Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration Reviews

During the PoC, we have Office 365 linked to CloudGuard, which validates and checks all of the emails that come in and out. It is also checking and looking for anomalies during logon, e.g., in possible traveling type of scenarios, as we see business emails get compromised. Those pieces of it are really slick.

It also provides you with a lot of reports and visibility on the environment. Sometimes things are not native on Office 365 or you have to purchase additional licensing, but on CloudGuard you have a single pane of glass with all the metrics you need. It gives you a lot of information. For example, it tells you the successful/unsuccessful attempts to log on. 

If we can reduce the number of malicious emails delivered to the inbox of our users, that is a big win. Over 90 percent of breaches start with an email, so the more you can protect your users with the mail firewall piece, the better off you will be. Then, you just do exceptions. That is where endpoint protection comes in. For example, typically, if the mail firewall that we have, which is not CloudGuard, misses something malicious, once a user clicks on that email, opens it, or tries to trigger anything on it, then SandBlast Agent will catch and stop it. Now, that is without using the mail firewall on CloudGuard. However, if we were to stay with CloudGuard and apply the mail firewall, then we will just see less items, messages, and malicious messages being delivered. 

Having CloudGuard would allow us to reduce our vendor footprint. If you have less vendors and tools to manage, it gives a lot of time back to admins and simplifies our overall operations.

It provides visibility of events, what's going on with the environment, what we're missing with our other solution, and the user behavior.

The mail firewall and the Office 365 Control are its two most valuable features.

It is very intuitive. It is a point and click type of deal.

The other slick thing is it has a cleanup process. So, we can set it up and tell it to just deliver files that have been cleaned or transformed to a clean type of document.

The NAVEX metrics that I have been using on the CloudGuard dashboard cannot be exported. If they were to add report exporting capabilities on each of metric objects on the dashboard, that would be awesome.

We have been testing the solution for a month.

There have been no issues with stability so far.

Being SaaS, the scalability is limitless.

Everyone who has an email is using CloudGuard, which is more than 500 users. On top of that, there is also system email addresses. If you count the email addresses or SMTP containers, there are over 1000.

At the moment, on the PoC, we only have two administrators. However, that could easily escalate to around 10. Some of their roles would be troubleshooting with users. Other roles would be email, whitelisting, logging, etc.

I have not needed to use their technical support.

We do have a current mail firewall. What Check Point is getting or receiving wasn't cleaned up or detected by our current mail firewall (Mimecast). In those terms, CloudGuard is detecting far more items than our current mail firewall. Therefore, it is really encouraging to look at CloudGuard as a solution because it's picking up what the other solution is not.

For the Active Directory on Usher, we were just using the regular Microsoft tools.

It is that time of the year when we have to renew licensing, so evaluating tools makes sense. 

Once we get the CloudGuard licensing and get it configured, we will test it out for a month or so, then drop our other service.

The initial setup was point and click. It was really easy. We just jumped on and did it. It took 10 minutes to get it up and running altogether.

We implemented it directly with Check Point.

Hopefully, we will be able to reduce or maintain costs that otherwise would go up. We should definitely be able to reduce the cost on support and management. It should also give us a more robust environment, which doesn't have a price associated with it.

The pricing and licensing are always negotiable.

You can get CloudGuard as part of Infinity. When you do the solution through Infinity, it's a per user type of license cost. That is how we have been looking at it.

We are in a point in time where we are going to have to renew our Endpoint Security licensing. When we do that, we will take advantage of the SaaS management console and just concentrate there. At that point, we will have the SmartConsole, CloudGuard, and Gateway on the SaaS. However, we're not there yet.

We didn't evaluate any other solutions because we're not trying to get more vendors. We are trying to consolidate them.

We were already using the Check Point Endpoint Security solution and are very satisfied with it. That is what brought us to this point. Now, we're happy with this solution, as it's doing well. It is easy to manage and support. It has also reduced our need to support users because we have less issues. We used to have Sophos, and our experience with their endpoint solution moved us to use the VPN with Check Point, and now do a PoC CloudGuard.

