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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
47
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) (2nd)
Cisco Secure Email
Ranking in Email Security
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
59
Ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Portfolio (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is 13.7%, down from 20.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Abnormal Security is 6.7%, up from 2.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Email is 7.1%, down from 8.8% 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

"The initial setup is straightforward. You just add the license, click it, and then you can set up the rules. It is quite simple."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365's most valuable feature is its performance."
"The stability of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is fantastic."
"I like its investigation capabilities, as that is what is most important to me. It is fairly simple with a user-friendly interface."
"At the moment we are satisfied with this product. It's a stable, scalable, and resilient solution for us."
"The benefit that stands out to me is the ability for multiple individuals to collaborate simultaneously within the same document. Additionally, there is the option to save the document directly in the integrated OneDrive or SharePoint."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 helps people to work remotely. It is a secure solution. We don't need to use our company's computers or get VPN connections to the networks. I can control how they share screens and what they send to the devices. It keeps our organizations confidential and sensitive information safe."
"The risk level notifications are most valuable. We get to know what kind of intrusion or attack is there, and we can fix a problem on time."
"It protects us from being business email compromised, which is invaluable for maintaining our security."
"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."
"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."
"Their ability to take things out of the mailbox and catch things much faster than users is excellent."
"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."
"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."
"I would recommend Abnormal Security."
"The features that appeal to me most are the combination of auto-remediation and Detection 360."
"The most significant enhancement we've gained is in terms of security through the upgrade we received."
"The most valuable features are protection against ransomware and spam."
"The filtering is definitely better at catching both spam and malicious messages, and there's a lot of extremely granular ability for setting up rules. You can do it the way you want to. The Microsoft solution tends to be pretty limited in how it allows some of that to be done."
"Cisco Secure Email Cloud Gateway has allowed our users to be able to concentrate on the emails that they do receive. Previously, our users had to deal with nine million additional emails across the organization, which is nearly 1,000 emails per user to have to deal with a month. That's a massive amount for our staff to deal with and probably several hours of their time. We have a lot of clinical staff, being a hospital. We want to make our staff as productive as possible. By removing a lot of that spam and phishing type emails, this allows them to do their job."
"The product blocks spam emails."
"The product's initial setup phase was easy."
"It does a great job of preventing spam, malware, and ransomware. I can only go by what people have told me and what I've seen, but I have not seen spam in a year and a half to two years in my own company mailbox. And there are not a lot of catches where it's catching something that should have gotten through, either."
"The tool's most valuable feature in preventing security breaches revolves around the area of malware protection that the product provides."
 

Cons

"They have moved features from one console to another. Things have been moved around in the interface and it takes me time to find where certain features are."
"One area for improvement is support, in terms of being able to reach them and, especially, technical support for configuration."
"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."
"Configuring the default strategies and policies in Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps generates a lot of noise and false positives."
"Microsoft sometimes has downtime, and we'll get several incidents coming in back to back. We have a huge backlog of notifications, many of which may be false positives. However, there might be serious alerts, so we can't risk dismissing all of them at once."
"I am generally satisfied with how it currently is. If I could improve anything, I would reduce the cost."
"There is room for improvement in terms of reporting."
"The custom alerts have to improve a lot."
"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."
"The ideal scenario would be for Abnormal Security to work in tandem with Microsoft to analyze incoming emails."
"I would like to have the ability to customize the auto-remediation feature."
"The biggest pain point for us is the lack of support for on-premise email systems."
"One feature I'd love to see is outbound scanning."
"I, as such, do not have anything that I do not like or would like to add, but you could argue that because they are doing it API-based, there is a chance that something could slip through temporarily before they are able to pull it out. In theory, it could happen just because of the nature of the system. They are not in line with the delivery of the mail. They are kind of asynchronous, which is a pro as well as a con. If it is synchronous, then I know it would always stop them, but because it is asynchronous, things could get through temporarily or because of some system issues on the Microsoft side or their side. It is the nature of the beast, but it is a little bit of a con."
"There could be more selectable options and more granular selections available."
"There could be room for improvement in enhancing integration with other cybersecurity tools."
"The initial setup was complex because I have two sites with physical clusters."
"The user interface could be updated."
"My opinion on the licensing of this solution is that it is a mess that needs sorting out. I am not particularly bothered by pricing as I administer it and make recommendations for people to buy or not to buy."
"The user interface needs some improvement to become more user-friendly. The graphics could be better. It's designed more for a technical user rather than a business user."
"The scalability must be improved."
"While Cisco offers excellent solutions and innovations, the pricing may not be suitable for everyone. The cost of the software is relatively high. In the current market, there are numerous competitive alternatives that focus on security, enterprise networks, and various other aspects. Cisco, being a comprehensive provider, extends its expertise across data, servers, storage, and security, making them a preferred choice for many enterprises. However, when it comes specifically to security solutions, there are other vendors that specialize solely in this domain, offering competitive options."
"The interface is dated. It has looked pretty much the same for 15 years or so. It would be helpful to be able to do everything from one spot. The centralized quarantine and reporting are completely separate from policy administration."
"The hardware is not up to the mark. Two to three times a year we have complete downtime."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"From the pricing point of view, like any other product in the market, there is scope for negotiation."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is an add-on to the Office license. Many customers are purchasing this solution."
"For large enterprise organizations, they can definitely afford it, but for small and medium organizations, they might struggle to cover the expenses."
"For licensing, it's usually a yearly package for customers who are subscribed to Office 365, but they can also pay on a monthly basis."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 comes with Microsoft Windows. It is free with the operating system."
"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."
"It is much more expensive than using another solution because we have had to include some options and upgrade our license."
"Microsoft Defender is expensive. I typically recommend it only if clients have the budget. Otherwise, I would suggest an alternative."
"The pricing appears fair, and they demonstrate a genuine willingness to work with us on it."
"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."
"Overall, we'd certainly prefer lower pricing, but Abnormal Security doesn't seem unreasonable compared to similar offerings in the market."
"There are additional fees for adding features."
"It is not that costly. We pay for the solution through a contractor and pay an annual fee."
"I don't have the insights into it, but compared to different products, it seems to have a medium level of pricing."
"In addition to the standard licensing, there is a cost for SMARTnet as well."
"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."
"The solution is expensive."
"In my previous organization, avoiding four instances of CryptoLocker within an estimated six month period is approximately $600,000 in lost time and effort. Our five year cost was about a million dollars, and the four outages that we had equated to 65 percent of that five year cost."
"We were using Proofpoint and then we switched to Cisco... reportability was one of the main reasons we switched, but the biggest one was cost. If you can get an equivalent functionality for a better price it's wise to do so. That's what our primary decision came down to: We could get equivalent functionality at a lower price point."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
Educational Organization
28%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
5%
 

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?
I don't have detailed specifics on pricing, setup cost, or licensing.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
I am generally satisfied with how it currently is. If I could improve anything, I would reduce the cost.
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 licensing is expensive and a bit complex with the new approach Cisco has taken. It is considered more complicated...
What needs improvement with Cisco Secure Email?
The primary areas for improvement are the pricing and the complexity of deployment. The pricing is considered expensi...
 

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: January 2025.
832,138 professionals have used our research since 2012.