I recommend Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense for both bigger and smaller companies, although I think it should develop more as it is still in development. Cisco Email Gateway is a very good product compared to others. The overall rating for this solution is 8 out of 10.
Senior Cybersecurity Engineer at a financial services firm with 11-50 employees
Real User
Top 5
Jul 29, 2025
I have experience with vendors such as Cisco, and briefly with Fortinet from 15 years ago. I work in financial services, specifically in healthcare enterprise finance. We currently use IronPort, which is a legacy device we monitor for email management, along with 4400 routers. We utilize the advanced malware protection, which is effective for attachments though we use additional tools to augment email analysis. The integration with threat intelligence feeds has enhanced our organization's ability to analyze emails using additional security tools, adding value beyond standard Microsoft 365 email protection. The flexibility of Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense is substantial, though we desire more control over backend elements such as spoof, DMARC, or DKIM. The solution has a level of complexity that requires daily interaction for full understanding and leverage. On a scale of 1-10, this solution rates a 7.
I do not work with Mimecast. I have not worked with Mimecast in the past and do not have any experience with it. Currently, I work with Imperva and Cloudflare for WAF, and we use Imperva, but I mostly administer Imperva cloud WAF and on-premise. We also use Cisco for email security. The solution is called Cisco Email Security Appliance, and we have their cloud ESA and the on-premise as. We also have Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense product. On a scale of 1-10, I rate this solution a 7.
Principal Consulting Engineer, Founder, Own at Jolly Security Inc
Real User
Top 5
Jan 30, 2025
On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Cisco Secure Email with an eight. I highly recommend it as one of the best choices. There are emerging solutions, but for generic SMTP gateways for secure emailing, Cisco Secure Email, alongside Proofpoint, is the best.
IT Professional at a construction company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Top 20
Jul 18, 2024
The availability impacts the security of our Secure Email system. These systems are implemented to ensure uninterrupted security services for all email communications. If these features become unavailable, the customer or user is at risk. Also, Maintenance is easy. The Cisco solution generally has the upper hand compared to Microsoft's solution, though Microsoft's solution is still evolving in terms of threat analytics or detection capabilities. It is a crucial security product, given that emails are critical for any organization today. The sensitivity with which they handle tickets or issues related to these email security devices should be a top priority. They cannot consider it something basic that can managed or resolved at their own pace. Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.
Learn what your peers think about Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2026.
Presales Consultant - Cybersecurity at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
Consultant
Jun 21, 2023
Unlike other email security solutions like Mimecast, Forcepoint, or Trend Micro, Cisco will only scan for email security, whether on-premise or Office 365. Cisco does not scan all the Office 365 suites, including OneDrive, email, and Microsoft Teams, while other vendors like Trend Micro offer an all-in-one solution. Gartner doesn't bring Cisco into the category of Forcepoint and Mimecast. Mimecast and Forcepoint are better products than Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense. I push Cisco email security because we are Cisco partners, but we will oblige if a client prefers something else. Overall, I rate the solution a four or five out of ten.
Currently, the ease of deployment is the low-hanging fruit for Cisco email security. It's good to deploy and then easy to use, and the GUI is understandable. Simply having email knowledge is more than enough to plug and play into this particular product. I'd rate it ten out of ten.
IT Professional at a construction company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Top 20
Aug 4, 2022
We have done the configuration and our configuration and policy setting and everything. At the time of our implementation, there was work to do. However, once you implement there is not much to do apart from some whitelisting or blacklisting which you need to do on case to case basis. That's all. Once people started working more from home, we had to consider that and started moving to the cloud. Earlier I used to take the mail to my premises, process it, and send it back to the O365 cloud. That was actually an app loop and that just took up some of my bandwidth. However, when the time came for the renewal, I moved it to the cloud so that the entire traffic could flow outside my network to the O365 for instance. We are on the latest version of the solution. I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. I'd recommend the solution to those who are looking for separate or dedicated email security. If they're non-Office or Office 365 users, I'd recommend it for sure. And if they are Office 365 users, they should compare both Cisco and Microsoft email security to see which would be best.
The market is going towards clientless and agentless requirements. Microsoft has its own email security solutions, but there are a lot of reasons for customers to look at cloud email security vendors. However, most people, don't even explore other options. They have their own perception that one must be a costlier solution than the other. They're giving three or four additional features, which they might think are not required, but when it comes to a discussion, then one would realize that all these are required over a period of time. With the kind of variety of attacks that happen these days, your solution has to have a wider range of features for protection. I rate Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox a nine out of ten.
