Cisco Secure Email Reviews

We use Cisco Secure Email for email security.

The product stands out compared to other vendors in simplicity and ease of use. It is competitive and should be considered a user-friendly option. Its integration capability is good as well.

It would be beneficial to have additional DLP functionality, particularly in the email DLP aspect. It could be included in the next release of the product.

I've been using Cisco Secure Email for ten years. Currently, I'm using the latest version.

The stability of the product is a ten on ten.

Scalability-wise, I rate the product a nine out of ten.

I've had a good experience with Cisco's customer service and support team. They respond immediately.

Positive

We have worked with Barracuda Email Security and Trend Micro Email Security.

We have deployed Cisco Secure Email both on-premises and in the cloud. One can use it as a private cloud solution or a virtual appliance in a cloud environment. The implementation and configuration process, including the dashboard, was user-friendly and straightforward. Along with it, the on-premises deployment was easy. It took less than an hour to complete.

It is a reasonably priced solution. I rate its pricing as a seven out of ten.

Cisco Secure Email is easy-to-use. I highly recommend it and rate it an eight out of ten.

We are using it as our email firewall. It's our first line of email defense.

Overall, the ease of migration to Cisco's cloud email security from the on-prem solution was a positive experience. We are very happy with the change. It makes security easy. The cloud solution is doing a great job. We are stopping more emails, and in a better way, than we did in the past. It's also not stopping as many good emails, but I think this is because Talos has gotten better, rather than something to do with the cloud technology. But the numbers over the past year are significantly better compared to the past.

We like 

• AMP
• Threat Grid
• Sandboxing

The spam protection is also very good and the solution is very configurable. It has enabled us to configure some specific filters to stop emails that general configurations didn't stop. 

It's a powerful solution. It can analyze a lot of emails simultaneously, with no problems in terms of capacity or system load. It seems that machines on the cloud are more powerful than the ones that we had, in the legacy solution, on-premises.

They can do it better with web links, with the URLs. They have a technology called Outbreak but it doesn't work as well as we would like. It does have a new feature called Cloud URL Analysis, but we can see enough information about detection, information that helps us to properly configure the technology.

We have been using the cloud solution for one year, but before that we were using it on-premises for three years.

It's very stable. We haven't had any issues with the stability. It hasn't gone down, and it has managed the flow of our email volume really well.

The technical support is excellent. They are proactive. They are monitoring things and helping us every step of the way. The technical support is at an excellent level.

The migration to the cloud email security was complex because we have a lot of customization. We needed to reevaluate some of the policies that we were applying via the email security. But technically we had more difficulty previously because we didn't have the premium support. We had to read a lot of documentation and experiment. Now, with the premier support, it's easier.

We re-created everything in the cloud solution. We re-evaluated everything when we migrated. There were some things we didn't migrate, while some new things were created.

It took us nearly one year for all the integrations and the migration to be complete, from the initial evaluation of the new product to the end of the migration to CSE, when it assumed all the email traffic for our organization. We didn't have any particular problems with downtime during the migration. That time includes analyzing, configuring, and improving things in production.

Our team that works directly with Secure Email consists of five people who are configuring the tool.

We used consulting from Cisco the whole time during our migration. With the premium support we now have one person who knows our configuration, our needs, and who can help us more than in the past when we didn't have that level of support.

ROI is difficult to determine. We think we have seen ROI, but we need to have an incident to evaluate whether the investment has really paid off. But no incidents means it's a good investment.

We haven't saved money by moving from on-prem to the cloud email security because we acquired the premium support. But we are happy with it, as they help us not only with issues that have happened, but also with configuration and with learning the technology. This is a very important factor, which we value.

Cisco Secure Email and the support are priced well. It's not cheap, but there are other solutions that offer less and cost so much. For example, Microsoft is more expensive than Cisco.

We know there are some solutions that have a higher level of protection for email, but we're very happy with the price of this one and with the way it is working.

We have Microsoft email security too, but not as the first line of defense. Microsoft's email security has its advantages but it is less secure, less configurable, and less powerful than Cisco's solution.

