Secure Email Gateways are email security technologies that protect against web-based attacks while also ensuring employee compliance. The incoming email content is routed through spam filters and scanned before being allowed to pass through a firewall. These gateways have labeling or user governance system in place to identify dangerous actors and prevent them from communicating in the future. Secure email gateways with archiving features let enterprises maintain track of previous communications for compliance and reference.

Secure email gateway products are used by businesses to add additional security to both internal and outward communications. Companies can prevent fraudsters from compromising their network and stealing their data, as well as verify that their operations are compliant.

These solutions have some overlap with email encryption and anti-spam software, but they offer a more comprehensive platform. Secure email gateway platforms integrate the features of both technologies while also adding additional security and archiving features.

Highlights of Secure Email Gateway Software

Secure Email Gateway
Source: DioCircle

A product must meet the following criteria to be considered for the Secure Email Gateway category:

  • Virus, spam, and other malware should be filtered or scanned in email.
  • Securely encrypt communications by identifying and blocking potentially hazardous content.
  • Provide the archiving capability for storage that is compatible.
  • Allow and blocklists can be used to control which accounts are accepted and which are questionable.

Top 5 Secure Email Gateway Software

 Proofpoint

Proofpoint Email Protection is an industry-leading email gateway that may be used on-premises or as a cloud service. It detects both known and undiscovered dangers that conventional security systems overlook. Email Protection, which is powered by NexusAI, our powerful machine learning engine, accurately classifies various forms of email. Our Advanced BEC Defense now detects and prevents threats that don’t include a malicious payload, such as imposter email, commonly known as business email compromise (BEC). You may also tag dubious emails automatically to assist users to become more informed. You can also hunt down any email in a matter of seconds. In addition, our comprehensive email screening keeps spam, bulk graymail, and other unwelcome messages at bay.

Features:

Protection Against Phishing, Imposters, and Email Fraud

You receive a detection engine powered by AI and machine learning with Advanced BEC Defense. It’s also meant to detect and prevent BEC assaults. It examines a variety of message characteristics, including:

The IP address of the sender is included in the message header data (x-originating IP and reputation)

Message body for urgency and words/phrases, as well as other information

Detection with Several Layers

To assist you to guard against continually emerging threats, we employ multilayered detection techniques such as reputation and content analysis. Email Protection allows you to dynamically classify a wide range of emails. Phishing, malware, impostor threats, bulk email, spam, and other risks are among them.

Tag for Email Warning

Suspicious emails can be automatically tagged. This lowers the risk of a potential compromise by making your end users wary of unknown emails.

Searching with Intelligence

Using thousands of search criteria, locate difficult-to-find log data. You can also quickly track where emails originate and end up.

Control undesired emails on a more granular level.

With our granular email screening, you can identify gray mail (such as newsletters and bulk mail). Allow your users to manage their low-priority emails on an individual basis. This also helps you save money on IT.

Pricing:

For this product or service, Proofpoint Email Protection has not given price information.

Pros:

  • The digest function is extremely popular among users. That way, even if we fine-tune things too much, they’ll be able to recover those who get caught. My organization works with kids, which makes things a little more difficult, but Proofpoint manages to strike a nice balance with relatively few false positives.
  • It’s simple to figure out how many people a phishing effort targeted and how many of those people clicked on phishing links.
  • Proofpoint simplifies the task of a security administrator. Some solutions necessitate ongoing administration in order to reap the full benefits of the solution. Proofpoint is a solution that you can put in place and forget about.

Cons:

  • The user interface isn’t always the most user-friendly.
  • I dislike the TRAP product’s user interface, and I wish Proofpoint had merged TRAP into TAP in the same manner that the email protection dashboard has been linked into TAP.
  • The web console can be slow to load at times, but this is a minor annoyance.

Cisco Email Security

Cisco Secure Email has sophisticated threat protection features that allow it to detect, block, and remediate threats faster, avoid data loss, and encrypt vital information in transit.

Customers can use Cisco Secure Email :

  • With enhanced threat intelligence from TalosTM, our threat research team, you can detect and stop more attacks.
  • With Cisco Secure Email Malware Defense and Cisco Threat Grid, you can fight ransomware disguised in attachments that eludes early detection.
  • To protect against phishing and BEC, drop emails with unsafe links automatically or limit access to freshly infected sites using real-time URL analysis.
  • With Cisco Secure Email Domain Protection and Cisco Secure Email Phishing Defense, you can prevent brand abuse and sophisticated identity-based email attacks.
  • Data Loss Prevention (DLP) and easy-to-use email encryption, all in one solution, protect important content in outgoing emails.
  • Cisco Secure Awareness Training can be used to provide user behavior training to help people operate smarter and safer.
  • Increase deployment flexibility by using a cloud, virtual, on-premises, or hybrid deployment, or gradually migrate to the cloud.
  • With SecureX, you can integrate an increasing number of Cisco Security products and speed up essential security operations processes including visibility, detection, automation, investigation, and remediation.

Pricing:

For this product or service, Cisco Email Security has not given price information.

Pros:

It not only protects our inbox from spam, but it also examines our sent emails before they are sent. It may be utilized on-premises or in the cloud, which is a bonus feature. The user interface is straightforward and easy to use. Customer service is quick to respond and courteous.

