Information Technology Security Risk Manager at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
The true positives detection are great
Pros and Cons
  • "It's detection of true positives are great, as it's cloud based it's very scalable and stable."

    What is our primary use case?

    Our primary use case of Proofpoint Email Protection is focused around data loss prevention (DLP). To protect against spam, viruses, incoming and outgoing mail.

    What is most valuable?

    Proofpoint Email Protection's detection for true positives are great. False negatives or type two errors are very low. Type one errors are acceptable and this capability is the one that allows the least amount of spam to enter.

    What needs improvement?

    The only downside with Proofpoint Email Protection is the cost.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been using Proofpoint Email Protection for 5 years.

    Buyer's Guide
    Proofpoint Email Protection
    April 2024
    Learn what your peers think about Proofpoint Email Protection. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2024.
    768,886 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    Proofpoint Email Protection is hosted in the cloud, and the stability is very good. 

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    The solution is cloud based so it's very scalable. 

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup for Proofpoint Email Protection is pretty straightforward. 

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    There has been a recent pricing increase with Proofpoint Email Protection and we are assessing other companies who provide a similar service for comparison. 

    What other advice do I have?

    The advice I would provide others who were considering Proofpoint Email Protection, is to test the product to determine if it provides you with the best filter rate. 

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    Hybrid Cloud

    If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

    Other
    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    Real User
    One-stop shop for email security with responsive support
    Pros and Cons
    • "A one-stop shop for email protection"
    • "Some use cases haven't been dealt with yet."

    What is our primary use case?

    My primary use case for this solution is for email security.

    What is most valuable?

    The most valuable feature of this solution is that it's a one-stop shop for email protection.

    What needs improvement?

    We have some use cases that haven't been dealt with yet, so that could be improved.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been using this solution for eight years.

    How are customer service and support?

    Proofpoint's support is very responsive, especially in comparison to Microsoft. Commonly a specialist is available within 24 hours, and the support is more professional overall.

    What other advice do I have?

    The product has decent functionality. I would rate this product as eight out of ten.

    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?

    Other
    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    Buyer's Guide
    Proofpoint Email Protection
    April 2024
    Learn what your peers think about Proofpoint Email Protection. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2024.
    768,886 professionals have used our research since 2012.
    Principal Consultant at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
    Real User
    A reputation-based service that denies the connection from known malicious sites
    Pros and Cons
    • "Proofpoint is the main tool for blocking spam because it denies the connection altogether."
    • "It's scalable, but the devil's in the details — you have to know your email volumes."

    What is our primary use case?

    We use this solution as a firewall for our email environment; it's basically a reputation-based service. It denies the connection from known bad sites. That's the biggest protection they have when you go to the antivirus and anti-spam modules. They even have an encryption piece in it.

    What is most valuable?

    There's Microsoft Office 365 email protection. The one good thing they have over Microsoft is their incredible search engine. That's why our clients like it. They like the search engine because they can search anything to do with their messages incredibly easily. This allows them to find troubleshooting issues. That's a big selling point.

    There are some tools within it that are amazing. Even from a configuration standpoint, it's a hardened system. It's never been penetrated, so that's another great feature about Proofpoint.

    They handle combined attacks. Defender for Office 365 does this as well. For instance, if you have an obfuscated URL embedded into an email and the email looks very legitimate, they can track that. Provepoint offers the same flexibility when combined with Office 365 as well. You can do your spam scores, and you can set up policies for people. From here, they can make a decision whether to select a spam policy or not. You can do the same thing with a lot of products, but Proofpoint makes it easy.

    They all have quarantines where you can release messages. They're all very on par with each other. However, if you don't have Defender for Office 365, the feature parity is just not there. But there are lots of selling points, Proofpoint, in particular, takes care of. Still, they have a business continuity piece that is lacking in the Office 365 suite.

    What needs improvement?

    Not one of them is one hundred percent when it comes to reputation scores. It doesn't matter which solution — none of them are. Not one of them is a hundred percent on false negatives or false positives.

    Proofpoint scores way up there along with Cisco. You used to have a choice with Proofpoint which one you use. They may be using multiples now, too. Proofpoint is the main tool for blocking spam because it denies the connection altogether.

    I know for a fact that I can set Proofpoint up to what they call SYN attacks. SYN attacks basically open a connection, and then a handshake starts, and thousands of connections form. So, Proofpoint waits for a timeout to occur and then allows you to tie up all your connections, which is basically an out-of-service attack. They have something similar in Office 365, too.

    Still, the reputation services, the antivirus modules, none of them are a hundred percent when it comes to false positives or false negatives.

    It's the whole industry. The SMTP protocol needs to be totally rewritten. It was designed in the fifties or sixties. Changing it would be very, very difficult.

    They put band-aids on it for security — that's essentially what's happened with that. That email is not secure by design because it's still using an old design from many moons ago.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been working with Proofpoint Email Protection for 15 years.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    It's scalable, but the devil's in the details — you have to know your email volumes. Like anything else, you've got to know those kinds of things. You have to know email volumes, you have to properly scale it, and this is the bottom line. I've seen people do a lot of really stupid things.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    I've always had good luck with both. I think Proofpoint has always been superior — they do a very, very good job. They're a small organization though, so it's pretty tightly controlled as far as versioning is concerned. Compared to Microsoft, which is a huge organization, the lack of documentation revisions, that's where you have a harder time finding the information and connecting the dots than you do with Proofpoint.

