Cisco Secure Email vs Perception Point Advanced Email Security comparison

Cancel
You must select at least 2 products to compare!
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Sep 6, 2023

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

  • Features: Cisco Secure Email offers advanced protection against phishing attacks, reputation-based filtering, and robust tracking functionalities. Perception Point Advanced Email Security is known for its ability to identify impersonation attacks and exceptional scanning capabilities.

  • Room for Improvement: Cisco Secure Email should improve global malicious email defense, data loss prevention, and integration with third-party solutions. Perception Point Advanced Email Security could improve content analysis and the ability to detect BEC attacks.

  • Service and Support: Cisco support is generally considered knowledgeable and helpful, but a few users reported slow response times and difficulty navigating the support process. Perception Point's customer service is highly regarded for being responsive, attentive, and interactive.

  • Ease of Deployment: Cisco Secure Email is generally straightforward and seamless to set up. It provides a modular and adaptable environment, but new users may need training. Some users find Perception Point’s setup process to be straightforward and easy, while others have encountered hurdles.

  • Pricing: 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. Perception Point Advanced Email Security offers affordable pricing that accommodates all budgets and delivers satisfactory value.

  • ROI: Cisco Secure Email's return on investment is influenced by factors such as use case, organization size, and industry. Perception Point Advanced Email Security excels in its ability to detect threats effectively, resulting in significant time and cost savings by preventing downtime and the need for extensive cleanup.

Comparison Results: 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. Perception Point Advanced Email Security is praised for its ability to detect and prevent impersonation attacks and great customer support. The solution could improve in detecting BEC attacks and providing user-friendly configuration options.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco Secure Email vs. Perception Point Advanced Email Security Report (Updated: May 2024).
772,679 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.""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.""Safe attachments, safe links, policies, and the ability to protect from zero-day threats are the most valuable features.""Microsoft Defender for Office 365's most valuable feature is its performance.""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.""Microsoft Defender for Office 365 has improved my organization's security. It makes it easier to manage the infrastructure without the help of third-party applications.""I would say that 90% of the spam and phishing attack emails get blocked right off the bat.""Defender for Office 365 has helped eliminate having to look at multiple dashboards and that is the aspect I like most about it. It is simpler, effective, and convenient. The users like the process efficiency."

More Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Pros →

"The user interface was quite friendly, it was quite easy to use, unlike some other Cisco products. Anybody could use it. You don't have to be familiar with IT to be able to handle navigating it.""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.""We like the in-built features, like the email filtering based on the IP and domain. Cisco has its own blacklisted domains and IPs, which is very good. This filters around 70 percent of emails from spam, and we are seeing fewer false positives with this.""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.""It's flexible. There are a lot of rules and policies that can be easily applied for certain employees or certain mailboxes.""The tech engineers are very knowledgeable.""There are a lot of filters for scam emails and things like that work out of the box. You can also use the antivirus features. I like its features."

More Cisco Secure Email Pros →

"One is the hardware-assisted platform that provides more insight into the threat scenarios. And the other is their instant response team's availability, 24/7, for identifying and responding to incidents. These are the two main things that everyone likes.""The solution is used to block malicious items hidden inside a document or PDF file.""The most valuable features of the solution are the ones that are related to finding impersonation attacks and detecting attempts to steal credentials. In scenarios where attackers get you to follow URLs to a malicious site that looks similar to a good site, and then ask for the user credentials to try to steal them, it is very useful.""The most valuable feature is the ability to identify malicious content and phishing emails and reduce the workload we have to do in terms of security.""Another feature that we really like, one that was introduced a few months back, is the way it categorizes threats into groups, such as Emotet, Qbot, Formbook, and the like. It's not only telling you that something is malware, but it's also giving you insight into what kind of malware... You understand what you are facing and whether you are a target for a specific group of threats...""Their security engines are very effective at stopping malware and potential attacks before they reach a user's mailbox. They have the best detection engine.""The Perception Point Incident Response team acts as an extension of our SOC team. This is very important for us. This is a benefit provided for their main product of scanning our emails. If Perception Point can give me IR, this is really good versus other products that do not provide this kind of service. Perception Point's service is great. They are very professional. That reduces the time that my internal SOC has to deal with my internal IT person. They just send an email to the IR team at Perception Point, who continues the investigation and blocks any emails, if necessary. This is very good because it can reduce a lot of time and effort from my team. It is like an extension of my SOC, but external.""We can use it to perform detection and analysis of emails. For any malicious content found in emails, it gives in-depth analysis reports to end users. If you log into the console, you can see in-depth detection and how it happens."

More Perception Point Advanced Email Security Pros →

Cons
"The phishing and spam filters could use some improvement.""You should be able to deploy Defender for every subscription without the need to add servers.""The only thing they should improve is the licensing model. They should stop changing it. A year ago, the five features I mentioned were included in one product. Now, three of them are bundled into one product, and you have to pay extra for the other two. I don't mind paying extra, but I don't want them to change it every year or every six months. I need to know what I'm looking at and not worry about it next year.""There is room for improvement in terms of reporting.""There's room for improvement regarding the time frame for retrieving emails.""The XDR dashboard has room for improvement.""This product's effectiveness could be improved, in terms of detecting unwanted spam or even malware between the emails, compared to other products.""Several simulation options are available within 365, and the phishing simulation could be better."

More Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Cons →

"The configuration UI should be made more intuitive. Currently, it takes a while to understand how to do the basic configurations.""Scalability has certain shortcomings and needs to be improved because there are service providers who provide better scalability.v""The graphical user interface is not user-friendly like other vendors. I find it very difficult at times to find some options on the UI.""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.""I would like them to add some clustering or high availability features.""In future releases, I would like to see two main improvements come to mind. First, the current solution requires maintaining two separate operating systems for FTD, which can be cumbersome. I'd love to see a single operating system for the FTD box.""I would like to see sandboxing for email, where suspicious emails received by the system are analyzed through online services.""The Forged Email Detection feature needs improvement, particularly with domain. The sensors are not that good and the rules sets are unclear."

