Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration vs Cisco Secure Email comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Sep 6, 2023

We compared Check Point Harmony Email and Collaboration and Cisco Secure Email across several parameters based on our users' reviews. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:

  • Features: Check Point Harmony Email and Collaboration offers exceptional integration through APIs, advanced protection against data leaks, and the ability to detect complex social engineering attacks. Cisco Secure Email offers advanced protection against phishing attacks, reputation-based filtering, and robust tracking functionalities.

  • Room for Improvement: Check Point Harmony Email and Collaboration could improve integration with Exchange and other SaaS clouds while enhancing its threat clouds and AI engines. Cisco Secure Email should improve global malicious email defense, data loss prevention, and integration with third-party solutions.

  • Service and Support: Check Point has earned mixed reviews for its customer service. Some customers appreciate the technical support provided, while others are dissatisfied with response times. Cisco support is generally considered knowledgeable and helpful, but a few users reported slow response times and difficulty navigating the support process.

  • Ease of Deployment: Check Point Harmony Email is considered relatively easy to implement. Cisco Secure Email is generally straightforward and seamless to set up. It provides a modular and adaptable environment, but new users may need training.

  • Pricing: Check Point Harmony Email and Collaboration is a cost-effective option. It offers competitive prices and is suitable for small to medium-sized organizations. Opinions on the pricing of Cisco Secure Email are mixed. Some find it expensive but worth the investment, while others find it reasonably priced and competitive with other vendors.

  • ROI: Check Point Harmony Email and Collaboration delivers superior return on investment compared to other options. Cisco Secure Email's return on investment is influenced by factors such as use case, organization size, and industry.

Comparison Results: Check Point Harmony Email and Collaboration is an effective solution for blocking malicious attachments and detecting social engineering attacks. However, there is room for improvement in terms of integration and support, reducing false positives, and enhancing response times. Cisco Secure Email is highly regarded for its intelligence threat detection, reputation filtering, and robust tracking abilities. The solution’s areas for improvement include data loss prevention and third-party integration.

To learn more, read our detailed Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration vs. Cisco Secure Email Report (Updated: May 2024).
771,170 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"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.""Does a thorough job of examining email and URLs for malicious content.""Safe attachments, safe links, policies, and the ability to protect from zero-day threats are the most valuable features.""Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is a stable solution.""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.""The technical support is good and quick to resolve issues.""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.""Since we have started using the solution, there have been fewer compromises."

More Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Pros →

"The product is a fairly complete and centralized solution accessible through the Infinity Portal.""Its analysis or emulation in the review of each file using the cloud and Check Point helps make each interaction via email more secure.""Its characteristics are adapted to the most modern threats.""This product enhances faster and more secure sharing of information among colleagues from different departments.""It is very intuitive. It is a point and click type of deal.""The ease of management and intuitive administration are excellent.""Getting reports and finding threats in the console is easy.""We are able to protect sensitive business data and maintain regulatory compliance with advanced data leak prevention (DLP)."

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"This solution provides some benefits, like comfortable access to TAC support. You get prompt support when working directly with Cisco.""Cisco Secure Email has strong inbound services.""It blocks bulk marketing messages, graymail, spam, and provides advanced malware protection.""There is a huge return compared to if we didn't have a gateway appliance, as far as blocking malicious emails.""The tech engineers are very knowledgeable.""Spam controls are excellent because they are a powerful feature that operates almost effortlessly.""The strong point of the solution is that we hardly get any spam emails because of Cisco Secure Email.""Because we scan products, and there is a lot of critical data, security is very important in these cases."

More Cisco Secure Email Pros →

Cons
"There's room for improvement regarding the time frame for retrieving emails.""One area for improvement is integration. For example, when it comes to external SaaS platforms, we were not able to get a lot of information on integrations with such apps for security and authentication.""Microsoft wants its well-paying customers to finish testing some of its half-baked products, find bugs, and report bugs back to Microsoft's team, which is a little frustrating for those who have to manage it and roll it up to thousands of people across the organization.""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 certification training for Defender for 365 needs to be deeper and incorporate Sentinel. I took all the security courses except one, and Sentinel isn't included.""About eight months ago, we started to measure the quantity of phishing and spam that we have been receiving, and it has been increasing a lot. That means that protection for our email is not as good as we were expecting.""The XDR dashboard has room for improvement.""Microsoft Defender for Office 365 should be more proactive."

More Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Cons →

"It would be nice to see them expand their collaboration capabilities to include other suites and integrate with lesser-known products.""They could help us be integrating features with solutions from third parties.""We are unable to export the reports from the dashboard, and if it is possible to do then it is not intuitive.""The next release should focus more on email categorization and provide options for unlocking blocked safe emails.""After updates, the internet connection fails, and I have to restart my desktop to resume initial functionalities.""There are sometimes leakages of viruses when the system is experiencing network failures.""They must provide security to more email service providers.""Cloud Guard would be a complete solution if Check Point added a comprehensive data loss solution that included capabilities such as bulk data transfer detection."

More Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration Cons →

"Cisco is already providing a very good environment with the IronPort solution, but there could be some more integration with other products. For instance, an integration with the EDR solution could be there to raise an alert.""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.""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.""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 solution needs to improve its advanced phishing filters. It is very good at filtering things which have bad reputations. However, when phishing or malicious emails are new or coming from a legitimate source, we don't feel that the solution is working.""We would like to see more options for the customization of content filters.""Cisco Email Secure's pricing needs to be less. We have vendors who provide cheaper solutions with the same features.""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."

More Cisco Secure Email Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "It's a user-base subscription."
  • "From the pricing point of view, like any other product in the market, there is scope for negotiation."
  • "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."
  • "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 is an add-on to the Office license. Many customers are purchasing this solution."
  • "Microsoft Defender for Office 365 comes with Microsoft Windows. It is free with the operating system."
  • "The solution saves money so we have seen a return on investment."
  • "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."
  • More Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Having information stolen by a hacker would be more expensive than purchasing a license."
  • "Being able to keep the phishing campaigns out of my company has been ROI for me."
  • "Do a full feature evaluation (interactive) with a support person. That is what I did."
  • "The price is very good, based on what they deliver."
  • "One of the nice features is that the licensing model is elastic, so if you go over your license count, you can add users during your billing cycle and true-up later."
  • "There are absolutely no additional costs to the standard licensing fees. One of the wonderful pieces is that CloudGuard SaaS is all-inclusive in its licensing. There's no a-la-carte functionality. You're getting 100 percent of the product for the licensing that you're paying."
  • "The difference between [Check Point and its competitors] boiled down to money. Price-wise, Check Point was very good, it was very competitive."
  • "The pricing and licensing are always negotiable."
  • More Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "We do annual licensing for Cisco Secure Email Gatewayand SMA together, and possibly SmartNet support. Packaged together, the cost is just under $38,000."
  • "In addition to the standard licensing, there is a cost for SMARTnet as well."
  • "Pricing depends on your environment and which model you want to buy."
  • "Licensing costs depend on how many users there are. It could range between $5 and $7 per month, per user."
  • "The license was not per user, the license model was per feature. You could choose anti-virus, anti-spam, etc. It was feature-based and charged yearly."
  • "There were no other costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
  • "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."
  • "It is not that costly. We pay for the solution through a contractor and pay an annual fee."
  • More Cisco Secure Email Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:Threat Explorer is an invaluable tool for me, and it plays a crucial role in helping me discern the origins of various… more »
    Top Answer:The product must provide better malware detection. The detection algorithms don't perform the way I hope they would.
    Top Answer:I don't even have details of the product's single license purchased by my company.
    Top Answer:I use the solution in my company to secure the users' environment so that there are no phishing attacks. The tool… more »
    Top Answer:The product offers good and easy integration capabilities with other products.
    Top Answer:The product's initial setup phase was easy.
    Top Answer:The product's price falls on the higher side when compared to the other products on the market. Whether the product… more »
    Top Answer:There are some concerns in the way the architecture is set up, making it an area where improvements are required. When… more »
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    MS Defender for Office 365
    Check Point CloudGuard, Check Point CloudGuard SaaS , Check Point Harmony Email & Office
    Cisco Email Security, IronPort, Cisco Email Security, ESA, Email Security Appliances
    Learn More
    Overview

    Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is a comprehensive security solution designed to protect organizations against advanced threats in their email, collaboration, and productivity environments. It combines the power of Microsoft's threat intelligence, machine learning, and behavioral analytics to provide real-time protection against phishing, malware, ransomware, and other malicious attacks.

