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Check Point Anti-Spam and Email Security Software Blade vs Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender for Offi...
Sponsored
Ranking in Email Security
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (10th)
Check Point Anti-Spam and E...
Ranking in Email Security
11th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
8.0
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Cisco Secure Email Threat D...
Ranking in Email Security
26th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Email Security category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is 15.9%, down from 20.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Check Point Anti-Spam and Email Security Software Blade is 1.0%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense is 1.3%, down from 2.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Email Security
 

Featured Reviews

Luis-Brown - PeerSpot reviewer
Allows for easy reporting of problems, valuable anti-phishing, and anti-malware support
Microsoft Defender for Office 365 lacks proactivity in assisting us with preparing for potential threats before they occur. While they employ a substantial amount of threat intelligence to preemptively prevent incidents, their effectiveness diminishes when it comes to delivering proactive threat intelligence alerts from Microsoft. Their focus primarily revolves around managing the internal environment. On the other hand, my other vendor, Check Point, along with my membership in MS-ISAC, supplements me with this type of information. The phishing and spam filters could use some improvement. It is adequate, but it doesn't match the quality of Proofpoint or Mimecast. However, it comes close in effectiveness. Plus, if we're obtaining it for free, investing in the other products seems impractical.
Dushyant Trivedi - PeerSpot reviewer
Effectively secures data centers against various threats, including spam emails and provides policy-based control
It is a stable solution. We implemented the solution in HA. This is because the solution is highly available and can withstand hardware failures and software upgrades. Once the solution is implemented, there is no need for any further downtime for the Check Point server. Because once we change any policy, we can break the High Availability (HA) session and define the new policy on the Check Point Security Gateway (SGW) in isolation. This allows us to test the new policy without affecting the production traffic. Once the new policy is tested and active, we can then activate it on the HA pair and bring the HA session back up. This process ensures that we can make changes to the policy without any interruption to the user experience. It is a really stable solution. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten.
Mike Bulyk - PeerSpot reviewer
Can quickly identify, track, tag, and categorize internal emails. Reporting accessibly via the main dashboard would be a great addition.
If Cisco could continue to develop integrations, whether it's internal tooling, Threat Grid, or AMP reporting which could be accessible via a single web page, that would be helpful. This would essentially add additional context on messages as well as files or links being detected. Potentially adding additional context on why certain messages are tagged as spam or malware. In our case, malware hasn't been detected yet, but spam certainly has been. Knowing what engines or which components of the message make it identifiable as spam, that could be useful. Additional context and reporting accessibly via the main dashboard would be great. There is still room for improvement in terms of integrations with other Cisco tools and non-Cisco tools. There is also some room for improvement needed in terms of the reporting.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is very easy to use. All you have to do is to assign the license to the end-user and it's done. The customer will only have the feature activated, and the solution will monitor the emails to determine if they are a threat or not."
"The technical support is good and quick to resolve issues."
"The most valuable feature is protection against malicious links, fishing, and impersonation. You can train people to be aware of these threats, but they're not always careful. When they're using their phones between meetings, they click on a link, and it's game over."
"Safe attachments, safe links, policies, and the ability to protect from zero-day threats are the most valuable features."
"The product's scalability is good."
"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 good part is that you don't have to configure it, which is very convenient."
"The two main features that prove most beneficial for us are URL scanning and attachment scanning."
"By drastically reducing the volume of spam and unwanted emails, employees can focus more on their work rather than sorting through cluttered inboxes. This leads to improved productivity and efficiency within the organization."
"One of the standout features of the product is a significant reduction in false positives, achieved through the implementation of artificial intelligence for detecting malware, phishing attempts, and spam emails."
"A scalable, stable solution with good technical support."
"We now have better security and fewer false positives."
"The solution can be monitored on a single dashboard with actionable insights and reporting."
"It's a fairly old solution, however, that has been updated over time to become one of the best manufacturers of security solutions."
"This solution helped us lock down and have our infrastructure easier to manage."
"It does a better job of recognizing spammers."
"The ability to see east-west traffic is its most valuable feature. Traditionally, email defense focuses on north-south, inbound-outbound, egress-ingress traffic. With Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox, it's able to quickly identify, track, tag, and categorize emails that are internal. That can typically give us visibility into if there's an internal compromised account (for example). Someone can then use that internal compromised account to email additional accounts with either malicious software or links, but internal within that Office tenant. Effectively, that email message never leaves the tenant. Any of the mail gateways really do not have any method or way of seeing this traffic since it's not leaving the environment."
"I would say it's very comprehensive, with multiple antivirus OEMs, virus encrypt features, encryption, and more."
"Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox can handle a complete portfolio, which is required to protect any kind of attack coming from emails. However, it does not have advanced phishing, but it is available through Cisco. If you compare Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox with the competition, in the competition you have to have one or two solutions together to address the customer's requirement, whereas Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox is addressing everything, such as web domain and email protection. If there is any kind of challenge it will come across through email."
"It has an efficient email filtering feature."
"This solution is easy to use."
"The features and functionalities are much better than Microsoft's in-built Defender plan."
"It's very easy to deploy and configure."
"Secure Email Threat Defense's scalability is good."
 