Most providers don't give you many options unless you pay for additional licensing. In the case of Microsoft (for example), you have an E3 or E5 Office licensed, which would only cover your usage of the Office Suite, the email, and collaboration tools, but none of the security will apply to it. While Microsoft gives a free version of their MFA solution, it is very cumbersome to have. You either need to bite the bullet and buy the additional licenses, have something like CloudGuard, or both. However, most cloud providers don't give you an out-of-the-box security solution. They rely a lot on you to set up the policies that you want them to follow for your tenant space.

Do your homework. Make sure that you have a good understanding of what tools are part of the solution and make a decision whether you're going to go SaaS or on-prem. My recommendation would be just to go SaaS, as it's a lot easier. You don't have to worry about servers or resources, as it's just on the cloud. 

If you use a third-party to help you implement the solution, it's good to use someone you trust and has experience on the product. 

Check Point has a lot of tools for analysis. This solution is just as good.

Some of the the nice features that you can do with it, we're not doing them today. For example, maybe two or three years in the future when we will host our VPN gateways on the SaaS cloud, then we will use it for our users to remote into our environment. If they had that when we implemented it the VPN, we would have used that instead of the physical gateways. 

I haven't seen any false positives.

I would the solution as a 10 out of 10.

I use Check Point Harmony Email and Collaboration to protect email security. It is used as an email secure gateway to protect and scan emails.

The sanitization feature of Check Point Harmony Email and Collaboration is valuable. The protection and scanning of emails are also appreciated, as they secure everything in the email spectrum.

The sanitization on the file needs improvement.

I have been using Check Point Harmony Email and Collaboration for two months.

Check Point Harmony Email and Collaboration is highly stable.

I would rate the scalability of Check Point Harmony Email and Collaboration as nine out of ten, indicating high scalability.

Customer support is of high quality, as the local team from Check Point is very helpful.

Neutral

I used a couple of solutions before but cannot specify which ones. I switched to Check Point primarily due to good integration with Microsoft 365.

The initial setup was easy.

The deployment was done through an integrator.

I see a return on investment from the beginning because I removed two items.

The pricing is lower compared to what I used before.

Knowing what you need from the solution is important because Check Point Harmony Email provides comprehensive protection for email security. 

Overall, I would rate it ten out of ten.

We use the product to address core, perimeter, and administrative security requirements for firewalls within our environment. Additionally, we cater to email security requirements for clients using both Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 platforms.

The product's most valuable features for email security are its ability to safeguard domain names, detect duplicate email users, and identify spam emails impersonating legitimate email IDs, thereby enhancing overall security. It also has a robust filtering system.

It's very easy to use, and the onboarding process is straightforward. We can easily categorize users, create groups, and apply policies accordingly, simplifying policy management for different user groups within an organization.

In India, pricing is a concern, especially for SMEs. Check Point needs to address the pricing segment for SMEs. Apart from that, the technology and other aspects like sales and marketing are satisfactory.

Most OEMs provide similar capabilities. If any OEM introduces new features, Check Point must match those capabilities. It could improve by offering an on-premise solution for customers still using Microsoft Exchange, which currently provides only cloud-based services.

I have been using Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration for about a year. We directly sell the latest version to customers, including SMEs, enterprises, and SMBs.

The product is stable. We have yet to encounter technical or deployment issues. My team is comfortable working with the solution due to its reliability and the prompt assistance that Check Point's support team provides. I rate the stability an eight out of ten.

We have 35,000 Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration users, covering all three segments: small, medium, and enterprise.

It is a scalable product and meets the evolving business needs. Their communication and understanding of customer requirements make deploying and scaling the solution easy. I rate the scalability a seven out of ten.

We have yet to encounter many technical issues, but Check Point's support team has been responsive and helpful whenever required.

Positive

We completed ten deployments, including the installation and setup, in one week. Overall, it takes around seven days to complete. It involves collecting information from the customer about the number of users and the email services they use. The onboarding process is easy and takes one to two hours, followed by policy creation based on customer requirements.

I rate the process a nine out of ten.

