Barracuda ESG (discontinued) vs. Kaspersky Security for Mail Server

Good combination when using their other products like an incident response. When using automated workflows, this makes creating sender policies a breeze. Unfortunately, this can also be done too well as it may filter out valid emails and to resend or place them back into users' mailbox isn't an easy thing to do even if you attempt to resend through the Email Security Gateway.

This service may be useful for some businesses, so it's important to try it before deciding. It offers multiple layers of protection for both assisted and unassisted attacks, sandboxing (for obfuscated attacks), and a decent anti-phishing tool. It can be tricky to set up, but not the end of the world. In our case, unfortunately, the false positives were just unbearable.

Incentivized

• ESS has a simple interface for both users and administrators.
• The "Manage Quarantine" button in each email is a direct sign-on link, so users don't have to remember their password to manage their quarantine (this is GOLD, Jerry!).
• The baseline functionality (catching spam/malware/phishing/malware attachments/malformed PDFs etc) is super-solid, with few false positives and few false negatives.

Incentivized

• Neural network based anti-phishing and anti-spam for multilayered security.
• Scalable resources according to business growth.
• Flexible to use in almost all devices.

Incentivized

• You need to take time in adding your contacts to a whitelist so that you don't miss an email.
• I recommend changing the time interval; Barracuda notifies you that you have quarantined emails as we were only getting 1 per day and we missed some urgent emails.
• The quarantine folder is web based, we'd prefer it to have been an add-in for Outlook.

Incentivized

• False positives.
• Integration can be fiddly.

Incentivized

Setting up the Barracuda for use with Microsoft 365 provides issues that Barracuda seems to have no fix for. I mentioned these issues to their support, because I am constantly reminded of them by their system, and I was told that those errors are normal for our setup and to ignore them which is frustrating to me.

Incentivized

Availability is robust and flawless. This is a non-issue, its always up & running and fail-over protection is available for restarts or upgrades.

Incentivized

The WebUI is the only piece I find lacking on the Barracuda ESK. Its is not the fastest and is fairly utilitarian in its approach. The Outlook plug-in, while not in wide use here, causes zero slowdown in Outlook or the Barracuda ESG.

Incentivized

Barracuda Email Security Gateway support is great at responding and escalating cases when needed. Timeliness is key when dealing with email attacks, spoofing or malware. Barracuda also has great resources for end-user training as our end users are our first line of defense in combatting attacks on our company. Training end-users pays off in time spent dealing with any email attacks

Incentivized

Barracuda integrates well with Office 365 and mail flow is great. It was the first solution we found that was part of a greater suite to fit all the requirements we had. With the Email Security gateway being in the cloud, it required no extra hardware but also nothing new installed on an endpoint as some solutions require.

Incentivized

Microsoft Exchange Online Protection is very easy to set up and has way fewer false positives than Kaspersky Security for Mail Server. It has virtually the same features as the Kaspersky alternative and it is extremely easy to set up. It feels like Microsoft Exchange Online Protection gives slightly more transparency about its conclusions, which allows users to make an informed decision about certain messages.

Incentivized

• The gateway learns current scam which can prevent unmeasureable damage. As a government organization attacks on our network affect public safety.
• Previous gateways I have managed have required significant amounts of time grooming. The Barracuda gateway has freed up a great deal of my time due to its intelligence and intent scanning.
• I have very few incidences where a legitimate malicious email will pass through the filter. Just one of these emails can wreak havoc on an organization.

Incentivized

• Balance our manpower distribution in between security team and management team.
• Help to create secure work environment for all staff.
• Reduce our cost by proper utilization of security budget.

Incentivized