Barracuda Security Awareness Training vs. SANS Security Awareness Training

Barracuda Security Awareness Training is well suited for companies that are looking to automate and schedule phishing simulation, education, and training on a regular basis. It would be less appropriate for companies that already have a security awareness training platform already implemented.

Incentivized

SANS Security Awareness Training program would be well suited for a large organization that needs to develop multiple training programs with different courses based on the roles of the end users. It seemed a bit difficult at times to achieve simple setup processes because of the configurations tailored to larger, more complex organizations.

Incentivized

• The software helps us create emails that look exactly or almost exactly the same as the phishing emails we found in our email gateway.
• We already use the ESS gateway from Barracuda Networks, and in the TEP bundle, this software is included, so it's not that much work to also configure this.
• In the software, we can see reports on how our users performed. We can make a selection of users that are more prone to click on "false" links, and this way, we can help them individually.

Incentivized

• Variety of cyber threat videos and presentations
• Web based and mobile access to the platform
• Easy to manage administrator access to configure the training sessions

Incentivized

• Providing animated templates for custom campaigns would be helpful, potentially a "builder site" where templates could be put together with custom questions/answers.
• Reporting through functional could use some work. We typically create phishing tests to help our users learn how to spot concerns, and the reports do not provide who actually "reported" the phish as opposed to who did not. This has been a year-long request to Barracuda, and the same issue is present in our campaigns as well.
• We would love to see an annual release of new training topics and campaign ideas.

Incentivized

• Mass import of users was a bit confusing
• User interface was sometimes not intuitive
• Ability to upload custom content was difficult to use

Incentivized

Although cost competitive, we still feel like we are not digging deep enough to train our staff. We have little to no way other than digging through reports that have not proven to be adequately documented (hey you, Barracuda campaign reports) to identify and require users to take more training who have not passed their requirements.

Incentivized

Once you are started it is great. The only issue is to get started. The administrator interface [I feel] is not intuitive enough. It lacks some kind of quick start wizard. The templates are good and fit several regions. So we can do our Belgian campaign and French campaign, each with a different template.

Incentivized

Working with Barracuda PhishLine support is always a good experience. They are very professional, they are attentive and they are courteous. When I first purchased Barracuda PhishLine a few year ago it was new to them as well. At the time, the support staff could been better trained. That said, they worked hard to help and resolve my issues.

Incentivized

365 defender has a tool for user security training, it is much more rudimentary than Barracudas, but the interface is much nicer. Both offer email attack testing, reporting, and training, but barracuda offers additional attack types, like file and SMS testing. Both seem to come free with other software and can be brought as add-ons.

Incentivized

We actually are currently migrating to Proofpoint Security Awareness Training because of its integration with the Proofpoint email filter. This will allow us to target specific users who are clicking on bad emails with specific training material. We have used KnowBe4 in the past as well, but it was rather costly compared to SANS Security Awareness Training and Proofpoint. SANS Security Awareness Training seems to be the least easy-to-use interface from an administrative perspective compared to the other two.

Incentivized

• We have seen a huge improvement in user non-engagement with phishing emails.
• We now have a well-educated group of employees that are very adept at knowing malware when they see it.
• A great tool for IT staff that saves time with training resources.

Incentivized

• Positive impact knowing we are educating our staff from phishing and potential cyber criminals
• Considering the potential for bad actors infiltrating our network, this is a small expense
• Pricing based on actual end users, worth the investment

Incentivized