The product is expensive compared to some competitors, especially for the SME segment in India. On average, it's around 10,00,000 to 15,00,000 lakh rupees for 200 users per year. Additional costs depend on the customer and their requirements.

I rate the pricing a six out of ten.

I suggest conducting a proof of concept (POC) before purchasing the product. Customers will likely find it reliable and effective after analyzing it for 10 to 15 days.

I rate it a seven out of ten.

Some emails, specifically false positive emails, are, at times, detected by Microsoft under the phishing category. Check Point also detects phishing emails. Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration is a tool that does not pass emails through the user's inbox, even if it feels like an email is not spam or involves phishing. Suppose a tool like Microsoft Defender detects any phishing activity. In such scenarios, emails are quarantined by Microsoft, and then Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration cannot pass such emails to the user. I feel it is an area that can be improved. There are good options with Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration, as one can still quarantine suspicious emails, and the users can see those in just a few clicks. The false positives are an area where the tool can introduce certain improvements they can improve by releasing emails to a user's inbox if it feels that there are certain areas consisting of false positives.

In the future, it would be great if it is possible to use the tool with Microsoft to help in the area revolving around false positives. Check Point should be able to release emails to the inbox even if there are some phishing emails. If Check Point finds something to be described as a clean email, it should have the option to automatically release it to the user. At the moment, we don't have that option. They have an option for spam emails but not for the emails associated with phishing.

I have four months of experience with Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration. I am unsure about the tool's version, but I know it is a cloud platform. The technical people handling Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration take care of the upgrades.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Around 500 people use the tool in my company. Two administrators are needed for the tool.

The product's usage would have to be increased if the organization grows.

The technical support for the solution is good because, so far, I have seen that they are very fast. I raised only a couple of tickets in the last four months, so it is not much, but I have seen that the support team is good. The product is very simple to manage and is not very complicated. It is a very straightforward tool. I rate the technical support a nine out of ten.

Positive

I know that my company was using a custom Linux-based system. I am not sure if it was managed by different administrators in our office. As it was a legacy system, my company wanted to go for a professional one that is more of a cloud-based solution.

The product's initial setup phase is very simple and automated. Everything can be made ready within a few clicks.

As we are a non-profit organization, we got the tool with a good offer. On a yearly basis, we pay 10,000 Euro for 500 users, which also includes the technical support part.

Our organization was comparing Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration with Proofpoint, which is an expensive tool, making it not so cost-effective for non-profit organizations like ours, where we have our budget limitations.

My company had Mimecast and Proofpoint as optional products when we evaluated the tools in the market, but we didn't go with the proof of concept model for both. Proofpoint was expensive when compared to Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration. Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration was a little bit better compared to Mimecast.

Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration is good, especially if you use Microsoft 365. The tool works well with Microsoft 365, which is why I feel it is a good product, as it offers compatibility. I can recommend Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration if you are a Microsoft 365 customer.

My company has never tried to see if Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration is compatible with other products. In our organization, we just write this Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration, which is our first product as an email security platform. We were satisfied with Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration.

I would recommend the product to others. If people don't use Microsoft 365, then Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration won't be a compatible tool in their environment. Exchange Online users can use Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration.

I rate the tool a nine out of ten.

We utilize Check Point Harmony Email and Collaboration for email security.

Check Point Harmony Email and Collaboration offers online support and has tight integration with Microsoft. These are features we often use. Additionally, the deployment is feasible if you have completed some training and acquired hands-on experience. In general, it has good support.

There is a need for improvement in handling business email compromise. Additionally, technical support and the licensing model require enhancement.

I have been using Check Point Harmony Email and Collaboration for almost eight years.

Support issues exist with the Check Point company itself, not necessarily the product.

Positive

Earlier, we used Avanade, IronPort, and Proofpoint before moving to Check Point Harmony Email and Collaboration.

The initial setup is not easy. It is manageable with the proper training and hands-on experience. If the customer wants only the normal features, it usually takes one to two days; otherwise, five days.

I consider the pricing to be a bit expensive, similar to other solutions.

I recommend Check Point Harmony Email and Collaboration to all types of companies, from small businesses to enterprises. I would rate the overall solution as eight out of ten.