It's a great solution for big enterprises that need a higher level of security than is offered by Microsoft solutions. Other solutions are targeted at smaller enterprises, that are without a security administrator and without people monitoring and supervising the technology. But for a big enterprise, Cisco Secure Email is a great option.

We have integrated the solution with SecureX and Threat Grid, and we already had Talos, of course. The Sandboxing is needed, it's a basic functionality for us. As for the rest of the integrations, they are less important. We integrate with some external feeds, but Talos is good enough for the technology not to need additional feeds.

When migrating from on-prem to the cloud email security, the interfaces are basically the same. The new interface was developed only for the cloud solution, but the classic interface, when it comes to the configuration of the machine, is basically the same for both the on-premises and cloud solutions.

Overall, it's a very configurable technology. We think it has all the weapons we need to fight against threats.

We use Cisco email security against threats such as phishing and malware and block weaponized URLs. Cisco provides a cloud solution, along with the appliance, and a hybrid solution is also there. We deploy the solution as per the customer's requirements.

The solution is very robust because it talks to Cisco Talos. Talos is the number one threat detection engine, the most trustworthy and used globally. That's one strong reason we back our products. Not only do we use it on our premises, but this is the product's main USP when we sell it.

Cross-platform is one major pain point. Many of our clients use an open-source Linux system. These components cannot provide for any Ubuntu or any Linux open-source system, and that's where we get stuck most of the time. Previously, we were doing a POC for Cisco Umbrella, and we got stuck at the point where the customer had almost 200 to 300 of his endpoints, almost 80% of his workforce, working on Linux. This was both on the server and roaming user sides, and Cisco has no solution for Ubuntu. We have raised this suggestion many times when interacting with Cisco during seminars and webinars we've attended. However, we only got feedback from them that they will introduce that feature very soon with their Cisco AnyConnect agent. But it's still only available for Windows and Mac.

I've used this solution for one year.

The product is stable. There have been no complaints from the customers. Fine-tuning is important, which will come whenever you go live, especially for larger domains where customers have 1,000 or 2,000 email IDs and multiple domains. That is the only challenge where we have to fine-tune the policies. But the product is stable.

Cisco Email Security's scalability is good. We have had a couple of cases where the user increased the licenses. There is no challenge to scalability. For the past year, there have been four to five customers to whom we have sold the product.

Cisco's technical support is excellent. Whenever we contact tech support, the hierarchy starts with our regional ACs. If they cannot resolve our issue, we contact TAC, and TAC is a ten-on-ten. They're well versed with their technology. They know the capabilities of their product and how it works. The one thing we expect when we contact an OEM technical person is clarity on the subject and the issue. There should not be a gray area. When we reach out to them with any issue and when the customer is also on the call and has already purchased the product or is about to purchase the product, the most important thing is for there not to be a gray area in figuring out whether the product will work or not. That's more important than providing a prompt solution. Cisco's tech support always clarifies whether a feature will work before proceeding with the solution. If it is possible, they always provide the solution. If it is impossible, they provide the proper documentation explaining why it is impossible.

Positive

The initial setup is straightforward. That's one of the main USPs, the deployment of these products. It takes hardly 20 minutes to deploy Umbrella over a network. And with email security, it's less than a one-hour job. After deploying, the fine-tuning part comes. That comes under the policies, so I don't count that under deployment. The next step will take another one or two hours, but not more than that.

When deploying the solution, we first go on a call with the customer, understand their pain points, and understand their existing network. We have to analyze the scope of work before deploying. Depending upon the existing setup the customer has, we make our steps. "Is there any prerequisite required? Are there any virtual appliances needed in the network to be deployed?" Accordingly, we will plan our activities. In a two or three-hour call for the first session, we have to define what we have to cover, and in the second session, we have to define the success criteria. The deployment is not a template. It changes from customer to customer.

Cisco's price point is good. When we talk about Cisco to our customers, they already have the mindset that Cisco has a particular price point. It beats other competitors when it comes to the quality of the product.

I rate Cisco Secure Mail a nine out of ten. Cisco is improving. We had a session where we asked them to improve their GUI. They have improved it and the end-user experience because it was too mechanical a dashboard earlier, where it was difficult to find mail logs. We recommend the solution.

