Proofpoint Email Protection Reviews

I am an administrator. I manage it as an admin for each and every inbound and outbound email.

The phishing and spam filters are the most effective features. There is also a trap feature that is most effective.

Sometimes it doesn't detect actual spam emails, and sometimes it catches normal emails, which is not spam. So I think the filtering should be improved in the future. I believe Proofpoint is already working on that.

The pricing is also something that could be improved. It's literally high.

AI is not yet fully enabled in this tool. Hopefully, in the future, it will work.

I have been using it for 3+ years.

I would rate the stability 8/10.

I would rate the scalability a seven out of ten. There are around 70,000 end users. It is used daily. As a admin, I have to use it daily for various use cases.

The customer service and support are good.

Positive

I believe Proofpoint is more effective in blocking spam and malicious emails than Exchange Online Protection because I've worked with both.

It has a better spam filter than Exchange Online Protection.

I don't have much experience with any other tool, but I know the basics of Exchange Online Protection (EOP). Mostly, I use Proofpoint.

EOP is included with Microsoft and is free. But even though Proofpoint is paid, it gives a lot of features. Its filters are better than EOP.

The initial setup has average complexity. It is on the cloud. 

It takes days, not hours. For the organization I work in, most of the data is on-premises. So, syncing takes time.

The deployment was done in-house.

It's time-saving because it catches a lot of spam and phishing emails. Users are fine with it, even though it's a little costly. It does its work.

It is expensive.

I would recommend Proofpoint Email Protection to other people. 

It's easy to use, even for those new to IT. The UI is simple and easy to learn. Many courses and articles are available if you want to learn more. It's easy and efficient.

Overall, I would rate it 9/10.

I use the product for email protection and staff awareness training. 

Proofpoint Email Protection offers an additional layer of protection compared to other brands like Microsoft, Mimecast, and Barracuda. While these major companies excel at detecting malicious attachments, the solution goes further by analyzing the context of emails, allowing for more nuanced decision-making.

The solution doesn't slow down things. It's very effective at blocking spam and phishing emails. 

The product's deployment is complex and requires technical knowledge.

I have been using the product for six months. 

The solution is mature and stable. The tool's strength lies in its extensive industry knowledge and access to up-to-date information on the latest cyber threats. This allows their products to stay current and adapt to the evolving market in real-time. 

I rate the tool's scalability an eight out of ten. My company has 100 users. 

I haven't contacted the tool's technical support. 

The solution's deployment is complex if you use Google instead of Microsoft. You need to know the settings to make the most out of it. The process took two hours to complete. However, the customer needs to cooperate.  

The product's effectiveness in blocking phishing attacks is significant, especially considering that approximately 93 percent of breaches occur through phishing. It outperforms many other leading brands in terms of blocking such attacks. 

The tool's pricing depends on the customer's preference, offering options for an annual license or a monthly subscription. The cost varies based on factors such as the number of users and specific requirements. Overall, the pricing is competitive.

The product prevents phishing attacks, but its Data Loss Prevention (DLP) capabilities might be limited compared to other specialized products. While it offers some protection against business email compromise, it may not cover all aspects. Supplementing Proofpoint with additional layers of security, such as Amazon Redshift, is recommended to cover all security aspects. You need a little bit of technical knowledge to set it up. I rate the overall solution a nine out of ten. I haven't got any false positives while using it. 

Our main use case for the solution is email protection. It filters incoming emails, particularly those from spammy origins. While it's not perfect, it effectively filters out about 99.5% of all spam, making it a great product for us.

The tool has improved our workflow by ensuring people receive only the emails they need for work rather than being inundated with hundreds or thousands of unnecessary emails daily.

The most valuable feature of Proofpoint Email Protection is the ability to review and access quarantined emails. Sometimes, the tool may classify valid emails as spam, so being able to review and retrieve them is crucial.

The solution has all the plugins needed to integrate with Office 365.