    How was the initial setup?

    When it comes to the initial setup, you have to know the product well or get outside help; that's literally what it comes down to it. You have to know what the hell are you doing with email. Literally, I just had one client acquired a company that wanted to put Proofpoint Email Protection behind their email messaging security gateways — they don't know how to do it. If you're running M365 and you decide you want to put it behind Proofpoint, for instance, you have to know how to set up both to route email inbound and outbound, to your message security gateways.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    Proofpoint is fairly expensive. Most people, when they go to buy their M365 licenses, they buy them in a bundle. It's more than just email protection. It's actually lots of different protections. 

    What other advice do I have?

    You need to be able to connect the dots on what the licensing buys you and what that particular module is to accomplish. Therefore, it behooves you to get someone that understands how the product works, what each module's intended for, what the licensing entails, and the cost-effectiveness of it.

    It's one of the top products out there. Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of nine.

    It's just got the BC feature on it. If you get Defender for Office 365 specifically, that is the key to email protection from the Microsoft product. If you don't have that, then you will either have to purchase a third-party product or buy the add-on for Defender for Office 365.

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    Head of IT Department at a construction company with 1,001-5,000 employees
    Real User
    I previously used Symantec and switched because the quality of support, stability, and accuracy went down
    Pros and Cons
    • "I like all the features with Proofpoint, such as how it filters the spam and marketing mail, lost reality mail, blocks phishing attacks, blocks malicious attachments, and stops phishing links. Also it can defend against the business email compromise impersonation technique. It is a complete solution for all email attacks. It filters for the bad, malicious attachments. If there is any executable file, it can be deleted. It is a good, complete solution."
    • "The reporting section could be enhanced. I like some reports but if they could allow us to create custom reports with more flexibility it would enhance the reports more."

    What is our primary use case?

    Our primary use case for Proofpoint Email Protection is for email security, to secure all the inbound and outbound emails.

    How has it helped my organization?

    The improvement was achieved by solving the problem of huge false positives and thus saving the time wasted by me in advance to check the legitimate e-mails that Symantec Messaging Gateway had stopped by mistake.

    In addition to the additional protection layers that we got in this solution, such as : URL Defense , Attachment Defense (Sandboxing)

    What is most valuable?

    I like all the features with Proofpoint, such as how it filters the spam and marketing mail, lost reality mail, blocks phishing attacks, blocks malicious attachments, and stops phishing links. Also it can defend against the business email compromise impersonation technique. It is a complete solution for all email attacks. It filters for the bad, malicious attachments. If there is any executable file, it can be deleted. It is a good, complete solution.

    Additionally, the user interface is good, it's easy to use. Whoever has good technical skills can understand it. Even the normal user can handle this solution easily. By the way, I was using Symantec Messaging Gateway. I don't recommended it at all, it makes a lot of issues. A lot of false positives were happening. So I started evaluating Proofpoint and Mimecast. Both products are okay, but I liked Proofpoint more because I saw that it has a high accuracy, offers a very good service, and their support is amazing. So as a whole product, I preferred Proofpoint. But Mimecast is also good.

    What needs improvement?


    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been using Proofpoint Email Protection for four months.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    Proofpoint is stable I have not had any issues. Their system was never down over the last four or five months. Their system is fine, perfect until now. It is okay, it's stable, without any issues.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    In terms of scalability, they have many bundles, but I only take the section that will secure my email, both the inbound and the outbound email. Now they have other advanced bundles, for example for email archiving. I didn't take it. They have other sections and other bundles, but I'm not interested in them because I have alternative solutions.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    I previously used Symantec. After the acquisition process, Symantec was sold to Broadcom. There are many reasons I switched to Proofpoint. The first one was that their support became very bad. If you opened a ticket they would respond after two weeks. Secondly, the quality, stability, and accuracy of their product started to be bad. So much legitimate mail was stopped by this solution which made issues with my business, even for the outbound email. I switched because of the quality of the product and the product support.

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup is normal. It's not complex. Yes I'm a technical guy so I didn't face any issues. For me it was okay to implement, maybe it only took two or three hours.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    Proofpoint is a little bit expensive. The pricing could be more competitive.

    Mimecast and Barracuda prices are cheaper than Proofpoint. But there are other vendors, like Firefly and others whose prices are not cheap. But they provided me a good price because I was a Symantec customer moving to Proofpoint. I think the price is significant, it's not too expensive but not cheap. Just a little bit expensive. But everything is included.

    What other advice do I have?

    My advice is that any customer who is concerned for his users has to look at Proofpoint. I recommend Proofpoint. You see a lot of attacks coming through emails. So I recommend Proofpoint for any customer, regardless of the size of the company. By the way, they have another product for smaller companies, the essential version. I have the enterprise version because I need more customization with more features. The smaller companies who have less than 100 users can go with the essential version, which is cheaper.

