What is our primary use case?
We mainly use the solution for email security and threat mitigation through that vector, which could be phishing, malware, and malicious attacks. It allows us to inspect emails and enables end-users to report and quarantine potential threats in a sandbox, which is very valuable. The response time is imperative for us, a notification gets to me as the tech very quickly, and I can mitigate any issues we may have.
We have IRONSCALES deployed over two companies. The leading company owns the account, and we have two companies under that: Mason Law and Planning Company and Warrior Insurance. They're in the same building on different floors, but both companies are situated with IRONSCALES at all endpoints for all users. We don't have any off site users, with the occasional exception. The vast majority of our staff work on-site. We don't have anyone working from outside the office.
How has it helped my organization?
We spend significantly less time dealing with email issues. For example, the routine process of determining if an email is a threat or not is now taken care of in a minute or less, instead of up to five or ten minutes. This adds up and results in a lot of time saved. This product also makes our end-users feel comfortable. Our employees are more confident in their email abilities because of the training and their months of experience using this program.
What is most valuable?
The report function through Gmail is probably the most valuable feature. The next most valuable features are simulation and training.
I would say IRONSCALES is probably one of the best products of its class that I've seen. I've seen some other companies that offer similar technology and a similar product, where the training is an afterthought or add-on. IRONSCALES do offer premium training, but the regular training is very well-rounded. The integration of excellent reporting, single sign-on, and freedom from logins and passwords for end-users makes this a fantastic product.
The AI and machine learning capabilities of the solution are significant. I have a small background in AI and machine learning, and we discussed how those functions would operate in our system with IRONSCALES. I've never seen a machine learning program work as effectively and often as this one. There aren't as many hitches as I would expect to find in a solution of this kind.
If I had to put a number on it, I would say 95% of the time, it works flawlessly. The remaining 5% of the time, a tech like myself would have to intervene, but in my opinion, that's an excellent standard to have.
The automated detection and response capabilities have reduced the time we have spent manually reviewing emails and events a hundredfold.
I think the ability to customize offered by the solution works well.
The solution has allowed me to spend more time on other activities. It's sped up our business process, and our response time has gone from five to ten minutes to less than a minute. Sometimes even more time is saved, especially in the last couple of months. The first week we implemented the solution, the saved time wasn't as noticeable. Three or four months down the road, I can see we have saved many hours, if not more.
What needs improvement?
I would love to see the indication of compromise and how the solution utilizes open source resources. It would be good to see that included in the paid versions. It would be a small addition but add a lot of value for clients.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using the solution for nine days.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I'd say 98 to 99% time, the product is up and running. It has minimal downtime, if at all.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is entirely scalable. We have up to 50 licenses at the moment. It wouldn't be difficult if we needed more than that. I would say it's perfect as far as scalability.
How are customer service and support?
I would give the technical support a nine out of ten only because when we did contact support for the unprotected mailboxes, my contact was out on vacation. That happens, but the backup solution was another customer service rep who said we should re-do the whole integration process. I wasn't satisfied with that, as I didn't want to restart the program, break it, and make more work for myself. That was my one issue with the customer service.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We tried other solutions. We've had a secure gateway, and tested traditional VPNs and a few other options. The good customer service is the main reason we moved to IRONSCALES. They are excellent at ensuring everything is up to date and working, and the follow-ups are phenomenal. Next, I would say the technology integrates well with our office setup. Because it's a SaaS product and lives in the cloud, it doesn't affect other things like a gateway. Gateways can influence IP addresses, and printers don't like change. We previously had a lot of compatibility issues with other products because they would affect the network, whereas IRONSCALES sits on top of it, in a sense, which fits in well with our use case.
How was the initial setup?
It was more straightforward than the other Google Workspace app installations I've carried out. I also received advice from our other company. I would say that IRONSCALES goes above and beyond to make sure everything is connected correctly. When we first implemented the solution, it showed our emails as unprotected for a while, but the program was functioning correctly and checking emails. That was resolved within a couple of weeks and probably would've been much faster, but my customer support contact was out on vacation for about seven days, which is fine. Everything got taken care of, which was to my liking.
I wouldn't necessarily say the system requires maintenance. I check that everything is working correctly on a daily basis, and that improves with time. As the ML algorithm understands the company functions better, the automation improves significantly. Initially, more manual labor was involved, but still less than if you didn't have IRONSCALES. After a month or so, the automation was functioning well and required less involvement from me. Now it requires at most a few minutes of my time every day.
What about the implementation team?
I implemented the solution with the help of an IRONSCALES rep.
What was our ROI?
When it comes to cybersecurity it's hard to pinpoint an ROI, but I would say that, based on what this product has done for our company, there's no way it hasn't saved us money.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We pay $3000 plus a little more a year for the number of employees we have, and we're not even that big. The solution is at the higher end in terms of cost. It's not the most expensive product, but I would say it's worth the price if you have a high volume of email traffic. In our case, the solution has inspected over 162,000 emails between three and four months. It saved us a lot of time and money. It's a worthwhile investment because a bad actor only has to succeed once; we must defend against everything in our business. IRONSCALES offers a sense of security and confidence from being well protected.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We looked at other gateways like Perimeter 81, and other antivirus software, but IRONSCALES is more of a dedicated email security tool we use in conjunction with our antivirus.
The AI/ML program that IRONSCALES has is much more efficient and effective than any other ML program I've seen or experienced. The UI is very user-friendly and looks good, which aids in quicker information access. I would say a lot of the alternatives are very clunky; I wouldn't quite say MS-DOS, but Windows 98 style, old and blocky.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate this solution a ten out of ten. I feel like nobody ever gets perfect scores, but the downsides are minimal and quickly resolved, so the product is quite remarkable.
The solution is only situated for employees with specific email addresses. Apart from that, it's a private cloud deployment.
The biggest lesson I've learned is that even with my level of expertise, there are still emails that I probably wouldn't have noticed checking them manually.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Google
*Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.