We use Umbrella for our DNS layer security, blocking all the DNS layer threats. For endpoint security, we are using Cisco Amp. Whenever there is a requirement, we hunt for greenfield opportunities where no Cisco solution is present. We can then create a window where we can reach in. We deploy one product and then explain the single vendor advantages to customers. That mostly goes with the Cisco Umbrella, which goes hand in hand with Meraki. Once the user gets his ecosystem on Cisco, giving a single vendor solution is possible.

Similarly, XDR is there. XDR is one of the key products we're pitching these days. It's a simple single glass pane where we can orchestrate all the customer's products from a single dashboard. That's a major concern we hear these days from security personnel and IT teams. They have several products from several OEMs, and whenever it comes to orchestration or finding a glitch, they have to access all the products independently on different tabs or screens.

As far as policies and security with the components are concerned, Cisco is the perfect product.

The product is used for email security. We have around forty boxes of Cisco and cater to around four million users.

The strong point of the solution is that we hardly get any spam emails because of Cisco Secure Email. It has been a long time since I saw a spam email in my inbox.

Scalability has certain shortcomings and needs to be improved because there are service providers who provide better scalability.

Our company constantly checks out what the solution needs to improve. We need to be updated with what is available in the market and which application performs better.

The solution's UI needs little tweaking because most customers find it to be a very detailed and technically designed UI. If a person does not know email security or how Cisco devices work, he cannot manage it.

Other solutions are user-friendly. Even if the admin has a basic knowledge of managing the services, he can use them.

Cisco Secure Email needs to work on the security part, but it also needs to work on UI since it makes part of the entire solution.

I have been using Cisco Secure Email since 2010. My company is an email security service provider. I am using the solution's latest version.

The product is stable.

I rate the solution's stability an eight out of ten.

We have four million users using the solution. In India, we are a premium service provider of Cisco Secure Email catering to many institutions.

I rate the solution's scalability a six out of ten.

Cisco's technical support is good. I rate the technical support an eight and a half out of ten.

Positive

We have used Sophos and Mimecast before in our company.

The initial setup is very straightforward, but a new person needs to be trained to use this solution.

The solution has very good pricing.

I rate the pricing a ten out of ten on a scale where one means it is less cost-effective, and ten means it is the most cost-effective solution.

I recommend Cisco Secure Email to those planning to use it.

Around 40 administrators are required for maintenance.

Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

Our customers use the solution as an email security tool.

The product blocks spam emails.

The scalability must be improved. The product is a bit traditional. There are many vendors in the market. A customer might not always choose Cisco.

I have been reselling the solution since 2010.

I rate the tool’s stability an eight out of ten.

I rate the tool’s scalability a seven out of ten. Our customers are medium and enterprise-level businesses.

I rate the ease of setup a seven or eight out of ten. The deployments takes one to two weeks.

I rate the product a seven out of ten on a scale where one is cheap and ten is expensive.

Sometimes, customers choose Forcepoint or Barracuda. Usually, if the customers have a Cisco setup, they choose Cisco Secure Email.

Cisco is an integrated solution. Overall, I rate the product an eight out of ten.

We started using Cisco Secure Email because we had a lot of junk emails, phishing, and things like that. We wanted to secure the email sites for the end users.

It has had an impact on the awareness of the employees. Previously, a lot of employees were complaining about junk emails, phishing, etc. After using Cisco Secure Email, spam, and other things have been reduced drastically. I'm not sure how it filters them out, but it just learns based on the email subject and other factors. It just filters them and sends them to the junk box. There is an add-on, and if you think that an email is suspicious, you just add it to the add-on or move it to the junk box.

It saves time. Previously, we had to filter the emails and see which ones are junk and if it has been reported or not. There was a daily checking of the mailboxes to see what was going on and what had been blocked, but with Cisco Secure Email, all of that is just in one tab. You see all the emails that have been blocked and the reason they have been blocked. It saves a lot of time for us. It does the job that we need it to do. 

It's flexible. There are a lot of rules and policies that can be easily applied for certain employees or certain mailboxes.

If you are not a technical guy, it is hard to maneuver, but as soon as you work on it, it gets better and better. If there was a better way to know how to do things or how to find things, it would be good.

