Symantec Email Threat Detection and Response vs. Mimecast Advanced Email Security

I have had a suitation where the company domain was being blasted by tons of spam emails and the Symantec Email Threat Detection stood to the test and block all these harmful email from entering our users mailbox, for a less appropriate scenario would be the frequency of the false positives that are reported that I have to train the tool how to allow these traffic to pass.

Incentivized

Mimecast Advanced Email Security is good in the case when an email is coming from outside and it directly contain the malicious code, malicious URL or risky files. Then their process works well and they block the email or hold the email for review. Mimecast Advanced Email Security is good in the case of any mail bomb attack type scenarios where you can create content examination policies to protect the user from getting bulk spam email. Mimecast Advanced Email Security lack when email do not contain any malicious files or URLs, if you are receiving a phishing email with no URL/Files then Mimecast do not detect it but this email might have some normal conversation like CEO fraud where the malicious actor might be asking for some money transfer. So, in this case, Mimecast fails.

Incentivized

• Scans computers for viruses
• Notifies admins of infections
• Good licensing process

Incentivized

• Email retention - convenience for the end-users to access older messages even if they've deleted them from Outlook
• SPAM management - allows us to prevent SPAM and Phishing attacks with custom policies that fit our organizational needs
• URL protection - allows incoming emails with a URL to be scanned and protects our end-users from clicking on malicious URLs

Incentivized

• Adding malicious sources taking time
• Reporting function is very basic
• Symantec ATP has no integration with Symantec ETDAD.

Incentivized

• The Admin Management console is absurdly complicated. For every first time we wanted to setup we've had to call their support for assistance. Support is quick and fantastic but it's so difficult to do anything yourself. They seem to have gone out of their way to call features unique things instead of using standard language from other providers so you as an IT professional know what you're looking for to setup.
• They have lots of KB articles, which their support will point you to. They are written on the most basic level and don't actually provide the help you need. For example, the KB page will tell you the list of options on the page... but not actually tell you what you do, why you might use them, or define their terminology.
• Their email threat management system has several nice features. One of the features available is that it will rewrite links in emails so that users click the link and it sandboxes the link, testing it on their server space and the user sees it there. This means the actual link in the email gets changed to the address of one of their servers. As a law firm, the EXACT LINKS are important to maintain in our communications and editing actual data from our clients to point to a Mimecast server is an unacceptable practice. I wish they had an alternative that did not edit the link itself on the page.

Incentivized

We love the Mimecast product and its performance. Easy for us to understand, use, and administer.

Incentivized

Symantec Email Threat Detection and Response is a treadsetter, it has great features and works well overall

Incentivized

The UI went through an update in 2023, but it is still a pain to navigate. It is slow, sluggish, and sometimes kicks us out while performing tasks. Even with everything being in one dashboard, it felt like traversing numerous sites to get to certain settings. The ability to favorite certain admin menu items was extremely beneficial, however. It did allow navigating a little faster.

Incentivized

Overall, it's very good, but I do remember a few times in the past year we have seen some availability issues.

Incentivized

Pages need to consistently load quickly. Sometimes good, sometimes not.

Incentivized

When calling them you get best in the world customer services but as previously mentioned their online community and capabilities are a bit lacking. They want you to log into their portal to see updates on issues (vs. using a public facing service) and I rarely find the answers to my issues in electronic format. Their online presence is only helpful with the simplest of issues.

Incentivized

We did not have in-person training. All was done through meetings and on phone.

Incentivized

Training was good from Mimecast as well as the Mimecast knowledgebase.

Incentivized

Easy to set up and configure, but did have Mimecast assistance.

Incentivized

We are making a migration from Symantec to SentinelOne in the near future for easier deployment, better EDR and management functionality.

Incentivized

Previously we have only used the default on-premise exchange that comes with SBS. This was very simple and only provided basic filtering of spam and junk mail. We weren't able to filter impersonation mail or emails with malicious code

Incentivized

The solution continues to grow and add features.

Incentivized

Professional services for our setup was excellent, quick and knowledgeable.

Incentivized

• Integration with ETDAD will make Symantec ATP more powerful for future AD threats
• Implemeting Symantec ATP was easy and took little time

Incentivized

• Reasonably priced solution, even for a small business like ours.
• It's hard to put a figure on our ROI - I would just say we feel like we've gotten our money's worth with the advanced email protection we receive. We have definitely avoided many potentially dangerous emails since we've implemented this solution.

Incentivized