How Avanan Stacks Up

Robbie Elliott is Check Point's Head of Engineering, US West.

A CISO recently asked this question:

Can you please let me know how Avanan, Ironscales, Tessian and other ICES solutions stack up integrating with Microsoft 365?

Response:

SEG = Proofpoint, Mimecast, Barracuda, Cisco, etc…

Non-SEG / API-based solutions = IronScales, Perception Point, Abnormal, Tessian, etc…  Gartner refers to these as Integrated Cloud Email Security (ICES) solutions.

And then there’s Avanan…

This image says a lot.

Avanan has multiple patents, but one of them allows for pre-delivery prevention of phishing.  This patent allows Avanan to sit inline via API at the last point before the mail hits the O365 or G-Suite inbox.  This allows Avanan to be the last line of defense for email-based attacks.  All other inline solutions require the MX record to be modified so the email is sent to them first.  Avanan sits inline without modification of the MX record.  This is a huge differentiator for Avanan!

Compared to other API driven email security solutions, Avanan stands out as the only non-gateway solution capable of pre-delivery protection, stopping all threats before the end-user inbox. Competitor non-SEG platforms in the category of Integrated Cloud Email Solutions (ICES) tools are only able to retract threats after they are delivered to the inbox. Delays in API calls can be minutes where end users are left exposed to phishing and malware attacks while waiting for these solutions to retract the malicious emails.

According to the Verizon Data Breach Investigative Report, the median time for the first user of a phishing campaign to open a malicious email is just one minute and 40 seconds. Wouldn't you rather just not let the malicious email arrive in the inbox to begin with?

Along the same lines, Avanan can inspect and sanitize INTERNAL email traffic, not only email flowing in and out of the organization, BEFORE it reaches the inbox.

Now that Avanan is part of Check Point, there are two additional components that no other SEG or Non-SEG solution can compete with.

• Sandblast zero-day threat prevention is included by default.  This provides best-in-class threat prevention.  Avanan customers could always purchase the Sandblast plugin for Avanan for an additional charge, but now it is included at no additional charge.
• Check Point’s ThreatCloud Big Data Threat Intelligence platform is included by default.  ThreatCloud has millions and millions of enterprise and consumer endpoints, hundreds of thousands of networks, clouds, third-party feeds, and more. This program does 86 billion transactions daily, all ensuring the safety of Avanan customers globally.

One of my Avanan customers said this about Avanan’s ability to eradicate phishing in their environment…  “We don’t get phishing emails anymore so we can focus on other priorities.”

In summary, Avanan's patented approach to protect end-user inboxes provides multiple layers of pre-delivery protection while maintaining the crucial capability of post-delivery detection and auto-remediation, coupled with the integration of the world’s most effective zero-day threat prevention solution and blanketed by one of the world’s largest threat intelligence platforms.  This is what makes Avanan the most comprehensive email security platform available today.

For a more detailed feature comparison against all SEGs and Non-SEGs, including Microsoft ATP please visit this link.