Cisco Email Security is offered for on-premises (hardware/virtual) and cloud infrastructure.

The most significant benefit of ESA is its connection with AMP. When used in an enterprise context, the equipment performs well.

Cons:

There isn’t much to hate about the product; however, the price could be a little lower.

The number of firmware patches released on a regular basis increases the number of administrative chores. Customization options for reports are restricted. The number of false-positive detections should decrease.

Trellix Email Security

Trellix Email Security for Email Servers removes viruses, worms, Trojans, phishing, and other dangers from incoming and outgoing emails with award-winning in-memory and incremental on-demand scanning.

Features:

Protect Your Email Servers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week

Viruses, worms, trojans, and other malware can all be found in emails and attachments. McAfee Global Threat Intelligence’s real-time, cloud-based file and sender reputation defends against known and developing threats.

Make Compliance a Priority

Messages can be filtered depending on their size, message content, or attachment content. Messages with certain words or phrases in the subject line, message body, or attachments are blocked or quarantined.

Data Leak Prevention and Content Scanning should be implemented.

To prevent data leaks, use prebuilt dictionaries that cover most enterprise and country-specific compliance standards, or customize filters. Create global rules and, where appropriate, exceptions.

Pricing:

For this product or service, Trellix Email Security for Email Servers has not given price information.

Pros:

On the server, look for viruses in email attachments and gain access to the system without losing or interfering with data.

Trellix Email Security Suite is one of the most useful security tools for safeguarding data on our servers. It makes data handling more pleasant and secure, allowing us to better manage our sensitive data. This server security package is always protecting our machines and online networks as a shield.

Cons:

On consecutive workdays, false-positive and irritating alarm notifications are sent.

Trellix Email Security for Email Servers isn’t constantly on top of making sure that this package can scan the latest malware updates, and as a result, there’s a 99 percent possibility of losing important data.

Forcepoint

Forcepoint Trusted Mail System is a Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) solution that provides a “one inbox” at the highest security level that consolidates email from many networks, reducing the likelihood of vital and mission-critical communications being neglected. Trusted Mail System uses the accredited and UCDSMO Baseline-listed Forcepoint Trusted Gateway System to provide outstanding, built-in two-person manual review, self-release capabilities (as necessary by organizational policy), and data checks.

Advantages of Forcepoint :

  • Increases user productivity by allowing users to have a “one inbox” across numerous email domains.
  • Supports email content, attachments, headers, and nested message inspection.
  • Integrates with current email gateways across the company for easy administration.
  • Data inspections for dirty word searches, malware detection, file type verification, and deep content inspections are all included.

Pricing:

For this product or service, Forcepoint Trusted Mail System has not given price information.

Pros:

GUI Rule creation is simple and intuitive.

Sandbox for URLs

Sandbox for files

Anti-spam protection

Cons:

I don’t believe there are any features that are currently missing.

Sophos Secure Email

Phishing and imposter threats must be avoided.

Cloud email security protects your employees and essential information from malware, as well as malware-free phishing and impersonation attempts, restoring trust in your mailbox.

Imposters must be stopped.

To fool other employees into falling for their frauds, criminals frequently mimic key persons in a business or well-known companies. Sophos Email leverages powerful Natural Language Processing (NLP) machine learning to thwart these targeted impersonation and Business Email Compromise attacks because there is no malware or URLs to identify.

Senders must be verified.

Social engineering is a skill that adversaries have mastered. That’s why Sophos Email uses SPF, DKIM, and DMARC authentication mechanisms, as well as email header anomaly analysis, to scan all inbound messages in real-time for critical phishing signs including brand spoofing and impersonation attempts. Phishing emails are detected and blocked before they reach your users.

The Malware must be eliminated.

Phishing is dangerous not because of the email itself, but because of what it causes individuals to do. Malicious links are frequently included in phishing emails, and malware criminals try to fool you into activating them. While the Sophos cloud sandbox accurately analyses all files using multi-layered analysis and state-of-the-art machine learning models, the Sophos Email Time-of-Click URL rewriting analyses all URLs as they are clicked to prevent or notify users of risks. This ensures that the most recent zero-day and unknown malware threats, as well as PUA, are presented in a matter of minutes.

Protection after the delivery

Once messages are in the inbox, email protection should continue to monitor them. Malware can be introduced into previously safe sites, and secure URLs can be redirected to dangerous ones. The Search and Destroy API link in Sophos Email automatically detects these changes in threat levels and removes dangerous URLs, as well as messages for Microsoft 365 customers.

Search and Destroy messages can be viewed in your post-delivery quarantine summary.

Pricing:

There is no free version of Sophos Email, but there is a free trial. The premium version of Sophos Email starts at N/A. Pricing information can be obtained by contacting Sophos directly.

Conclusion

For most businesses, email is still the preferred form of communication. It’s also the most common way for cybercriminals to break into your network, steal or corrupt data, and harm your reputation. Email hacking techniques are becoming more focused, sophisticated, and hazardous. Phishing attempts, malware attachments, and ransomware attacks are on the rise across all industries right now. 

A secure email gateway decreases the number of successful compromises of user passwords, email hosts, and sensitive company data by quarantining harmful emails or blocking the sender.

To find out information about various useful software, check out SaaSworthy!

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