Security Technical Manager at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Nov 23, 2021
I rate this product an eight out of ten. I wouldn't recommend Cisco to others because I think Fortinet is better. Customers are moving on-premises exchanges to the cloud. Within the next two or three years, cloud security will be better than on-premises.
Systems Administrator at a university with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Jun 28, 2020
Lock down who has access to the product, for the purpose of being able to see all email coming in and out; seeing who it's to, who it's from, and the subject. To best protect data, you would want to limit who has access to that data. In terms of the solution's ability to prevent phishing and business email compromise, it's kind of hard to evaluate because we haven't fully implemented it. It will show us what it catches, and the implementation will actually take it out of the user's mailbox. I feel like that would be good. It seems to still catch some stuff as spam that may not be spam, according to the user. We're using Cisco AMP on our desktops and it seems to be doing fine as a virus scanner. The only issue I have seen is that on a few machines it spikes the CPU utilization for the whole time that it's scanning. I would give the solution an eight out of 10, just because we haven't implemented everything yet. The parts that we have implemented have been very smooth and very easy to use. There are small portions that we haven't fully implemented yet.
The files being captured by Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox are pushed into Threat Grid for analysis. We do have a Threat Grid license, so that integration works for us. It was easy for us to integrate these two solutions. If someone is only relying on Microsoft 365 Advanced Threat Protection (ATP), or even without the ATP solution as an add-on, then having Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox would definitely introduce diversity and provide another view of emails coming through or being generated inside the tenant. Because Cisco Talos is unique and different from Microsoft's information, Microsoft will do its own analysis as well as introduce its own threat intelligence and machine learning logic to detect threats. However, as a company, it's resources don't cover everything. Layering it with Talos and Cisco's resources is definitely a good idea. Overall, it's certainly a very good idea to integrate another layer on top of Microsoft Advanced Threat Protection. Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox being a player in this market is definitely a good option. Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox is competitive, and it seems to be working pretty well for us. Personally, it gives me peace of mind as well as flexibility in terms of locating internal email traffic. I also know that if Microsoft misses something that there is a chance that Cisco will detect it.
Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense offers robust email security with features like east-west traffic visibility and seamless SaaS deployment. It enhances cloud email protection by integrating Threat Grid sandboxing and AMP for malware defense, supported by Cisco Talos threat intelligence.Enhancing email security for Microsoft 365 and cloud emails, Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense acts as an email gateway, blocking phishing, malware, and business email compromise. Users benefit from a...
I recommend Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense for both bigger and smaller companies, although I think it should develop more as it is still in development. Cisco Email Gateway is a very good product compared to others. The overall rating for this solution is 8 out of 10.
I have experience with vendors such as Cisco, and briefly with Fortinet from 15 years ago. I work in financial services, specifically in healthcare enterprise finance. We currently use IronPort, which is a legacy device we monitor for email management, along with 4400 routers. We utilize the advanced malware protection, which is effective for attachments though we use additional tools to augment email analysis. The integration with threat intelligence feeds has enhanced our organization's ability to analyze emails using additional security tools, adding value beyond standard Microsoft 365 email protection. The flexibility of Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense is substantial, though we desire more control over backend elements such as spoof, DMARC, or DKIM. The solution has a level of complexity that requires daily interaction for full understanding and leverage. On a scale of 1-10, this solution rates a 7.
I do not work with Mimecast. I have not worked with Mimecast in the past and do not have any experience with it. Currently, I work with Imperva and Cloudflare for WAF, and we use Imperva, but I mostly administer Imperva cloud WAF and on-premise. We also use Cisco for email security. The solution is called Cisco Email Security Appliance, and we have their cloud ESA and the on-premise as. We also have Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense product. On a scale of 1-10, I rate this solution a 7.
On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Cisco Secure Email with an eight. I highly recommend it as one of the best choices. There are emerging solutions, but for generic SMTP gateways for secure emailing, Cisco Secure Email, alongside Proofpoint, is the best.
The availability impacts the security of our Secure Email system. These systems are implemented to ensure uninterrupted security services for all email communications. If these features become unavailable, the customer or user is at risk. Also, Maintenance is easy. The Cisco solution generally has the upper hand compared to Microsoft's solution, though Microsoft's solution is still evolving in terms of threat analytics or detection capabilities. It is a crucial security product, given that emails are critical for any organization today. The sensitivity with which they handle tickets or issues related to these email security devices should be a top priority. They cannot consider it something basic that can managed or resolved at their own pace. Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.
