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Abnormal Security vs Cisco Secure Email comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 3, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender for Offi...
Sponsored
Ranking in Email Security
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (11th)
Abnormal Security
Ranking in Email Security
5th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Secure Email Gateway (SEG) (1st)
Cisco Secure Email
Ranking in Email Security
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Portfolio (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is 13.1%, down from 19.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Abnormal Security is 7.4%, up from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Email is 6.7%, down from 8.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

Tolu Omolaja - PeerSpot reviewer
Great URL scanning and attachment scanning, but I would like more proactive threat analysis
The two main features that prove most beneficial for us are URL scanning and attachment scanning. URL scanning involves an automatic scan of links and emails. When a user clicks on a link within an email, the system promptly checks the link's safety. If the link is deemed safe, access is granted automatically. However, if it is flagged as unsafe, we receive feedback and notification to caution us about the potentially harmful link. At this point, we are presented with the option to proceed or return. I have personally witnessed the system identify a few unsafe links, making this the primary advantage of using the solution. The second crucial aspect is the scanning of attachments. When an email containing an attachment arrives, we receive a notification of the new email, along with information that the attachment is being scanned for threats. This additional layer of security provides peace of mind for our organization. While Microsoft Defender for Office 365 offers numerous features, these two stand out as particularly impressive and valuable to us.
William Schellhaas - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides comprehensive email security management, effective in detecting a wide range of email threats
The ideal scenario would be for Abnormal Security to work in tandem with Microsoft to analyze incoming emails. This means Abnormal Security would assess emails before they reach my inbox, even if it happens slightly after Microsoft's initial scan. Currently, the process isn't seamless. Microsoft analyzes emails and delivers legitimate ones to my inbox. Abnormal Security then scans these delivered emails, and if flagged as malicious, they disappear. This creates a problem for our ticketing system mailbox, which is a third-party service. Emails sent to the ticketing system address are automatically forwarded by Microsoft. However, if these emails are malicious, Abnormal Security only cleans them from my Outlook mailbox after they've been forwarded. Since we primarily rely on the ticketing system and not the Outlook mailbox, these malicious emails still reach the ticketing system.
Kostas Karidas - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps prevent security breaches but fails to improve in the area of AI
I have not noticed any impressive advanced threat protection mechanisms in the tool. I don't know if there are any AI features in the product. I don't know if there is any other technology embedded in the solution. Cisco Secure Email successfully mitigated potential email threats. My company has seen plenty of scenarios where Cisco Secure Email successfully mitigated potential email threats, spam emails, and fraudulent domains. The product is good for dealing with spam emails, and it can take care of more than 100 spam emails per day. A huge number of spam emails are monitored with the help of Cisco Secure Email. I would not recommend the product to other businesses because you need to have some kind of expertise in configuring and knowing a bit about the tool's GUI. The tool also lacks in the area of AI mechanics. If I would like to have an overview and review another solution, I would go for another product other than Cisco Secure Email. I can definitely suggest others to look at the product and review it, but I would also recommend that they compare it with the other solutions in the market. I wouldn't prioritize Cisco Secure Email over other tools. Either the support partner of the product or I take care of the tool's maintenance phase by looking into the configurations and doing some fine-tuning. I rate the tool a seven to eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Since we have started using the solution, there have been fewer compromises."
"The product's scalability is good."
"The initial setup was easy."
"Defender enables us to secure all 365-related activity from a single place. It gives us visibility into everything happening in Outlook, protecting us against phishing and other email-based threats. Defender helps us detect any suspicious behaviors."
"Does a thorough job of examining email and URLs for malicious content."
"It also gives me good visibility because, with Defender, I'm using a Microsoft product to defend Microsoft products. The integration was really seamless and I have wide visibility because it picks up almost everything. Literally, I can see almost every activity that happens, from the e-mail to the workstation itself."
"The email protection is excellent, especially in terms of anti-phishing policies."
"Our customers are satisfied with Defender for 365 because Microsoft products are easy to use and customize to meet the client's needs. Everything is in one place, so we can adjust policies as needed for phishing, DLP, ATP, or any other security features that our clients want to apply."
"One of the things that I love about them is that the setup and installation are super easy. All you do is give them access to your Microsoft 365 tenant, and through APIs, they are able to do their work. They are doing all this through APIs, so you do not have to install the software and take a month to get it all set up to even see the value of the solution. You could be up and running in less than an hour."
"Ease of use is undoubtedly one of the most valuable features of Abnormal Security."
"I like Abnormal's threat protection with auto-remediation, but I also love its abuse mailbox feature, which automatically responds to the end user. That feature has a super-valuable security component and helps improve the user experience."
"It does some really cool stuff that other tools aren't doing. We found it to be really effective, and the AI/ML functionality is really what differentiates them."
"What I like about Abnormal Security is that it notifies me if any of my partners or suppliers are experiencing a security breach by analyzing their database and identifying potential cyber threats."
"Initial auto-remediation allows us to auto-remediate before the email lands in the end user's inbox for a split second."
"It protects us from being business email compromised, which is invaluable for maintaining our security."
"I have never encountered any stability issues with Abnormal."
"I can customize the configuration and policies."
"It has the ability to tell us, after an email has been delivered, where else it went, once it got inside. Maybe it's something we wanted it to stop and it didn't stop it, but it notified us later that it was something that it should have stopped. It can give us a trajectory of all the other places that it went internally and it can tell us what files were transferred as well."
"It provides good IT assistance."
"Users were able to do a check by themselves on quarantined emails. They could check if a valid email had been stopped, if it matched up with the SPF certification."
"It is a user-friendly product."
"It blocks bulk marketing messages, graymail, spam, and provides advanced malware protection."
"ATP has been the most valuable in improving our email security posture."
"Cisco's Secure Email integrates with Cisco Firewalls, utilizing the AMP as their anti-malware engine, which allows for information sharing between devices."
 