We have been using Cisco Secure Email for two and a half to three years.

It's stable. We haven't had any issues with it.

After moving from Exchange to Office 365, we thought that we needed to upgrade the license or do a couple of changes, but it was already a part of the plan from the product itself. So, it was easily scalable.

We didn't have to contact them. Our partner did all the jobs that were needed. It was part of the AMC, and since they set it up, it needed just a couple of tweaks when we shifted from Exchange to Office 365. All the support has always been through the partner. Our experience with them has been good. 

Based on my knowledge, its implementation was fast, and there were no issues when it was implemented.

We did a couple of PoC, and it was leading at that time in the market. We compared it to Barracuda and a couple of others. Its ability had set it apart from others. The partner was good, and the PoC was on point. It did what needed to be done. 

I would rate Cisco Secure Email an eight out of ten.

It is our email gateway. We have the Exchange Servers, but the Exchange Servers don't relay directly with the internet. We have ESA in-between, and every incoming and outgoing email must pass through ESA before it gets to the internet.

We are using Email Security Appliance C690, and we have three of them in a cluster. They are on-premise. We have decided not to go to the cloud. It is primarily because most of our clients are government agencies and the government, and they have this suspicion about the cloud. So, right now, we are still on-premise. 

Currently, we are on version 13.8. There is a newer version, but we are yet to migrate to that version.

We use ESA with Security Management Appliance (SMA). We have SMA M690. The integration of ESA and SMA makes the whole work easier. SMA is the central content appliance, and we have three ESAs. The SMA is able to collaborate with the clustered ESAs for log management and other things. It gives some stability in terms of what is happening. ESA keeps a lot of logs, so SMA is able to move through ESA and get those logs out. This integration has really helped us to drive our operation in the email platform.

It does a lot in terms of preventing phishing and business email compromise with DP and Advanced Phishing Protection. DMARC gives visibility for preventing spoofing and social engineering attacks. ESA has been able to help and protect us from those attacks. It is doing a lot of work. Gartner has always rated Cisco's ESA appliance as one of the major players.

It is doing a lot to prevent spam, malware, and ransomware. Everything is also tied to how you have configured it. Some of the spam emails don't get to the customers. We can quarantine a spam email, which gives us the visibility to look at it and see if it is actually spam or not. It is doing its work. It is. There are no false positives. It is working perfectly.

Email service is one of the services that we offer at Galaxy. ESA has improved our business. Our customers want to maintain their business with us for email security. We have over 500 domains on our email platform. It has improved our profitability in everything.

They have a lot of features such as Advanced Malware Protection, Email Protection, Advanced Phishing Protection, Antispam, Antivirus, and Outbreak Filters. They are very important.

It is doing its work. It is doing what it was actually designed to do. It has ensured we don't have business email compromises, and it has also ensured that our brand Galaxy is unique all year round. 

The area of license renewal should be improved. We normally renew our license every year. There is a feature called smart licensing, and I switched from the legacy mode to the smart licensing mode because of what I thought smart licensing does. I thought it would make licensing renewal seamless and very swift, but ever since I've switched to smart licensing, each time I want to renew my license, it is a whole lot of headache. The process is not smooth, and I had to keep calling Cisco TAC to see how the issue can be resolved. At one point, I wanted to revert back to the legacy mode, but I can't revert. Once you switch from the legacy mode to the smart licensing mode, you can't revert. They should improve on the visibility of the smart licensing mode so that it can indeed be smart and easier to use for the license renewal every year. That is one challenge.

Another challenge is that there is no way for me to know my level of utilization. For example, if I have a subscription of 2,000, there should be a way for me to know my level of utilization. Currently, I don't know my level of utilization. So, if my license is renewed on 20,000 subscribers and I'm using less than 20,000, I wouldn't know. It doesn't improve my ROI. If I'm using less than the subscription I've applied for, there should be a way the system should tell me, rather than me going to find out manually. When I go to the smart licensing profile, I should be able to see my utilization. I should be able to see that I've subscribed for 20,000 but I'm only using 12,000. This means that if I'm going to renew, I should reduce my licensing mode from 20,000 to maybe 15,000. This kind of information should be given to the customers, but right now, we don't have that.