I have been using the product for ten years. 

I rate the tool's stability a ten out of ten. 

I rate the solution's scalability a ten out of ten. 

I am not allowed to contact security product vendors directly. However, I haven't had any issues with the solution. 

Our security team worked directly with Proofpoint Email Protection for the deployment; no consultants were involved. Its technical support team assisted us in setting up the solution. 

Proofpoint Email Protection is a standard email protection product and is gaining recognition as a leader in the field. It safeguards email systems. I rate the overall solution a ten out of ten. 

We use most of Proofpoint Email Protection's features including email phishing protection, TAP (Targeted Attack Protection), TRAP (Threat Response Auto-Pull), URL rewrites, and sandboxing. It is currently used in a hybrid environment and we have just deployed a patch for the latest version.

Proofpoint Email Protection's advantage is that, when it's working properly, it tends to catch more threats as compared to other products.

Unfortunately, the whole product is going downhill right now, ever since they were sold to Thoma Bravo. We're constantly having problems with stability and the product in general.

Even their sales and support is deteriorating as well. I can't even get them to quote me for the next year, possibly because they are still in disarray from their sale.

Because of these issues, we are likely going to move away from it soon. I would prefer not to change, but I might not have a choice, especially if they can't even send me the proper quotes for everything.

I have been using Proofpoint Email Protection for about five years now.

The stability of Proofpoint Email Protection is a problem right now, and I assume it has to do with their sale to Thoma Bravo.

These days, I would rate the stability a four of ten.

We have somewhere between 4,000-6,000 users who are benefiting from the solution. However, when it comes to extending our usage, I'm not sure if we will go ahead with them because they're completely dropping the bomb on everything; they won't even respond to give me quotes to renew this year.

Licensing issues aside, I would rate the product an eight out of ten in terms of scalability.

The initial setup was good, at least until the last 12 months after their sale. I would rate the setup process an eight out of ten.

Our in-house team worked with Proofpoint's engineers for the deployment. It was a pretty quick process of setting up the email gateways and starting up the VMs in our hybrid environment. Overall, we only needed one person for the VMs and server setup, and one other person to take care of the security configuration and all the rest.

In terms of ROI as compared to their competitors, Proofpoint still has a very good phishing signature file, so they're probably catching 5-10% more threats than what the other products are catching. If you can keep it running, that is.

They are competitively priced, but I have been forced to get quotes for other solutions now because they haven't been responding to requests to do the work that we would like them to do.

My advice to others is to be cautious because they seem to be going through some changes (likely to do with corporate structuring issues) that are negatively affecting customer service and stability.

I would rate Proofpoint Email Protection a six out of ten.

Our organization is large and has multiple entities that use the solution. 

Our department includes two senior information security analysts and two network analysts. We use the solution and as our main security filter for 90% of emails. Emails come into the domain, hit the gateway firsthand, and the solution filters for spam, phishing, malware, and virus attachments. 

The TAP service integrates with the PPS API connection and analyzes every bit of email that goes through the system. Troublesome domains are blocked automatically without needing to be analyzed. If a specific email address is not blocked, the email gets released. TAP still analyzes the email, identifies whether it is a threat, and details its attributes such as the IP address, subject and content, and URL name. 

All metadata for a threat email is sent from TAP to TRAP which goes back to the user's mailbox and automatically pulls the email so that it disappears. TRAP also identifies if the email has been distributed, even to 10,000 users, and attempts to pull back all instances. TRAP can pull internal emails but not external emails because it does not have access to external systems. 

Our company uses the solution to its fullest potential. 

A organization's security culture and investment defines how extensively they will use the solution. For example, Bank of America is a big company where security is important so they will spend millions of dollars improving their product. A smaller company with just 10,000 users might only do a certain level to improve.  

Spam scoring is a feature for which usage varies. The solution scores emails from zero to 100 and companies can decide the level of acceptance. A level of 70 might block too many emails so users will complain. If you have 2,000 users, the complaints might cause you to loosen the rating constraints to 85 or so. 

