Barracuda Email Protection vs. KnowBe4 Security Awareness Training

I would definitely recommend it due to the decent pricing. I wish the MS built-in M365 tools were better, but Barracuda does a good job of taking their place. For industries that need DLP on their email, like healthcare, banking, and education, Barracuda provides a reliable product for a good cost. The additional services you get, malware/AV filtering, URL filtering, spam protection, business continuity, those are all icing on the cake. The only issues we've ever really had with them is that it will sometimes take a back/forth string of emails and decide randomly to encrypt it, so what was a flowing benign conversation is now locked behind a wall for recipients. As the sender, you have no idea when it's going to decide to do this and have to remember to tag emails with a decrypt tag long before it happens or face the consequences

Incentivized

I don't have any frame of reference for comparison, but the training that I have used has proved impactful for my staff. Since starting KnowBe4 training, we've seen a great increase in the number of phishing attempts, but also a great increase in the number of attempts that have been recognized by staff, and we have thus not been the victim of phishing or other cyberattact vectors

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

• Phish tests can be set to various difficulty levels as staff becomes more knowledgeable in catching phish emails.
• Automated phish tests and training save a lot of admin time. The product can also test for phone and USB stick practices.
• The phish alert button in Outlook, along with PhishER and PhishFlip allow easy managing and response to actual phishing emails.
• The interactive training is well designed to cover all types of phishing and safe email and phone behavior.

Incentivized

• The #1 feedback I receive from users is that they have limited time for training. It would be nice if the training would be offered in 3-time categories (e.g. up to 3 minutes, up to 5 minutes and up to 10 minutes). This way user's can select a category that matches their availability.

Incentivized

• Campaign settings are overwhelming and non-intuitive
• While the domains available for sending phishing emails are numerous, they are still often obviously fake
• Certain features are locked away behind paid addons, when they should be incorporated in the base tool/licence, e.g. PhishER. It's fine that, for example, Compliance+ is an added feature, but PhishER is practically integral to the task KnowBe4 Security Awareness Training performs

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

I chose 8 because Microsoft has a version of software bundled in Azure that may fulfill our needs. If this software does not measure up then we will be continuing with Knowbe4. They keep their offerings fresh so training is not redundant this is important when asking for engagement from employees

Incentivized

Regarding usability, we like it to be an easy solution to implement and configure on the server. Routine backups are made frequently and reports are issued for control and analysis by information security teams. It has great integration with the cloud and encryption.

Incentivized

The training videos we have access to are high quality, and provide a wide variety. The Inside Man videos has a cult following within our organization, and has driven a much greater interest in security awareness. And KB4's willingness to negotiate pricing for us as a nonprofit has been very valuable to us as well.

Incentivized

There have only been a handful of outages in the 2 years we have had the product. Even during those instances, parts of the system were still operational

Incentivized

Pages load quickly, filter/sort quickly, and don't slow down or freeze. Everything is smooth and very easy to use. There are a places in the UI where you can forget how to get there, but other than that everything is great. We have had no issues using any part of the website.

Incentivized

I have not had to use customer support yet which goes to show the effectiveness of the program. It also shows how easy the program is to use for the average person with no experience using this type of program. Our IT department also does a great job at teaching us to detect emails with malware that in combination with this software issues rarely arise even though we have over 500 employees.

Incentivized

Tech prod support is great! I did have to ask for a new customer success rep, needed a more experienced person to match my 12 years of experience running Cybersec training programs. Would suggest that more matching of rep level of knowledge to client level knowledge would help.

Incentivized

Helpful and knowledgeable account managers have helped us navigate and use the system to our full potential

Incentivized

confusing question. I inherited this application so I didnt get any formal training other than the person who was leaving. The CSM provided some later on when I asked in a zoom call

It was "stupid easy" from the technical side.

The implementation went really well and KnowBe4 was there the whole time on setup to make sure things were setup correctly. The only thing we had to figure out on our own was to script users automatically being added to security groups. So that when they sync to knowBe4 from AD they are placed into the same/correct groups.

Incentivized

We really didn't evaluate any other products. We considered using the filtering features that come with our Office 365 subscription, but just didn't feel it was sufficient protection for our business. Being a medical clinic, we felt like we needed to implement the best solution for our email protection and we found Barracuda Essentials was the leader.

Incentivized

KnowBe4 offered a significantly more favorable cost-benefit ratio compared to other solutions. Its seamless integration with our existing infrastructure—particularly Active Directory and email systems—was the most compatible with our operational and security requirements.

Incentivized

The product scales greatly. As long as you upgrade the license to support the number of users you are needing, adding in those new users is easy. Also getting those users set up with trainings/campaigns is very easy as well

Incentivized

• This tool was supplied free with out Email Security, so its come at no cost
• This tool has helped us meet requirements by our insurance to train users on the risks of phishing
• However, the dated interface slows down what should be seamless adoption

Incentivized

• There is really no way one can make all the needed trainings with in house resources anymore! The cost for this would be way way more than that of any platform!
• There is no way to even calculate the damage a company would suffer in case of a cybersecurity breach! So the cost for the use of the KnowBe4 Security Awareness Training platform if minimal compared to that of a possible breach!
• The cost of creating content for security awareness training is no longer realistic for a company. This is really no option, and it is in no way comparable to the cost of access to the training material available in the KnowBe4 Security Awareness Training platform. Also the training content needs to be constantly updated!

Incentivized