I've been using this solution since 2017. My organization has been using it before that. It has always been in use as our email security gateway.

It is very stable. They have AsyncOS, which is the OS that runs on the appliance. They've released different versions. There is a general version, a limited version, etc. They keep coming with more services just to improve the platform. 

We never experienced downtime. We have ESAs, and they are in a cluster. If one ESA fails, there is no downtime. The remaining two can handles email communication and relay. We have high availability and redundancy. So, we don't experience any downtime.

We do ESA health checks with OEM during which they connect with us virtually. They connect to the device and then check if all security features are still well configured and if there is any other way to improve. Doing this quarterly has really helped to make sure that the appliances are up to date.

It is scalable.

They are very good. I would rate them a nine out of 10. If possible, I would rate them a 10, but I just want to be a little bit reserved. 

They've really been very knowledgeable and very patient, and they've always ensured that for any issue, any ticket, or any case that is opened with them, they are prompt. They are quick to ensure that they resolve an issue as soon as possible.

It has always been ESA from the onset.

I wasn't part of the team from the beginning to the end. I came when they were almost done. It was complex but also very interesting. It took two weeks or so if I'm not mistaken.

For the setup, you need to look at the low-level design and the architecture, and then you look at the network interfaces, listeners, routes, default routes, etc. If there is a way they can come up with step-by-step information about configuring it, that would really be nice. The guide right now is too cumbersome and bulky. If there is more straight-to-the-point and procedural information, it would be better. 

Cisco service engineers were the ones in charge. 

We have seen an ROI.

At times, we feel the pricing is a bit too high, but then, there is also room for discounts. We enjoy a lot of discounts, and that is why we are still with them. There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees.

We have evaluated other solutions, such as FortiMail from Fortinet, but we stuck with Cisco ESA. ESA's pricing and licensing were what led to us trying to see how we can bring it all together.

It is stable and credible. I would always tell someone else to try it out. Of course, before you try it out, you can look at what Gartner is saying. Gartner has always placed the Cisco Email Security Appliance up there along with Mimecast and other top players. 

It is well-secured. Security is everyone's concern, so I will always tell people to go for it. It is very secure. Its pricing has been a little bit high, but you can always ask for a discount from your account managers, country manager, or whoever is in charge in your region.

I would rate this solution an eight out of 10.

All of our inbound and outbound emails flow through the CES environment and we leverage it for spam filtering, phishing filtering, malicious URL detection, attachment scanning, and data leak protection. It basically covers all of the security layers for email.

It's cut down quite a bit on the amount of false-positive spam that we get. The spam engine that's utilized by CES, we found to be pretty effective. It's rare that things end up in a quarantine when they aren't supposed to be there, which is very beneficial. I believe that was one of the reasons that we moved from the previous hosted solution that we were utilizing to CES.

The malicious URL scanning, as well as the anti-malware features, have been really useful for us in our environment. Specifically, the URL scanning has helped to knock down quite a few phishing attempts that come into the organization. The broader blanket automated attempts get knocked down pretty quickly since those URLs typically get flagged early on, and then the appliance just picks up on those URLs and knocks them down. It is the same with malicious attachments. The malware scanning that's done via AMP, which is deployed elsewhere in the organization as well, just grabs all of that before it hits the inboxes.

We have our email security feeding into the SecureX solution and it's nice to have all of our security platform statistics in one place. We leverage quite a bit of the Cisco security stack and having all of that feed into the SecureX dashboard is great. The dashboard continues to evolve, but it is at least nice to be able to see everything at once.

Integrating this product with SecureX was pretty quick and easy. Both of the solutions are cloud-hosted and the SMA, which is the reporting module that feeds the data into SecureX, was done via the API. The documentation on the SecureX portal walks you through exactly how to add the various integrations.

We leverage the AMP functionality that exists in CES, and it also ties into threat response, which is the threat-hunting platform that Cisco has. The benefits of these integrations were pretty important in the decision to stay within the Cisco product family. The threat hunting and threat response are really nice because we're able to see if something malicious makes it into the environment. Once that happens, we are able to trace that back and find out if that was done via an email, and then grab the information for that specific message. This will tell us if there have been any other indications of compromise on any other hosts. When it comes to being able to do that, having it all in a uniform environment is pretty important.