    On a scale of one to ten, I would give Proofpoint Email Protection a nine.

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    Public Cloud
    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    Information Security Officer at UC San Diego Health System
    Real User
    Advanced protection allows us to remove messages before they are officially classified as bad
    Pros and Cons
    • "The most valuable feature is the ability to remove bad messages that were delivered, prior to being classified as unwanted."
    • "Proofpoint should have better integration with complex environments that need more than one instance of Proofpoint, as there are issues with nested instances."

    What is our primary use case?

    We use Proofpoint for advanced email protection from a number of threats, including phishing and account spoofing.

    How has it helped my organization?

    This solution has reduced the number of phishing and spoofed emails that we have received.

    What is most valuable?

    The most valuable feature is the ability to remove bad messages that were delivered, prior to being classified as unwanted.

    What needs improvement?

    Proofpoint should have better integration with complex environments that need more than one instance of Proofpoint, as there are issues with nested instances.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    We have been using this solution for six months.

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    Real User
    Top 5
    Reliable with a nice interface and good features
    Pros and Cons
    • "The stability is very good."
    • "The initial setup is complex."

    What is our primary use case?

    We primarily use the solution for email protection. 

    What is most valuable?

    The pricing is great.

    It has a nice interface.

    The features are very good. 

    The stability is very good. 

    The solution is scalable. 

    What needs improvement?

    The price policy needs to be better. We'd still like lower pricing. 

    The initial setup is complex. 

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I've been using the solution for the last 12 months at least.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    The solution is stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's very reliable. 

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    It's scalable. You can expand it if you need to. 

    How are customer service and support?

    While I haven't had contact with the technical support, my understanding is it's not the worst in the world. 

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Neutral

    How was the initial setup?

    We found the initial setup to be pretty complex. It was not necessarily straightforward or simple. 

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    The pricing is very good. However, the price policy needs improvement. While we find it reasonable, we'd always like it to be a bit less. 

    I'd rate the affordability two out of five. 

    What other advice do I have?

    I'd rate the solution an eight out of ten. 

    We are just end-users, and we are using this solution on a small project. 

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    Real User
    Good security with reasonable pricing and a straightforward setup
    Pros and Cons
    • "The solution scales quite well."
    • "The incident reporting on offer needs to be improved. It's lacking right now. It should be on the platform somewhere."

    What is our primary use case?

    We primarily use the solution for a variety of services. It's mostly related to email. 

    What is most valuable?

    The state-of-the-art security is the solution's most valuable aspect. 

    The solution scales quite well.

    The product offers very good value for money.

    The solution is very easy to handle overall.

    The implementation process is simple and straightforward.

    What needs improvement?

    The incident reporting on offer needs to be improved. It's lacking right now. It should be on the platform somewhere.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I've been using the solution for three years so far.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    The scalability of the solution is excellent. That has to do with the fact that it is placed behind the load balancers. It makes it so that we have no problems with scalability. It's very, very good. If a company needs to scale, they can do so with ease.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    The technical support is okay. We don't have any complaints on that front. We're largely satisfied with the level of support we receive.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    Our organization also has some experience with Cisco, however, I don't directly deal with it on a technical level per se.

    How was the initial setup?

    While the initial setup is straightforward, in all cases, those doing the impr=lementation need to be well-prepared for the project.

    While the final deployment takes two days, which isn't very long, the research front should take at least a month. Being prepared at the outset will ensure all parties are happy with the end results once everything is up and running.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    The pricing is reasonable, however, it's expensive. It offers good value. You get good value for your money for it, so it's no problem spending as much as you do.

    What other advice do I have?

    We're just consultants. We help our clients with this product.

    Overall, we've been happy with the product and the results we've gotten. I would rate the product at a nine out of ten.

    While I don't have specific advice, I can say that the solution is easy to handle and we didn't have any troubles with the initial implementation. It was pretty seamless. I'd recommend the solution to other organizations.

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    On-premises
    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    General contador at Dicofra
    Real User
    Top 20
    Useful data loss prevention, simple setup, and good support
    Pros and Cons
    • "The most valuable features of Proofpoint Email Protection are ease of use, data loss prevention, antivirus, and spam protection."
    • "Proofpoint Email Protection's interface is confusing and could be improved."

    What is our primary use case?

    We use Proofpoint Email Protection for machine learning and artificial intelligence engine.

    What is most valuable?

    The most valuable features of Proofpoint Email Protection are ease of use, data loss prevention, antivirus, and spam protection. 

    What needs improvement?

    Proofpoint Email Protection's interface is confusing and could be improved.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been using Proofpoint Email Protection for approximately one year.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    Proofpoint Email Protection is stable.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    We have apparently 100 people using Proofpoint Email Protection in my organization.

    How are customer service and support?

    The technical support we receive is very good.

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup of Proofpoint Email Protection is easy. The installation model for the moment is very confused. It would be a benefit if the next release was easier.

    What other advice do I have?

    I rate Proofpoint Email Protection a nine out of ten.

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    Public Cloud
    Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
    PeerSpot user
    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free Proofpoint Email Protection Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
    Updated: April 2024
    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free Proofpoint Email Protection Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.