We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense and Microsoft Defender for Office 365 based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Email Security solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."The ability to see east-west traffic is its most valuable feature. Traditionally, email defense focuses on north-south, inbound-outbound, egress-ingress traffic. With Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox, it's able to quickly identify, track, tag, and categorize emails that are internal. That can typically give us visibility into if there's an internal compromised account (for example). Someone can then use that internal compromised account to email additional accounts with either malicious software or links, but internal within that Office tenant. Effectively, that email message never leaves the tenant. Any of the mail gateways really do not have any method or way of seeing this traffic since it's not leaving the environment."
"Cisco has a threat mechanism called cloud-based Talos, where all the threats are inbuilt."
"It's very easy to deploy and configure."
"This solution is easy to use."
"The features and functionalities are much better than Microsoft's in-built Defender plan."
"I would say it's very comprehensive, with multiple antivirus OEMs, virus encrypt features, encryption, and more."
"On ease of use, it rates very high. It's something that I was able to get into without really looking at any documentation. I wanted to see what it felt like before I started looking at any documentation on how to use it, and it was very easy to use. It works very smoothly. The user experience is very intuitive. They did an amazing job on that."
"It has an efficient email filtering feature."
"Defender is a SaaS platform, so it offers more flexibility. Managing the permissions is easier. The solution's automated detection and response features are scalable."
"The initial setup is straightforward. You just add the license, click it, and then you can set up the rules. It is quite simple."
"The solution is very easy to use. All you have to do is to assign the license to the end-user and it's done. The customer will only have the feature activated, and the solution will monitor the emails to determine if they are a threat or not."
"Does a thorough job of examining email and URLs for malicious content."
"There are several features that I consider valuable."
"Defender helps us prioritize threats across our organization."
"Microsoft Defender has a feature to protect each and every attachment. Even if it's an encrypted attachment, it will check for any potential threats."
"Microsoft Defender for Office 365's most valuable features are safe attachments and safe links."
"From a technical point of view, Cisco is far behind in terms of cybersecurity, and it has to improve very much."
"The solution is a bit expensive."
"The pricing could always be better."
"We encounter issues while searching for missing emails."
"This solution could be improved by integration with Sandbox."
"The tool gives false positives and it needs to be more accurate. I would like to see AI as a new feature."
"There is still room for improvement in terms of integrations with other Cisco tools and non-Cisco tools. There is also some room for improvement needed in terms of the reporting."
"The search area has room for improvement. When you go to the next page, it remains at the bottom of the current page that you're on. Also, under the reports section, it allows you to see any "convictions," but if you want to search for those convictions you have to remember when they all came in and go back and edit the search accordingly. You cannot click on the list of convictions to actually see if you had a spike at a certain time."
"Several simulation options are available within 365, and the phishing simulation could be better."
"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."
"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."
"I'd like some additional features any product can give me to protect our environment in a better way."
"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."
"The company should focus on adding threats that the solution is currently unable to detect."
"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."
"The pre-sales cost calculations could be more transparent."
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Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense is ranked 16th in Email Security with 11 reviews while Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is ranked 1st in Email Security with 41 reviews. Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense is rated 8.2, while Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense writes "Easy to deploy and configure with excellent support". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 writes "Allows for easy reporting of problems, valuable anti-phishing, and anti-malware support". Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense is most compared with Cisco Secure Email, Kiteworks, Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP), Abnormal Security and Armorblox, whereas Microsoft Defender for Office 365 is most compared with Proofpoint Email Protection, Mimecast Email Security, Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP), Barracuda Email Security Gateway and Cisco Secure Email. See our Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense vs. Microsoft Defender for Office 365 report.
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