    With Microsoft Defender for Office 365, organizations can safeguard their email communication by detecting and blocking malicious links, attachments, and unsafe email content. It employs advanced anti-phishing capabilities to identify and prevent sophisticated phishing attacks that attempt to steal sensitive information or compromise user credentials.

    This solution also offers robust protection against malware and ransomware. It leverages machine learning algorithms to analyze email attachments and URLs in real-time, identifying and blocking malicious content before it reaches users' inboxes. Additionally, it provides advanced threat-hunting capabilities, allowing security teams to proactively investigate and respond to potential threats.

    Microsoft Defender for Office 365 goes beyond email protection and extends its security features to other collaboration tools like SharePoint, OneDrive, and Teams. It scans files and documents stored in these platforms, ensuring that they are free from malware and other malicious content. It also provides visibility into user activities, helping organizations detect and mitigate insider threats.

    Furthermore, this solution offers rich reporting and analytics capabilities, providing organizations with insights into their security posture and threat landscape. It enables security administrators to monitor and manage security incidents, track trends, and take proactive measures to enhance their overall security posture.

    Check Point Harmony Email and Office is a cloud-based software offering complete protection to stop malware attacks through emails. The software is designed to provide protection for organizations using Office 365, G Suite, Google Workspace, and all other collaboration and file-sharing apps. Access permissions can be granted and custom policies can be defined for any user of choice.

    Check Point Harmony Email and Office identifies and blocks advanced malware, phishing, and ransomware attacks in real time before they reach the user’s inbox. In turn, this also helps protect sensitive business data from breaches. Harmony Email and Office was the first solution to implement machine learning, API, and AI for email security, and will ultimately prevent any attempts at account takeover via agentless multi-factor authentication.

    What is Complete Protection?

    Check Point Harmony Email and Office offers a superior catch rate for collaboration apps and cloud email with their API-based solution that detects attacks that other solutions miss, including account takeover, supply chain attacks, ransomware, and BEC. The complete protection offers:

    • Malware Protection - Recognized by NSS Labs as “most effective in breach prevention,” the solution leverages technologies to bring clean files to users within 1.5 seconds. In addition, enterprises can be safer as the solution prevents malicious messages and files from reaching the user’s inbox.
    • Data Leakage Protection - Any confidential or sensitive information will be marked and have a classified suffix added to the end of the message or file to help keep those materials safe. Those files are encrypted, and the user will be alerted to any attempted breach of those messages.
    • Phishing Protection - Before advanced phishing attacks reach the end user, Harmony Email and Office detects and blocks them, including outbound, inbound, and internal communications.
    • Account Takeover Protection - After a user connects their cloud app, the solution captures the user's history and creates a profile and a custom threat profile. In the event of a suspected account takeover, threat intelligence is leveraged through millions of Check Point-secured gateways and endpoints and is blocked.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Check Point Harmony Email and Office offers a revolutionary prevention solution to stop malware attacks through emails. Users particularly like its visibility and the ability to protect sensitive business data.

    David U., a CISO at IMC companies, notes, "It provides visibility of events, what's going on with the environment, what we're missing with our other solution, and the user behavior."

    Mantu S., a senior technology architect at Incedo Inc., writes, "We are able to protect sensitive business data and maintain regulatory compliance with advanced data leak prevention (DLP)."

    Cisco Secure Email is an email security solution that provides advanced protection to safeguard inboxes. The solution includes comprehensive defense from the most damaging threats so your employees and organization can remain secure at all times. In addition, it includes advanced threat defense capabilities that detect, block, and remediate threats in incoming email faster. Simultaneously, it protects an organization’s brand, prevents data loss, and secures important information in transit with end-to-end encryption.