Cons

"I'd like some additional features any product can give me to protect our environment in a better way."
"You should be able to deploy Defender for every subscription without the need to add servers."
"The phishing and spam filters could use some improvement."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 must improve the overall management style, including the GUI. It also needs to change the filters so that it is easy to whitelist and blacklist data."
"It would be better if it were more scalable. It depends on the architecture, but we would like to make it more scalable for both data centers."
"Configuration requires going to a lot of places rather than just accessing one tab."
"We need a separate license and we don't know how to get the license that is required."
"One area for improvement is support, in terms of being able to reach them and, especially, technical support for configuration."
"I would like this solution to be more integrated into other applications that Check Point has so that it could be managed quickly and safely from the Infinity Portal."
"User experience can be improved."
"AI-based threat detection could be enhanced to improve security."
"There's definitely room for improvement when it comes to adapting to different languages in one environment."
"Recognizing spammers and spam email sourcing is extremely lagging these days, and the performance could be improved to provide better efficiency."
"The user should be able to perform a real-time search of the objects and see the messages."
"It would be useful to have more logs and in aggregate mode, perhaps through a specific report, that can be more easily used for troubleshooting."
"They should upgrade support services and make a more user-friendly database."
"There is still room for improvement in terms of integrations with other Cisco tools and non-Cisco tools. There is also some room for improvement needed in terms of the reporting."
"The tool gives false positives and it needs to be more accurate. I would like to see AI as a new feature."
"The search area has room for improvement. When you go to the next page, it remains at the bottom of the current page that you're on. Also, under the reports section, it allows you to see any "convictions," but if you want to search for those convictions you have to remember when they all came in and go back and edit the search accordingly. You cannot click on the list of convictions to actually see if you had a spike at a certain time."
"The pricing could always be better."
"The solution is a bit expensive."
"From a technical point of view, Cisco is far behind in terms of cybersecurity, and it has to improve very much."
"We encounter issues while searching for missing emails."
"Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox can improve by adding advanced phishing, then the solution would become the best in the market. However, this could increase the price even more. Additionally, if CES with domain protection could be added it would be an even better solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing has become expensive."
"I know that the product is incredibly expensive."
"The product is very expensive."
"The solution saves money so we have seen a return on investment."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 comes with Microsoft Windows. It is free with the operating system."
"For large enterprise organizations, they can definitely afford it, but for small and medium organizations, they might struggle to cover the expenses."
"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."
"The product is expensive."
"Reasonably priced solution."
"I rate the pricing as an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive."
"Choosing the correct set of licenses is essential because, without the additional software blade licenses, the Check Point gateways are just a stateful firewall."
"The cost is competitive with other security products on the market."
"I rate the product pricing a seven out of ten."
"For licensing, my company makes yearly payments, which is expensive."
"This is a simple system with a very low cost and basic functions, which surely is ideal for a small company."
"The solution’s pricing is manageable."
"The feedback from vendors and customer is that it is expensive."
"It is expensive compared to other vendors."
"Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox does not have any competition with Sophos, Trend Micro, or other vendors of the world. However, there is a pricing premium for the solution. One has to look at it from that angle that while they are buying Cisco, there will be a premium, and Cisco justifies that premium value. That's why they're charging a high price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Security Firm
30%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
10%
Educational Organization
5%
Computer Software Company
41%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Healthcare Company
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?
The pricing is reasonable since it comes integrated with our Office 365 license.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Office 365?
Sometimes, phishing emails manage to pass through the filter, so the system needs to enhance its phishing email detec...
What needs improvement with Check Point Anti-Spam and Email Security Software Blade?
The solution could be improved by reducing false positives, optimizing performance, improving the user interface, and...
What is your primary use case for Check Point Anti-Spam and Email Security Software Blade?
The primary use cases for Check Point Anti-Spam and Email Security Software Blade are anti-spam, anti-malware, anti-p...
What do you like most about Secure Email Threat Defense?
Secure Email Threat Defense's scalability is good.
What needs improvement with Secure Email Threat Defense?
Cisco is a multi-product, diverse organization. Before it was acquired by Cisco, the company that developed Email Thr...
 

Also Known As

MS Defender for Office 365
No data available
Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox, Cisco CMD, Cisco Cloud Mailbox Defense
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is trusted by companies such as Ithaca College.
SF Police Credit Union (SFPCU)
Luiss University, Lone Star College, T-Systems, Magyar Telekom
Find out what your peers are saying about Check Point Anti-Spam and Email Security Software Blade vs. Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
816,636 professionals have used our research since 2012.