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Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense pros and cons

Vendor: Cisco
4.0 out of 5

Pros & Cons summary

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Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense offers the unique ability to see east-west traffic, providing visibility into internal communications that may never leave the tenant.
It is comprehensive, featuring multiple antivirus OEMs, virus encryption, and holistic email protection capabilities.
Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense includes a cloud-based threat mechanism called Talos for inbuilt threat intelligence.
It is highly scalable and offers efficient email filtering with consistent stability.
Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense delivers robust protection against email security threats, including anti-spam and antivirus capabilities.

CONS

Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense needs better integration with Cisco and non-Cisco tools.
There are issues with the search functionality and reporting capabilities, particularly in identifying spikes in convictions.
The addition of advanced phishing protection is suggested but may increase the already high cost.
There are cases of false positives, indicating the need for an AI feature to enhance accuracy.
Current complexity results in redundant rule sets that require improved management and configuration.
 

Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense Pros review quotes

reviewer2541525 - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Cyber Prevent and Defense Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Jun 12, 2025
Regarding stability, Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense is very stable.
GC
Senior Cybersecurity Engineer at a financial services firm with 11-50 employees
Jul 29, 2025
Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense's best features include user management of graymail, enhancing security awareness by allowing users to manage cold calls, sales-based items, and ensuring email compliance.
NM
Enginner at Millennium Information Technologies
Sep 9, 2025
The advanced threat analytics and URL filtering in threat detection are good features that are working well.
Learn what your peers think about Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2026.
893,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Enrique-Diaz Jolly - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Consulting Engineer, Founder, Own at Jolly Security Inc
Jan 30, 2025
The product offers protection, email security, anti-spam, and antivirus.
reviewer1927368 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Professional at a construction company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Jul 18, 2024
The solution is stable.
reviewer2146809 - PeerSpot reviewer
Presales Consultant - Cybersecurity at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
Jun 21, 2023
Cisco has a threat mechanism called cloud-based Talos, where all the threats are inbuilt.
Karthik Venkataraman - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant at Velocis Systems
Sep 27, 2022
It's very easy to deploy and configure.
reviewer1927368 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Professional at a construction company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Aug 4, 2022
The features and functionalities are much better than Microsoft's in-built Defender plan.
Mike Bulyk - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Director IT Security at a wellness & fitness company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Nov 30, 2020
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.
Mukesh Tiwari - PeerSpot reviewer
AVP- Sales at Velocis Systems
Mar 24, 2022
Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox can handle a complete portfolio, which is required to protect any kind of attack coming from emails. However, it does not have advanced phishing, but it is available through Cisco. If you compare Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox with the competition, in the competition you have to have one or two solutions together to address the customer's requirement, whereas Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox is addressing everything, such as web domain and email protection. If there is any kind of challenge it will come across through email.
 

Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense Cons review quotes

reviewer2541525 - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Cyber Prevent and Defense Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Jun 12, 2025
The behavioral analysis capability of Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense is not particularly helpful for identifying new, evolving threats within my company, as it keeps flagging legitimate emails as malicious.
GC
Senior Cybersecurity Engineer at a financial services firm with 11-50 employees
Jul 29, 2025
The product's complexity at times results in redundant rule sets that are difficult to untangle, highlighting the need for streamlined management systems and a more user-centric approach to system configuration.
NM
Enginner at Millennium Information Technologies
Sep 9, 2025
The learning curve shows that in the beginning, there are numerous false positives. For one month, we had to reclassify the false positives manually until the system learned.
Learn what your peers think about Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2026.
893,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Enrique-Diaz Jolly - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Consulting Engineer, Founder, Own at Jolly Security Inc
Jan 30, 2025
The physical appliance has been discontinued, although the platform still exists.
reviewer1927368 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Professional at a construction company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Jul 18, 2024
Cisco's multiple product lines and verticals made this just one of their many verticals, and we could see a shift in focus.
reviewer2146809 - PeerSpot reviewer
Presales Consultant - Cybersecurity at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
Jun 21, 2023
From a technical point of view, Cisco is far behind in terms of cybersecurity, and it has to improve very much.
Karthik Venkataraman - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant at Velocis Systems
Sep 27, 2022
The solution is a bit expensive.
reviewer1927368 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Professional at a construction company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Aug 4, 2022
The pricing could always be better.
Mike Bulyk - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Director IT Security at a wellness & fitness company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Nov 30, 2020
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.
Mukesh Tiwari - PeerSpot reviewer
AVP- Sales at Velocis Systems
Mar 24, 2022
Cisco Secure Email Cloud Mailbox can improve by adding advanced phishing, then the solution would become the best in the market. However, this could increase the price even more. Additionally, if CES with domain protection could be added it would be an even better solution.