Avanan vs. KnowBe4 PhishER/PhishER Plus

This software is well-suited for a company that is looking to protect its data from common security breaches. It is very user-friendly and easy to implement, which is why these few things make it easily usable on a daily basis. This software also allows for much faster cloud performance and provides regular reports which provide security analytics.

PhishER comes with some good features, such as PhishML, PhishRIP, PhishFlip, etc. These features help us manage phishing email reporting incidents. From reporting emails via Phish Alert Button plug-in to collecting all reported emails in one place at the PhishER dashboard. Now, the PhishML comes into play, scanning all reported emails and tagging each as clean, spam, or threat. With the help of this machine learning-based algorithm, our investigation process becomes easier. Other features, such as PhishRip, help to search and quarantine phishing emails, and PhishFlip converts a real phishing campaign to a test phishing campaign.

Incentivized

• The dashboard for Avanan makes all of the most important information easy to digest.
• Alerting - specifically, the Geo-Location alerts allow us to see if a user has possibly been compromised.
• The End-User Email Quarantine experience gives users the ability to request emails be released, which trains them to better spot legitimate emails.

Incentivized

• Well structured KMSAT, PAB is a great addition.
• Good Training Library, ability to customize templates
• Phish/ER opens a windows to types & volume of suspect emails and allows admins to act upon.
• "Rooms" in Phish/ER, to me, is considered my entry point to start my admin duties.
• PAB and Phish/ER work very well together.
• KnowBe4 Learner App is a great addition.

Incentivized

• I only ever had one complaint, we had a few hiccups during the setup process. We have now been a customer for two years and have had no further issues. It is likely that the setup pain points have now been resolved as well. Overall the product does what it claims while providing a very intuitive interface.

Incentivized

• Issues with Global Blocklist
• Email Template Modification - Simplification
• Target Specific Users vs. Groups
• PhishRIP info tabs (i.e. if improperly check ripped emails are turned into tests. This has caused issues.) Info tabs or markers allow user to hover and get more information about what action a check box or slider provides.

Incentivized

Cost, need to make sure the cost is competitive for how many users are using email protection as we move users to MS Teams and don't rely so much on full access to email accounts (both sending and receiving internal and external).

Incentivized

When we first discovered that KnowBe4 released something like this, we saw a demo of it and were floored at what it could do and how it could help us from a security standpoint. Gone are the days of us in IT sending out a mass email saying please don't click on anything in the email from sender "X", and it allows us to quietly and easily ensure that people don't take any action on malicious emails.

Incentivized

Usability is so easy. It was a quick configuration with entering in some credentials, accepting terms and permissions and before you know it it's already going through and taking a look at existing emails. Portal is very easy to use and there are always updates with decent logs. The new UI is great and highly intuitive.

Incentivized

I think that the system is well designed and makes it easy to fine phishing emails that have been reported. It also has a simple user interface that allows you to review and address threat emails also providing an automated component that allows for automated threat mitigation and customized feedback responses to users

Incentivized

Always been available as needed.

Incentivized

It's not all the time, on occasion the platform can delay email by seven to ten minutes.

Incentivized

Avanan support always is ready to respond to user requests and typically does it in an exceptionally quick timeframe. Most requests are not even needed to be escalated as their team will look at active threats and deal with them before they are even a problem. Monthly meetups are also great in obtaining our needs as well as showing us what is new and in the horizon.

Incentivized

Responses to questions were answered quickly and accurately.

There was no in person training.

Incentivized

Takes a lot to get a 10 out of 10.

Incentivized

Ensure system administration and exchange admin are up to speed on Avanan

Incentivized

It was very simple to implement - with just a few settings needed to connect it to our O365 environment

Incentivized

I have used Cisco's secure Email, one of the major dislike is User Interface that is buggy and not user friendly. It does not update it's database for spam sites. Integration process takes much time whereas Avanan takes very less time. Cisco Secure Email sometimes deletes the important emails and that is worst where as Avanan has good AI/ML integration there are very rare false positive in deleting emails.

We evaluated the Titan options because we have already used their DNS filtering product. However, KnowBe4 came in with a better price per user and a significantly stronger product lineup, particularly with its security awareness training component.

Incentivized

It does what they claim and then some.

Incentivized

• Improved risk mitigation by providing additional layer protection for M365.
• Easy to setup and configure. No expert knowledge required and no downtime required.
• Customizable license count. No need to buy the same number of mailbox users if you really don't want to protect some unused mailboxes.

Incentivized

• There has been a 700% increase in emails being reported now. Previously, staff were only reporting 4 emails a month. It is easier for us to promote the phish alert button, receive automated remediation and rapidly respond.
• We had no reports on the amount of phishing emails were coming through Mimecast but now we have reports for the board of trustees.
• Every Wednesday we talk about cyber security to all staff, PhishER allows us to point out the trend and what to look out for which raises awareness. Never before were we able to talk about cyber security like this.

Incentivized