Like it or not, email is integral to business communications. However, it’s also the perfect tool for cybercriminals. It effectively serves as a phishing, spam, and malware distribution channel for hackers aiming to steal data and turn a profit. In fact, there were over 25,000 reports of phishing scams in 2019, with 513 reporting serious financial losses. What’s more, according to the latest data breach statistics report, 36% of cyber incidents that affected businesses were the result of phishing.
To ensure the safety of your data and business, deploying a powerful email security solution is more crucial than ever. Currently, Barracuda and Mimecast are the two leading email security providers. This article outlines the features to expect from both options so you can make an informed decision between the two.
Barracuda
Barracuda is a leading provider of affordable, enterprise-grade cybersecurity solutions, with over 200,000 active customers around the world. Its email security suite, Barracuda Total Email Protection, creates a secure gateway that blocks email-borne threats before they enter your network or cloud environment. It ensures 99.9% service uptime and is loaded with features designed to protect every facet of your email infrastructure. Some of its key features include:
- Inbound filtering – This detects and blocks potentially harmful messages from reaching your email inbox. Barracuda accomplishes this through malware scanning, URL link assessments, domain reputation check, spam scoring, and sender intent analysis. Barracuda also constantly monitors the web for new email-borne threats to keep its filtering technology up to date.
- Advanced threat protection – Barracuda leverages artificial intelligence (AI) to analyse network traffic and identify anomalous behaviour such as file overwrites, data replication, and account takeover attempts. It even offers sandboxing features that run attachments in an isolated environment to detect sophisticated malware and unknown threats.
- Outbound filtering and encryption – This lets you set content policies that limit users from sending messages with sensitive information like credit card numbers and customer records. Plus, you can program Barracuda to encrypt outbound emails based on the sender, recipient, and message.
- PhishLine – This is a security awareness tool with customised phishing simulation and training courses. Training also covers scams delivered through SMS and phone calls. This way, you can expose employees to the latest scams and teach them to be more critical of unsolicited messages, links, and attachments.
- Email archiving – This feature helps you comply with email retention policies and safely archive important emails to Barracuda’s secure cloud data centres.
- Cloud-to-cloud backups – Barracuda stores Microsoft 365 data in multiple cloud servers and offers point-in-time recovery in case of ransomware or other data loss incidents.
- Forensics and incident response – These automated functions allow you to search delivered email (by sender or subject) across user inboxes and remove all malicious emails. Barracuda then identifies users who interacted with fraudulent emails and delivers instructions to mitigate the damage of the attack. For example, users may be prompted to change their passwords, scan their systems for malware, and report the breach to affected parties.
Mimecast
Mimecast is a cloud-based email security platform that’s designed for large enterprises. At premium price points, it offers multiple detection engines and threat intelligence capabilities to reduce email security risks. Mimecast boasts many of the same features as Barracuda like:
- Gateway security – Mimecast blocks malicious emails from reaching your email system and prevents sensitive information from falling into the wrong hands with outbound filtering.
- URL protection – Filtering technology protects users from clicking on dangerous links by checking for spoofed website addresses and validating the real destination of the link. It even generates an automated warning for users before they click on an unverified link.
- Email attachment analysis – This utilises sandboxing techniques to assess the true nature of an email attachment before users download it.
- Threat remediation – This feature searches for suspicious emails in your company’s network and removes messages that pose a risk. Mimecast is powered by the latest intelligence databases so it can catch threats that slip through inbound email filters.
- Awareness training – This helps people recognise phishing scams through custom training videos, gamified courses, and testing. Mimecast dashboards give you direct feedback on awareness levels, and which employees need more training.
- Real-time threat intelligence – Mimecast produces insights into types of attacks targeting your organisation and which employees are most susceptible to scams. Mimecast also scores your overall email security level and benchmarks it against other businesses in your area.
Weighing the options
While both Barracuda and Mimecast are perfectly viable options, the former outmatches the latter in certain areas. Barracuda Total Email Protection offers unparalleled security with AI-enhanced threat detection, account hijacking prevention, incident response, and forensics capabilities. Plus, compared to Mimecast, Barracuda’s security training and simulation features are much more effective at preparing employees for various threats.
Barracuda is also generally easier to set up and use, thanks to its intuitive interface. In contrast, Mimecast is built for large enterprises, so deployment and initial configurations tend to be more complex overall.
Finally, it’s worth noting that Mimecast charges extra to add important features like compliance management, email continuity, and encryption. If your business is running on a tight budget, Mimecast may not be a good fit for you.
Choosing an email security platform for your business is not a decision you can take lightly. If you’re still unsure about Barracuda or Mimecast, consult with the cybersecurity experts at Empower IT. We’ll take the time to understand your company’s budget and potential vulnerabilities, and recommend a security solution that works for you. Get in touch with us today so you can keep your email systems safe and sound.