Cons

"The product must provide better malware detection."
"We need a separate license and we don't know how to get the license that is required."
"The XDR dashboard has room for improvement."
"One area for improvement is support, in terms of being able to reach them and, especially, technical support for configuration."
"We are always looking for others tools to increase automation on tasks. There can be better integration with other solutions, such as PowerPoint and email."
"The custom alerts have to improve a lot."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 could improve by giving customers information on techniques to prevent threats. For example, information about best practices on how to protect their own devices against hackers and scammers, such as educational information or training. This would help others have a better understanding of cyber security. Additionally, there can be more security features added."
"The visibility for the weaknesses in the system and unauthorized access can be improved."
"One feature I'd love to see is outbound scanning."
"There could be more selectable options and more granular selections available."
"Abnormal should add more automatic reports. I have an open request to our account team for more notification and report types that can be sent automatically. For example, they have an awesome report that gets sent weekly, and I also want them monthly, so I don't need to do so much adding up when my director wants numbers over time."
"There could be room for improvement in enhancing integration with other cybersecurity tools."
"I would like to have the ability to customize the auto-remediation feature."
"The pricing for academic institutions and student mailboxes is challenging."
"The biggest pain point for us is the lack of support for on-premise email systems."
"There could be more selectable options and more granular selections available."
"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."
"The Forged Email Detection feature needs improvement, particularly with domain. The sensors are not that good and the rules sets are unclear."
"Typically, in a phishing email, they try to use a name everybody's going to recognize, like the CEO's name or the CFO's name... With this appliance, the way it's designed at the moment, for us to really stop that with any level of confidence, we have to build a dictionary of all the names of the people we want it to check, and all the ways they could be spelled. My name would be in there as Phillip Collins, Phillip D. Collins, Phillip Dean Collins, Phil Collins, Phil D. Collins. There could be eight or 10 variations of my name that we'd have to put in the dictionary. There's no artificial intelligence to say "Phil Collins" could be all these other things, and to stop phishing from coming through in that way."
"We would like to see more options for the customization of content filters."
"The solution does not have a strong outbound service. It should also integrate DLP."
"I would like more functionality and how to use it for Level 2 type staff. The biggest issue is it needs to be easier to use and navigate."
"I am not satisfied with the solution's reporting and logging."
"I use the search all the time. Sometimes, it is hard to search for things and things are hard to find. People come to me all the time, saying, "This email didn't get through." Then, I go searching and don't find it on the first search. You have to think about alternative searches. I don't know if there is an easier way that they could help to find things. I don't know how they could simplify it, because now everybody else is using the cloud and everything is coming from Office 365, or whatever. It is just not the same environment from years ago where everybody had their own server and you could search easier."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Microsoft Defender is expensive. I typically recommend it only if clients have the budget. Otherwise, I would suggest an alternative."
"Defender for 365 comes in various plans and licenses, along with other Microsoft security solutions. Purchasing this kind of package or security bundle gives good value for money, and that's what I recommend."