We mainly use this product for Email Security, and it has an extremely simple setup. We have it installed at one of our client's locations to detect and respond appropriately to common threats such as phishing, scams, and data leakage. This comprehensive coverage allows us to protect the services running within the organization. 

Check Point Harmony Email Collaboration enables us to efficiently and confidently implement necessary solutions for our various email configurations. The support services available are outstanding. When we sought a product demo for Harmony Email and Collaboration, it was very thorough.

The product is incredibly easy to set up and deploy, even across multiple tenants. Once we completed the connection process, we selected our policies and configured them to notify users about spam/phishing emails. 

It provides recommendations but also allows for customization to suit our needs. After the initial setup, we rarely need to make adjustments. 

We've contacted support a few times, and their responses have been quick and helpful. The user interface is very intuitive, and our technicians didn't need formal training because of how well it's laid out. We've implemented this across multiple tenants and have more than 1,000 users, with fewer than 10 tickets about potential false positives/negatives. This has significantly reduced the number of "Is this Spam" tickets from our customers.

The email security solution boasts an exceptional success rate in filtering out junk, spam, and phishing emails while ensuring that legitimate emails reach their intended recipients. The setup process is straightforward and user-friendly. The vendor is highly engaged with monthly meetings to introduce new features, and the account manager is notably responsive. In addition, the pricing offered is remarkably competitive compared to other options available in the email security market.

The ability to customize based on existing organizational goals, milestones, and current or future state designs is important. Customizable policies regarding how to handle specific email files, their contents, and appropriate remediation steps are critical in product selection. In larger organizations, the sheer volume of emails can be daunting when evaluating solutions. Ensuring the integrity of communications and proper collaboration is crucial to establishing the CIA triad. This solution has reduced insecurities and made scaling this product rather seamless.

Initial Learning Mode takes a while. I would like to have protection go live immediately and then have learning mode kick in after the initial scan Email Search can be clunky at times. It would be nice if there was a way to auto-fill recipients or sender fields with known users' payment options.

We have several clients, and one of them uses the Harmony Email gateway. We also plan to use this product because many of our clients are experiencing issues with their mail gateways and are considering using this product for using it against a variety of Cyber threats including malware and ransomware.

Scalability is 10/10 as with a larger organization, the sheer volume of emails can be quite intimidating when evaluating the scale of solutions. Ensuring the integrity of communications and proper collaboration is critical to establishing the CIA triad. This solution has reduced those insecurities and made scaling this product solution rather seamless.

My impression of the stability is 10/10 for this solution.

So far, we have received very good support for our issues, and the TAC for this product is really good. They provide a solution quickly.

Positive

Yes, we have used different products but have switched to this for below features and services.

• Cost management
• Enhance decision making
• Improve supplier or partner relationships
• Improve business process outcomes
• Drive revenue growth
• Improve compliance & risk management

The solution has an intuitive user interface which makes it easy for users to navigate around. it can streamline our work to become a more efficient organization.

We have an in-house professional services team who do the implementation part for us.

It's worth investing in this solution. We have a client who has recently acquired this solution and they are really happy with this product.

• Overall cost is really good as per their services and features.
• Product functionality and performance
• Accuracy of protection. 
• Ease of setup and ease of use. No complex policy-building
• Inline protection 
• Overall reduction in both spam and malware attacks.

We have multiple clients so do have other vendors as well like Proofpoint and Mimecast.

Overall, we are impressed with how this product allows us to be efficient, confident and successfully implement necessary solutions to our diverse range of email configurations

The company handles confidential information, such as clients' financial data, and it is important to keep that information secure to comply with certain regulations. 

One of the important challenges was to counteract the amount of phishing, ransomware attacks, and accidental leaks of information through email and collaboration applications.

We did not have a tool that would provide this security, so we chose to look for one and apply it to our environment.

The company handles a large amount of client information, some of which is confidential, including account numbers and sensitive information. This tool provides us with the features to meet the needs we have. 

