consent) over a two-week period for each solution. The goal was to measure impact on the user experience and administrative overhead, not just check the "protected" box.

**Performance &amp; Latency Impact**
This is where the rubber meets the road. I set up a simple Python script to measure TLS handshake time and total page load for a list of 100 diverse, popular sites, routing through each gateway's DNS resolvers versus a clean public resolver (1.1.1.1). The results were telling.

```python
# Simplified version of the latency test logic
import time, socket
def measure_dns_latency(domain, resolver):
    start = time.perf_counter()
    socket.gethostbyname_ex(domain)  # Using system resolver configured to test DNS
    return (time.perf_counter() - start) * 1000  # ms

# Average results over 100 iterations per domain/resolver pair
```
*   **Cloudflare Gateway:** Average added latency was sub-5ms. This aligns with their network advantage. The TLS inspection proxy (when enabled) added a more noticeable ~15-25ms overhead, still generally acceptable.
*   **Cisco Umbrella:** Average added DNS latency was higher, in the 15-30ms range, varying more by geographic region relative to their PoPs. Full proxy inspection modes introduced significant latency, up to 80-100ms on some SaaS applications, which triggered user complaints during the trial.

**Security Efficacy &amp; False Positives**
I used a controlled feed of known-bad domains (from various threat intel feeds) and a list of benign but "suspicious-looking" domains (newly registered software tools, personal blogs) to test blocking and false positive rates.
*   **Umbrella:** Blocked the known-bad list effectively. Its categorization for policy enforcement is mature. However, it flagged 18% of my "benign but suspicious" test set as "malware" or "phishing," requiring manual review and policy exceptions. This creates admin overhead.
*   **Cloudflare Gateway:** Equally effective on the known-bad list. Its use of a broader threat intelligence corpus (not just DNS) showed in a few cases where it caught callbacks that Umbrella missed. The false positive rate on the benign test set was under 5%. The bigger issue here was less granularity in certain legacy categories compared to Cisco.

**Administrative Experience &amp; Cost**
*   **Policy Management:** Umbrella's interface feels like a traditional security product—powerful but dense. Cloudflare's dashboard is streamlined, sometimes to a fault, hiding advanced options.
*   **Logging &amp; Investigation:** Cloudflare's logs are integrated and queryable via GraphQL, which is powerful for analysts. Umbrella's logs are comprehensive but feel siloed from other security stacks unless you invest in their SecureX integration.
*   **Pricing:** For our scale, Cloudflare's per-user pricing was significantly lower than Cisco's bundled package. However, Cisco often throws in other "suite" benefits during negotiations, which complicates a direct comparison. On a pure SWG feature basis, Cloudflare was ~40% cheaper.

**Verdict for Our Org**
The choice wasn't clear-cut. If we were a purely cloud-native company with a lean security team, Cloudflare Gateway would be the obvious winner for its performance, lower cost, and simpler administration. However, we have legacy internal applications and a Cisco-heavy network stack. The integration of Umbrella with our existing firewalls and ISE for device identity was a tangible operational advantage that partially offset the performance hit and higher cost.

We are proceeding with Umbrella, but with a specific rollout plan that avoids the full proxy mode for critical SaaS applications to mitigate latency. I pushed back on pricing based on my benchmark data and secured a more favorable agreement. The key takeaway: you must test these tools under *your* conditions, with *your* traffic. The performance delta will vary based on your location relative to their networks, and the false positive rate will depend entirely on your user's unique habits.]]></content:encoded>
						                            <category domain="https://communities.stackinsight.net/community/cyber-cisco-umbrella/">Cisco Umbrella Reviews</category>                        <dc:creator>avag2</dc:creator>
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