"I was working in the government and it was too expensive for us to use our Microsoft products."
"For large enterprise organizations, they can definitely afford it, but for small and medium organizations, they might struggle to cover the expenses."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is an add-on to the Office license. Many customers are purchasing this solution."
"While Microsoft Defender for Office 365 necessitates pricier E3 or E5 subscriptions, the extensive functionality offered by these licenses across various Microsoft products justifies the investment."
"The pricing has become expensive."
"Defender is a little bit more expensive as compared to others. We are in the manufacturing environment. So, we don't have a high budget for all of our endpoint devices. Its cost is a major concern for us."
"Abnormal Security, on the other hand, provides the same level of functionality for just over $60,000 – that's half the price!"
"The license is based on the user count, so the number of users that have an email address in the organization."
"The pricing appears fair, and they demonstrate a genuine willingness to work with us on it."
"Overall, we'd certainly prefer lower pricing, but Abnormal Security doesn't seem unreasonable compared to similar offerings in the market."
"The licensing was all transferred."
"It's adapted to the market. It's similar to other vendors. We at least don't have many problems regarding that because Cisco is adaptable on that side. When we present the solutions to the customers, we tend to achieve the goals that the customer has in terms of the budget for such implementations."
"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."
"It is a relatively expensive option compared to other alternatives."
"You're going to get what you pay for. If you're not willing to pay the price of Cisco, you're not going to get a product that's as good as Cisco. I don't think Cisco is overpriced, because for the last two years I've been comparing it to Microsoft and Cisco has been cheaper and given us more features."
"I don't have the insights into it, but compared to different products, it seems to have a medium level of pricing."
"The solution is expensive."
"It is expensive. I would rate it 2 out of 10, where 1 is the most expensive and 10 is the cheapest."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
34%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
Threat Explorer is an invaluable tool for me, and it plays a crucial role in helping me discern the origins of variou...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
Money-wise, it is a part of the Office 365 ( /products/office-365-reviews ) suite, making it slightly more expensive ...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
The main area for improvement is simplifying the implementation and rollout process. There are many conditions to be ...
What do you like most about Abnormal Security?
The features that appeal to me most are the combination of auto-remediation and Detection 360.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Abnormal Security?
I find the pricing to be favorable, but I did not disclose the exact cost.
What needs improvement with Abnormal Security?
There could be more selectable options and more granular selections available.
What do you like most about Cisco Secure Email?
Cisco Secure Email is a budget-friendly solution.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Secure Email?
The pricing structure is good as it is user-based or email client-based, which is positive for clients.
What needs improvement with Cisco Secure Email?
The user interface of the Email Security Gateway ( /products/security-gateway-reviews ) should be improved. It would ...
 

Also Known As

MS Defender for Office 365
No data available
Cisco Email Security, IronPort, Cisco Email Security, ESA, Email Security Appliances
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is trusted by companies such as Ithaca College.
Foot Lcoker, Xerox, Liberty Mutual, Mattel, Boston Scientific
SUNY Old Westbury, CoxHealth, City of Fullerton, Indra
Find out what your peers are saying about Abnormal Security vs. Cisco Secure Email and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.