The solution's whole server is valuable because has robust algorithms, AI that learns what goes through a company's email server, and strong rules for analyzing data. Competitor's products are just standard email filters that block or pass with no ongoing AI for learning. 

The security is very strong and comparatively better than Cisco CES. For example, in the last six months there has been an uptick in phishing campaigns or malicious email attachments purporting to come from Geek Squad. I see a substantial number of these troublesome emails pass through CES, Barracuda, and Mimecast but I have not seen a single email pass through the solution. 

The Phish Alarm button allows users to submit questionable emails for review and complete analysis. A submitted email is analyzed in the cloud sandbox and the results are provided along with the actual email. Substantial information is included in this dynamic analysis such as email details, URLs, links, domains, ages of accounts, and what the email is intending to do. No other product offers this type of built-in email analysis. I have reviewed three different products including Cofense and they all send the email with its metadata to the user's security response team for manual review.  

The solution's server console and cluster dashboard have been the same for four years so need to be upgraded. There is no feature-rich dashboard so searching emails is cumbersome and slow. The way Facebook, Gmail, and LinkedIn looked five years ago is not the same as today. Everything today is feature-rich and user-friendly.

I have been using the solution for four years. 

The solution is very stable with no issues in six years. I never have situations with the cloud going down or email going haywire. However, I have seen other products have these issues. 

The solution is scalable depending on your licenses. 

Technical support is excellent, very easy to access, and fast. It is easy to chat with support via the online community portal. They will point you in the right direction during chat sessions or set up a call with a support agent. 

This is the first solution our company has used. 

The deployment process is pretty easy. 

The solution builds your cluster in the cloud and gives you a gateway, URL, MX records, and IP addresses. You then set up your DMS and MX records for your cluster and tie it to your email gateway. The process is pretty simple and can be done within a week. 

Suppose all your emails and servers are from Microsoft 365 with mailboxes in the cloud. Once your domain is on the solution's cluster, it needs to be connected with the Microsoft email gateway. Think of a pipe where water goes from one end to the other. The solution sits at the entrance of the pipe to filter out bad particles. Filtered items go into the pipe or Microsoft's email gateway. Down the pipe there is an open tap which pours right into the user's glasses. 

We implement the solution for customers. Implementation takes one to three people depending on the size of the organization. 

Our team handles any ongoing maintenance which is minimal. 

The solution uses a licensing model that is reasonable compared to other products. I rate pricing a nine out of ten. 

I appreciate the solution because it is purely for email security. 

The solution is a great product and the best existing option in 2022. You will be very happy with the solution's security features. 

I rate the solution a nine out of ten. 

The product looks at the emails that we receive. If there are any suspicious emails with attachments or strange content, it will detect that and give us an alert on a dashboard. From there, we can pick up the alert, and then we can review and take action to mitigate any risk.

Overall, it is a good product.

We like that it provides everything in a single dashboard. On that, we can find all the information related to the risks involved within a suspicious email.

The initial setup is very, very easy.

It's a stable, reliable product.

As a cloud-based product, it can scale well. 

Customer support is very helpful and responsive. They are great at answering questions. 

We'd like to have the ability to create more customized reports.

It would be ideal if we could customize exceptions more effectively and have more control over blacklisting and whitelisting. 

The solution can be expensive. 

I've been using the solution for the past three or four years. 

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

We find it scales well. It is cloud-based, which makes the process very easy.

We have about 5,000 people using the solution right now.

We do contact support regularly. We do get in touch to understand certain features or if we want to know more about how to use something. We frequently get in touch with support. They offer excellent assistance.

Positive

This is an easy product to set up. It's not complex at all in terms of implementation.

How long it takes to deploy depends on the business. If they approve and agree to everything readily, it should only take a couple of weeks. 