    Cisco Secure Email Features

    Cisco Secure Email has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

    • Advanced threat analysis: Easily identify the malicious techniques used in attacks targeting your organization. Understand the specific business risks and categorize threats to gain insight into the parts of your organization that are most vulnerable to attack.
    • Robust, actionable threat data: The solution’s searchable threat analysis data provides critical contextual insight to the attack scope and breadth and expedites remediation.
    • Real-time URL analysis: With this feature, you can drop emails with risky links automatically or block access to newly infected sites with real-time URL analysis to protect against phishing.
    • Domain-based message authentication (DMARC): Users can prevent brand abuse from attackers using their organization’s domain to carry out phishing campaigns with automation of the domain-based message authentication (DMARC) process.
    • Data loss prevention (DLP): The solution enables users to protect sensitive content in outgoing emails.

    Cisco Secure Email Benefits

    There are many benefits to implementing Cisco Secure Email. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

    • Optimize your defenses: The solution is designed to protect your organization from threats that can come from multiple sources, including phishing, malware, and ransomware. It can defend against all of them with industry-leading threat intelligence that empowers you to act quickly.
    • More efficient processes: You can use the solution’s orchestration feature to simplify workflows, reduce the burden on your team, and focus on more strategic initiatives.
    • Easy-to-manage tools: The solution is built with tools that are user-friendly and help you spend less time managing alerts. They allow users to quickly detect emerging threats and quarantine suspected threats to prevent their spread.
    • Flexible license options: Cisco Secure Email provides three different license choices: Secure Email Essentials, Secure Email Advantage, and Secure Email Premier.
    • Increase spam catch rates: Cisco Secure Email blocks unwanted emails using a multilayered scanning architecture.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Cisco Secure Email is a solution that stands out when compared to many of its competitors. Some of its major advantages are that it has an intuitive interface, reputation filtering, few false positives, and great protection features.

    Enrique J., Owner at Jolly Security Inc., says, "It has an intuitive, clear graphical interface where you can deploy your policies and understand the overall flow. The most valuable feature is reputation filtering.”

    The solution has a “low rate of false positives, good support, and it integrates well with other Cisco security products,” explains Mark R., IT Admin / Manager at a retailer.

    PeerSpot user Charles N., Network Security Engineer at Galaxy Backbone Ltd., mentions, “It is doing its work. It is doing what it was actually designed to do. They have a lot of features such as Advanced Malware Protection, Email Protection, Advanced Phishing Protection, Antispam, Antivirus, and Outbreak Filters.”

    Sample Customers
    Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is trusted by companies such as Ithaca College.
    Helvetia, Denham Capital, Daymark Solutions, Neopharm Group
    SUNY Old Westbury, CoxHealth, City of Fullerton, Indra
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Manufacturing Company17%
    Computer Software Company17%
    Comms Service Provider13%
    Government7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    Government7%
    REVIEWERS
    Energy/Utilities Company16%
    Computer Software Company14%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    Security Firm9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    Real Estate/Law Firm5%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company19%
    Energy/Utilities Company10%
    Retailer10%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Educational Organization16%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    Government6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business42%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise42%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business30%
    Midsize Enterprise19%
    Large Enterprise51%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business51%
    Midsize Enterprise18%
    Large Enterprise31%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business36%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise47%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business31%
    Midsize Enterprise32%
    Large Enterprise37%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business23%
    Midsize Enterprise28%
    Large Enterprise49%
    Buyer's Guide
    Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration vs. Cisco Secure Email
    May 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration vs. Cisco Secure Email and other solutions. Updated: May 2024.
    771,170 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration is ranked 7th in Email Security with 49 reviews while Cisco Secure Email is ranked 2nd in Email Security with 56 reviews. Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration is rated 8.6, while Cisco Secure Email is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration writes "Has a user-friendly dashboard, a great anti-phishing algorithm, and sandboxing for testing". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Cisco Secure Email writes "Has effortless spam control, improves security posture, and frees up our IT department's time". Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration is most compared with Avanan, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Mimecast Email Security, Barracuda Email Protection and Fortinet FortiMail Cloud, whereas Cisco Secure Email is most compared with Trellix Collaboration Security, Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP), Fortinet FortiMail, Proofpoint Email Protection and Symantec Messaging Gateway. See our Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration vs. Cisco Secure Email report.

    See our list of best Email Security vendors.

    We monitor all Email Security reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.