Microsoft EOP is praised for its reliable email filtering capabilities, integration with Office 365, and customization options. Users appreciate the ease of setup but have concerns about mobile device management capabilities. Abnormal Security is known for its comprehensive email security capabilities, advanced threat detection, strong protection against phishing attacks, and behavioral AI engine.
The summary above is based on 46 interviews we conducted recently with Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) and Abnormal Security users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.
"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."
"Threat Explorer is an invaluable tool for me, and it plays a crucial role in helping me discern the origins of various email campaigns, pinpointing where they emanate from, and identifying the individuals within our organization who are affected."
"The good part is that you don't have to configure it, which is very convenient."
"Does a thorough job of examining email and URLs for malicious content."
"The basic features are okay and I'm satisfied with the Defender."
"The deployment capability is a great feature."
"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."
"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."
"Initial auto-remediation allows us to auto-remediate before the email lands in the end user's inbox for a split second."
"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."
"The features that appeal to me most are the combination of auto-remediation and Detection 360."
"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."
"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."
"Ease of use is undoubtedly one of the most valuable features of Abnormal Security."
"I have never encountered any stability issues with Abnormal."
"Their ability to take things out of the mailbox and catch things much faster than users is excellent."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Exchange Online Protection is the accidental release of information protection capabilities. Additionally, the solution is easy to use."
"The solution's stability is very, very good. I didn't face any problems in the last year."
"The most valuable features of Microsoft Exchange Online Protection are the EOP, ATP, safe links, fishing, and antispam."
"The initial setup of Microsoft Exchange Online Protection was easy."
"In general, my company is happy with Microsoft support...My company hasn't faced any stability issues with the solution."
"It's definitely scalable."
"You can use the product to create special accounts."
"With Microsoft Exchange Online Protection, if malware is attached to a mailer, it's very easy to go into the incident alert and find out what's happening with that identity and the mail."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365 should improve the troubleshooting tools. It's unclear whether the device is blocked at the firewall level or at the device itself. The granularity needed for troubleshooting is currently lacking. From my perspective, Microsoft should address this issue to benefit many users who likely share the same sentiment."
"There's room for improvement regarding the time frame for retrieving emails."
"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."
"We need to be able to whitelist data at the backend."
"The XDR dashboard has room for improvement."
"Too many false positives and lacks an accurate capability to detect malicious SharePoint sites."
"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 should be more proactive."
"I would like to have the ability to customize the auto-remediation feature."
"There could be room for improvement in enhancing integration with other cybersecurity tools."
"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."
"The ideal scenario would be for Abnormal Security to work in tandem with Microsoft to analyze incoming emails."
"One feature I'd love to see is outbound scanning."
"When we're working on something as engineers, and we find an idea or a method of doing something that would be greatly improved by doing it another way, there should be an ability for me to click the ideas button, type in an idea that I have, and submit it to a product review team or developers to have them think through the process a little bit more."
"The pricing for academic institutions and student mailboxes is challenging."
"The biggest pain point for us is the lack of support for on-premise email systems."
"It would be helpful for customers if Plan 1 features were included with EOP."
"Having orchestration features added to Microsoft Exchange Online Protection, particularly automation and remediation, would be quite useful."
"When you're using a Microsoft product solution, you can scale it, but if you're not, there are limitations."
"We would like the solution to have more in-built intelligence in the way that it reviews potential security risks, rather than our team constantly having to update the policies."
"Performance and speed should continue to be improved."
"We have experienced issues while migrating from on-prem to the cloud. The tool needs to improve its stability."
"The reporting needs a little bit of improvement."
"The licensing can be on the expensive side, especially in the cloud space."
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Abnormal Security is ranked 12th in Email Security with 8 reviews while Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) is ranked 3rd in Email Security with 34 reviews. Abnormal Security is rated 9.6, while Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Abnormal Security writes "Provides comprehensive email security management, effective in detecting a wide range of email threats". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) writes "An effective email security solution that provides DLP, Safe Attachment, and Safe Links". Abnormal Security is most compared with Mimecast Email Security, Egress Intelligent Email Security, Cloudflare Area 1 Email Security, Avanan and Sublime Security, whereas Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) is most compared with Proofpoint Email Protection, Cisco Secure Email, Mimecast Email Security, Fortinet FortiMail and Barracuda Email Protection. See our Abnormal Security vs. Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) report.
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