The UI is definitely one area of improvement because it doesn't match other interfaces and the navigation can be a little clunky. Generally speaking, it is just dated, and I know that they're working on enhancing it for later versions.

They should continue to develop their integration with Office 365 or Hosted Exchange since a lot of organizations, ours included, are moving primary Exchange services to the Microsoft Cloud. Being able to integrate tighter with that environment is important.

I have been using Cisco Secure Email since joining the company.

We haven't had any issues at all with the stability of the platform.

With it being cloud-hosted, it can scale as wide as you need to.

We have roughly 1,000 employees and all of our inbound and outbound emails go through this system. This means that there are several tens of thousands of messages a day flowing through it. We haven't had any sort of performance issues at all with our environment.

Cisco's technical support is very good. We've just recently had a couple of tech cases that we needed help with. We were researching why some of our partner's messages weren't getting through intact. Because this is a hosted solution and they have quite a bit of visibility, it has always been great.

We've never had any issues with support on this platform.

In previous organizations, we've leveraged Postini, which was a cloud-based solution that was acquired by Google. I've also worked in environments that have leveraged Microsoft's Office 365 email spam filtering, and they've been good, but generally, usability is sometimes a problem. It goes back to the UI and then the accuracy.

The amount of spam that is stopped has not always been great. As such, I feel that CES has a pretty good balance in that regard.

As this solution is hosted on Cisco's cloud, we don't manage the underlying infrastructure.

We probably have about eight individuals who work with it. Some of them are within our support organization, there are messaging or Exchange admins, and there are network engineers.

Return of investment is something that is difficult to measure because you're essentially trying to prove a negative. It is difficult to say what it has prevented or what has been stopped from happening. That said, I think the overall satisfaction, at least from the user perspective, is good.

When you consider the spam and anti-phishing components, in addition to the IT benefit of the anti-malware and antivirus, I think we definitely get an appropriate return. Nobody questions the expenditure on the solution as being ineffective.

With respect to transferring policies and licenses, Smart Licensing has really improved the overall licensing model for Cisco. We've been really happy with Smart Licensing.

There are additional fees for adding features. For example, things like AMP are additional licenses. Because it's all done via the Smart Licensing portal, when new licenses are acquired they're dropped in our bucket, so to speak, and then the solution just grabs those licenses. There is no back and forth required. The license ends up in the bucket and then the solution syncs with Smart Licensing and we're good to go.

For the future, we are looking at moving to newer versions that allow for additional advanced phishing protection. That's something that we're targeting. Also, we're trying to figure out how to streamline our mail flow with the majority of our inbound and outbound email that is now flowing through Office 365. Essentially, we're figuring out how we can tighten up that integration and lessen our dependence on on-premises Exchange for our mail flow.

With respect to versioning, it is controlled by Cisco. I believe that version 13.5 is when they introduced the advanced phishing protection. We're notified when new versions are released and we can ask for earlier versions, but we get adopted once those versions become generally available.

My advice for anybody who is implementing this product is to leverage the Cisco Validated Design (CVD) documents that exist. They're super helpful. Cisco has done a lot of work with Microsoft in figuring out integrations and documenting those. There is quite a bit of really good documentation, both within Microsoft and Cisco on building those integrations and configuring them.

We have also leveraged Cisco's adoption services around renewal times to make sure that we're using the platform to the fullest extent. They offer health checks for their hosted solutions, so on a yearly basis, you can sit down with an engineer and walk through and make sure you're on a good version of the code. You can make sure that you've again implemented from a high level, those feature sets correctly, and that you're leveraging things properly. Cisco does a lot of things to make sure that it's an easy renewal conversation to have, specifically with leadership.

The biggest lesson that I have learned from working with this product is to make sure that you're engaged with your Cisco teams to guarantee that you're getting the most benefit out of the platform. Again, you should be taking advantage of the health check services and adoption services because they're really unique.

In summary, this is a good solution but I think there's always room for improvement. I don't think that anything is perfect and they've definitely got some work to do on tightening up the UI and the configuration presentation. From a functionality perspective, the platform is great. 

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.