The product is good and robust and I would rate it a nine out of ten.
Unlike other email security solutions like Mimecast, Forcepoint, or Trend Micro, Cisco will only scan for email security, whether on-premise or Office 365. Cisco does not scan all the Office 365 suites, including OneDrive, email, and Microsoft Teams, while other vendors like Trend Micro offer an all-in-one solution. Gartner doesn't bring Cisco into the category of Forcepoint and Mimecast. Mimecast and Forcepoint are better products than Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense. I push Cisco email security because we are Cisco partners, but we will oblige if a client prefers something else. Overall, I rate the solution a four or five out of ten.
I advise others to keep checking new patch updates for the solution. I rate it as a nine out of ten.
Currently, the ease of deployment is the low-hanging fruit for Cisco email security. It's good to deploy and then easy to use, and the GUI is understandable. Simply having email knowledge is more than enough to plug and play into this particular product. I'd rate it ten out of ten.
We have done the configuration and our configuration and policy setting and everything. At the time of our implementation, there was work to do. However, once you implement there is not much to do apart from some whitelisting or blacklisting which you need to do on case to case basis. That's all. Once people started working more from home, we had to consider that and started moving to the cloud. Earlier I used to take the mail to my premises, process it, and send it back to the O365 cloud. That was actually an app loop and that just took up some of my bandwidth. However, when the time came for the renewal, I moved it to the cloud so that the entire traffic could flow outside my network to the O365 for instance. We are on the latest version of the solution. I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. I'd recommend the solution to those who are looking for separate or dedicated email security. If they're non-Office or Office 365 users, I'd recommend it for sure. And if they are Office 365 users, they should compare both Cisco and Microsoft email security to see which would be best.
The market is going towards clientless and agentless requirements. Microsoft has its own email security solutions, but there are a lot of reasons for customers to look at cloud email security vendors. However, most people, don't even explore other options. They have their own perception that one must be a costlier solution than the other. They're giving three or four additional features, which they might think are not required, but when it comes to a discussion, then one would realize that all these are required over a period of time. With the kind of variety of attacks that happen these days, your solution has to have a wider range of features for protection. I rate Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox a nine out of ten.
I would rate Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox an eight out of ten.
I rate this product an eight out of ten. I wouldn't recommend Cisco to others because I think Fortinet is better. Customers are moving on-premises exchanges to the cloud. Within the next two or three years, cloud security will be better than on-premises.
We would recommend Cisco Cloud Mailbox very highly. I would rate it at a nine on a scale of ten.
Lock down who has access to the product, for the purpose of being able to see all email coming in and out; seeing who it's to, who it's from, and the subject. To best protect data, you would want to limit who has access to that data. In terms of the solution's ability to prevent phishing and business email compromise, it's kind of hard to evaluate because we haven't fully implemented it. It will show us what it catches, and the implementation will actually take it out of the user's mailbox. I feel like that would be good. It seems to still catch some stuff as spam that may not be spam, according to the user. We're using Cisco AMP on our desktops and it seems to be doing fine as a virus scanner. The only issue I have seen is that on a few machines it spikes the CPU utilization for the whole time that it's scanning. I would give the solution an eight out of 10, just because we haven't implemented everything yet. The parts that we have implemented have been very smooth and very easy to use. There are small portions that we haven't fully implemented yet.
The files being captured by Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox are pushed into Threat Grid for analysis. We do have a Threat Grid license, so that integration works for us. It was easy for us to integrate these two solutions. If someone is only relying on Microsoft 365 Advanced Threat Protection (ATP), or even without the ATP solution as an add-on, then having Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox would definitely introduce diversity and provide another view of emails coming through or being generated inside the tenant. Because Cisco Talos is unique and different from Microsoft's information, Microsoft will do its own analysis as well as introduce its own threat intelligence and machine learning logic to detect threats. However, as a company, it's resources don't cover everything. Layering it with Talos and Cisco's resources is definitely a good idea. Overall, it's certainly a very good idea to integrate another layer on top of Microsoft Advanced Threat Protection. Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox being a player in this market is definitely a good option. Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox is competitive, and it seems to be working pretty well for us. Personally, it gives me peace of mind as well as flexibility in terms of locating internal email traffic. I also know that if Microsoft misses something that there is a chance that Cisco will detect it.