More Cisco Secure Email Cons →

"There is room for improvement in terms of adding the DLP (Data Loss Prevention) solution, which would be a good option for Perception Point to look into.""They could provide additional data loss prevention features as we encounter different kinds of attacks in today's scenario.""Perception Point Advanced Email Security should make available more use cases.""Dashboard is an area of concern in the solution where improvements are required.""Email alerts should be available in real-time.""They can do better on the spam. Today, Perception Point is not our only solution. We have two solutions, and they are the second in line because the spam filtering is not yet the best.""There is still room for improvement with BEC. There is more work to be done by Perception Point on machine learning and neuro language as well. BEC is very difficult if you don't have a computer language looking into the content of the email and trying to make a determination through that. With BEC you often don't have an attachment or a URL.""In terms of architecture, and I know that they're going to improve this, the solution needs to be much more redundant. There was an outage a month ago in AWS, and that basically stopped the service for two or three hours. Although in two years, this was the first time that something like that happened, our expectation from a company like Perception Point is that it should work with either a multi-cloud or multi-region architecture, to improve the resilience."

More Perception Point Advanced Email Security 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 →

  • "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 →

  • "We would always like it to be cheaper and save more money. However, we are getting the value from it."
  • "When compared to other solutions on the market, it is relatively fair."
  • "They are not the most expensive vendor. There are much more expensive vendors. They are not cheap, but they are not the most expensive. They are somewhere in the middle."
  • "We were able to get reasonable pricing that matches the ROI we want, so I think that it is the correct price point."
  • "The price of this solution was within our budget and I think that it will suit most SMBs."
  • "It fits every budget. It has a low price. I can't go ahead and sell it for any price I want. They are quite strict. They say, "This is the price that you can sell it for and this is the price for you as a reseller." That is it. It is not a lot of money. I will not become rich from it, but I like that they keep a standard for everyone. They are a fair company."
  • "It has very reasonable pricing. Normally, the end user is paying. Perception Point is already in the Amazon marketplace, so we cannot sell it as a distribution partner. For example, we cannot take more than that margin of what they offer in the marketplace. Whatever the end user is paying, it is definitely worth it and it is not that high."
  • "The pricing and licensing are very fair compared to competing companies in the same field."
  • More Perception Point Advanced Email Security Pricing and Cost Advice →

    report
    Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Email Security solutions are best for your needs.
    772,679 professionals have used our research since 2012.
    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:Cisco Secure Email is a budget-friendly solution.
    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:I am not satisfied with the solution's reporting and logging.
    Top Answer:The most valuable feature is the technical support services.
    Top Answer:Perception Point Advanced Email Security offers an option to its users to make either monthly or yearly payments. The… more »
    Top Answer:They could provide additional data loss prevention features as we encounter different kinds of attacks in today's… more »
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    MS Defender for Office 365
    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.

    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.”

    Perception Point Advanced Email Security is a comprehensive solution designed to protect organizations from advanced email threats. Leveraging cutting-edge technology, it offers multi-layered defense mechanisms to detect and block sophisticated attacks such as phishing, malware, and ransomware. 

    With its advanced threat intelligence capabilities, it can identify and neutralize zero-day threats in real-time. The solution also provides robust data loss prevention features, ensuring sensitive information remains secure. Its user-friendly interface allows for easy management and monitoring of email security, while its seamless integration with existing email platforms ensures a hassle-free deployment process. 

    Perception Point Advanced Email Security is a reliable and efficient solution that safeguards organizations against the ever-evolving landscape of email-based threats.

    Sample Customers
    Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is trusted by companies such as Ithaca College.
    SUNY Old Westbury, CoxHealth, City of Fullerton, Indra
    Information Not Available
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Manufacturing Company17%
    Computer Software Company17%
    Comms Service Provider13%
    Logistics Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    Government7%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company19%
    Energy/Utilities Company10%
    Retailer10%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Educational Organization17%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    Government6%
    REVIEWERS
    Manufacturing Company25%
    Hospitality Company17%
    Computer Software Company17%
    Transportation Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company15%
    Retailer9%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business45%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise40%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business30%
    Midsize Enterprise19%
    Large Enterprise51%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business31%
    Midsize Enterprise32%
    Large Enterprise37%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business23%
    Midsize Enterprise28%
    Large Enterprise48%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business55%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise30%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business33%
    Midsize Enterprise12%
    Large Enterprise54%
    Buyer's Guide
    Cisco Secure Email vs. Perception Point Advanced Email Security
    May 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Email vs. Perception Point Advanced Email Security and other solutions. Updated: May 2024.
    772,679 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Cisco Secure Email is ranked 2nd in Email Security with 56 reviews while Perception Point Advanced Email Security is ranked 16th in Email Security with 21 reviews. Cisco Secure Email is rated 8.4, while Perception Point Advanced Email Security is rated 9.0. The top reviewer of Cisco Secure Email writes "Has effortless spam control, improves security posture, and frees up our IT department's time". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Perception Point Advanced Email Security writes "Incident Response team answers immediately and fine-tunes system to continually improve detection". Cisco Secure Email is most compared with Trellix Collaboration Security, Fortinet FortiMail, Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP), Proofpoint Email Protection and Trend Micro Email Security, whereas Perception Point Advanced Email Security is most compared with Avanan, Proofpoint Email Protection, IRONSCALES, Sophos Email and TitanHQ SpamTitan. See our Cisco Secure Email vs. Perception Point Advanced Email Security 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.