One of these features is real-time threat prevention. It uses advanced analytics to detect and block malicious emails, phishing, and unwanted content before they reach inboxes. It also has DLP. This helps prevent the leak of information. In this way, we can reduce vulnerabilities.

The tool has many important features. Some of them are very valuable.

One of the most valuable is real-time prevention, which constantly analyzes and provides results. The leak control that comes with DLP is excellent. 

It provides us with a more centralized management where we can monitor everything that happens in our environment and in this way, can manage the security policies necessary for our organization in real time. 

It is fast and quite effective in terms of preventing any security incidents.

The product is a very effective tool. It provides a lot of security to ensure the confidentiality of the information.

Although it has good characteristics, it should improve the graphical interface and the latency that it sometimes presents.

They should also improve the quality of technical support since, in the last few years, they have lowered the quality of SLA response and do not provide concise solutions. 

They should also generate a knowledge base where the unified information or the most common errors are found so as not to depend so much on support.

I have experience using the solution for four years.

The stability presents as efficient.

The scalability is new; it is multi-cloud.

The experience has not been very good since we have had problems with the SLA.

Positive

There was no previous solution in the organization.

The initial implementation is complicated when you do not have experience with said tool.

It was implemented with the seller and his engineer in charge, which was very fast and friendly.

The investment is somewhat high. However, it will provide security for all customer information.

The tool is somewhat competitive with the others on the market. The installation has an average learning curve.

Several solutions were evaluated, such as Microsoft Defender for Office 365, Proofpoint Email Protection, and Cisco Secure Email.

It is an excellent tool for information security. Before acquiring it, you must analyze whether it meets company needs.

The customer has a presence in different countries like India, Poland, and the US. They use Office 365 as an email solution, and on top of that, they use Harmony Email & Collaboration.

All API email security or gateway security solutions work the same as API based. You create an API with the vendor, and it works for all the same. It's just the approach of threat intelligence, how it is taken and how much threat intelligence you have. 

Pushing was a big challenge for email security. Cisco has done that, but now Check Point is also doing the same with the quarantine email. So, it's good. Previously, they didn't have the ability to find and detect the quarantine email, but they are doing it now.

The most valuable feature is the sandboxing feature. It provides a sandboxing environment where you can open links and see where they lead. You can see what is presented in the link after opening it.

Other advantages, like workflow integration, are quite simple and offered by other vendors as well. Cisco is also integrating virus totals into their products. 

But the key advantage here is the visibility you get with the sandboxing feature. 

You can see on a map, on the same dashboard, where the mail originated, where it is going, and from which relay servers. You can see everything visually on the portal, including who it's reaching and who is CCed or BCCed.

Every vendor has a different approach. But as far as I have seen with Check Point, it is quite easy and simple to manage. They have the DLP solution integrated with this email. For example, for email, DLP is zero.

Maybe Check Point can work on the DLP part. Proofpoint's email DLP is very good, so they can work on that more.

I have been using it for six months. 

Stability is not too bad. It's not glitchy. 

Scalability is good. You can add users at any time. You can have hundreds of users in there. No issues or restrictions here. 

The customer service and support are okay. 

Positive

Compared to other solutions, users have the advantage of cost because Check Point is very easy to handle. You can easily train anyone on Check Point. It's not complex.

It's quite simple. Straightforward provisioning is required. You have to do it with a vendor, like Office 365 or G Suite, and you are good to go. Just onboard the users, and that's it.

You can deploy it in a day. For the refinement of the tool, it takes a little bit of time because all email security works by first keeping it on monitor mode and monitoring what you are getting as spam. You do an audit. It takes time with this. But for the configuration part, you can do it in a single day.

For deployment, one person is enough. For maintenance, you need two or three people to check spam. Sometimes, emails get blocked, and users request them to be unblocked. You have to verify those things. But for deployment, one person is enough.

It's a SaaS portal, so you don't have any maintenance issues because it's all done by the backend OEMs.

There is an ROI. In the long run, you will have saved money because it's a cloud-based portal with no maintenance issues.

Compared to other vendors, the pricing is average. I guess FortiMail is a little cheaper.

Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. I would recommend using it because it is easy to use and manage.