I'm not sure of the exact cost. My understanding is it is expensive.

I have been recently attempting to compare Microsoft 365 and Proofpoint. 

We are a customer. We are not a partner.

I'm not sure which version number we're using.

It is one of the leading email security providers and has gone through reviews by our application security team. They evaluated all of the features to make sure they aligned with our needs, and so far, it has not disappointed me. 

I would recommend the product as it provides everything users need right in one place, especially security controls. 

It may be a good idea, however, to have a separate product for security control and a separate product for email business flows to give a separation of duties. Instead of having everything in one place, it is sometimes best to manage business and security policies separately. Companies should have dedicated security and an effective email security gateway where they can control the security of an entire organization.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. It's very useful to be able to see everything in one central place. 

The stability is good.

The spam filter for email is good.

The solution can scale. 

We have found the initial setup to be straightforward. 

I have some concerns about Proofpoint mail flow rules. It's not smart.

Proofpoint has a lot of false alarms. Even their mail flow rules are not the best thing. Mimecast and Microsoft Office 365 are better than them. Many emails are marked as spam unnecessarily. I've had issues and have had to open many tickets. 

I've used the solution for five years. 

The stability is good. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

While most of my clients have under 100 users, my understanding is if it works for 100, it can work for 1,000 or 10,000 users. Scaling shouldn't be an issue. 

I've talked to support about creating rules and the issues we've had. I've had to open many tickets with them. 

For example, last month our web application sent an invoice for one of the customers, and it relayed the email on behalf of the customer domain. This email was marked as phishing. Even when the SBS was correct and the DCOM was correct. I opened a ticket. The rule didn't work. They responded fast. Even though I have problems, I find them to be responsive. 

I have used Defender, Proofpoint, and Mimecast. I use them daily for different companies and have subscriptions for all three. In my company, we use Defender.

Mimecast and Microsoft are better than Proofpoint when it comes to mail rules. On Proofpoint, the rules don't work as expected. 

The solution is straightforward and simple to set up. It's not overly complex. 

I'm a freelancer working to support some companies that are using Proofpoint. 

Sometimes I create a subscription for them and configure everything from scratch; sometimes, I take it already configured and just maintain it.

Anyone with basic knowledge of the solution and how to configure items will not have an issue with this product.

I'd rate it seven out of ten based on the mail flow issues I have witnessed.

I have been using Proofpoint Email Protection for the emails that we receive to determine if there is any suspicious attachment or content. It will detect and give us an alert on our dashboard. From there we can pick up the alerts and review and take action to mitigate the risk.

The most valuable feature of Proofpoint Email Protection is the central location dashboard for viewing all the related information for risk.

Proofpoint Email Protection could improve by allowing more customization of the reports, such as exceptions and black-and-white lists.

I have been using Proofpoint Email Protection for approximately four years.

Proofpoint Email Protection is stable.

The scalability of Proofpoint Email Protection is good because it is cloud-based.

We have approximately 5,000 people using this solution in my organization.

If we need to understand how to use the solution better we contact the support.

I rate the support of Proofpoint Email Protection a four out of five.

Positive

The initial setup of Proofpoint Email Protection is easy, it does not take more than a couple of weeks. However, it can depend on the business.

The solution is expensive.

My company is using the solution because it is one of the leading email security providers, and it has gone through a review by the application security team. The features were in line with our requirements.

I recommend Proofpoint Email Protection because it provides everything in one place, such as security control. I would suggest having a separate solution for security control and another for email business flow. This way it would give a separation of duties instead of having everything in one place, the business policy as well as the security policy. Sometimes it is not the best way to manage both policies in one place. It's better to have a dedicated security, email security gateway where we can control the security of the organization.

I rate Proofpoint Email Protection a nine out of ten.

I gave my rating because the solution provides everything in one place and it has a lot of features for more insight regarding suspicious emails. I can see how many users received it, the attack vector, and the repetition of the email.