My main use case for Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration is to address email threats. It has been effective for our organization by stopping many different kinds of threats, including phishing attacks and ransomware attacks. I am impressed by its AI capabilities because different AI capabilities are incorporated in Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration. It has been very effective for us, especially when an attacker tries to use AI in their email attack. Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration has been effective in stopping those kinds of alerts and giving us insights about what is happening in an email alert. The AI features in email security within Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration have been particularly effective for us.
Harmony Email & Collaboration (Avanan)
Check Point Software TechnologiesExternal reviews
External reviews are not included in the AWS star rating for the product.
Check Point's Impact: Exceptional Email Filtering and Support
Harmony Email & Collaboration Powerful Collaboration Suite
Email security effectively detects a wide range of threats and improves productivity
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
Regarding specific incidents where Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration's AI features stopped threats, we receive notifications whenever there is a new alert through email to the admin. Whenever there is an alert, we go to the dashboard to check what kind of alerts it has and proceed with the investigation. The system has a very nice dashboard with a clear layout when investigating incidents, showing email profiles and attack types. In the relationship section, it shows different AI indicators that confirm why a threat was stopped and what AI features are at play, indicating AI threats evident in the email. This helps us during investigations as it is easy to see different indicators and decide whether a threat requires quarantine or whether it's a true positive or false positive.
The first standout feature is that it's an API-based email security solution. It took us hardly half a day to get it deployed and set up, compared to other email securities such as Barracuda Email Security which takes days to fully deploy due to inbound and outbound connector setup requirements. Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration was protecting our incoming, outgoing, and internal emails within half a day of deployment. Another impressive feature is that it offers API-based inline protection, unlike Trend Micro Email Security which wasn't inline, meaning emails would first go to the inbox before being removed if threats were found.
The incorporated AI capabilities are particularly notable, functioning as AI versus AI. It has protected us from various threats and has a nice dashboard that shows if anything is missed by MS 365. For instance, last week we received an email flagged as safe by Microsoft, but Check Point flagged it. Upon investigation, we found it had a malicious attachment, and Check Point provided a full report highlighting the malicious indicators.
The positive impact includes a clear reduction in threats and improved detection capabilities. The dashboard is impressive, neat, and clean, showing all information about threats on the initial landing page. The analytics are very good, particularly the ability to identify real source IPs, which was a distinguishing factor from Trend Micro.
The URL emulation and real-time on-click protection are impressive features. When we receive a malicious document, it can sanitize the document by removing malicious elements while maintaining benign content. The user-to-admin interaction feature for managing quarantined emails is also noteworthy. We utilize analytics to generate reports, helping us pinpoint types of threats and their origin, which has been instrumental in implementing targeted training programs.
What needs improvement?
Since we have been using Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration for a year, we haven't encountered significant challenges. However, it would be beneficial if it could support other email security services beyond Microsoft and Google. Integration with other platforms would enhance its appeal since the features are commendable.
While the analytics are commendable, they don't provide deep dive insights. They show the overall counts of malware, phishing, and business compromise emails, but there isn't a robust ability to dive deeper into those categories to see specifics. Analytics should allow us to explore which users received malware emails the most or trends among departments. Currently, we have to sift through manually, which is not ideal. A more profound analytical capability would elevate the tool to become the complete email security solution for any user.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration for almost a year.
How are customer service and support?
We have used their support and rate it highly. We opted for the 24/7 premium support, which is very responsive and quick whenever we have configuration challenges or other inquiries.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously used Barracuda and decided to switch to Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration because Barracuda was unable to detect a range of threats that we can now identify thanks to Check Point's capabilities. The switch was primarily due to Check Point's API-based email security, which stood out during our evaluation.
How was the initial setup?
Deployment of Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration was genuinely impressive and easy. You just needed the Microsoft admin credentials to set it up. After providing those credentials, you receive the options for automatic or manual deployment. When we chose automatic deployment, everything was successfully set up in about 10 to 15 minutes, followed by the application of default policies. Deployment was actually really straightforward for us.
After deployment, the configuration process was not challenging at all. We did not encounter any issues. The primary thing we had to do was change the default policy from detection mode to prevention mode after a few days. Initially, it only detected issues, but per guidance from Check Point and based on best practice documents, we switched to prevention mode. Moving to that mode was easy, and we quickly began seeing emails being quarantined and prevented, making the process quite smooth.
What about the implementation team?
We have not faced any challenges integrating it with syslog and other services. The integration experience has been very good and seamless.
What was our ROI?
We have seen a clear return on investment. The time saved during investigations is significant due to the neat dashboard that organizes everything related to alerts. It doesn't require many people to investigate alerts effectively.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Regarding pricing, setup cost, and licensing, I found it competitive. Check Point provided discounts, making the pricing reasonable with respect to the features they offer. The pricing is very justifiable, neither exceptionally high nor exceedingly low.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before choosing Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration, we evaluated Trend Micro email security, but faced several challenges, such as an inability to support email banners and provide real source IP addresses, which we found lacking. Ultimately, we found that Check Point offered far better features, is stable and scalable.
What other advice do I have?
My advice to others considering Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration is straightforward. If you're looking for email security that is easy to deploy without disrupting your production environment, this is a great choice. With traditional gateway-based email security, you often have to deal with changing MX records and setting up various connectors, which can be a cumbersome process for administrators. This isn't an issue with Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration. In just about 10 minutes, one can set it up and get going with the required administrative credentials. Besides ease of deployment, it also offers a range of features that enable detection of malware, phishing attacks, business compromise emails, and other email threats effectively. It has been a very capable solution, and I haven't faced any challenges concerning threats after nearly a year of usage. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration a nine because it satisfies all our requirements. The tool has effectively triggered various threats, which has increased our productivity in areas such as investigation, threat detection, and analytics. The user interaction has also improved, yielding benefits that contribute to a very valuable package for us.
Improved email security and user awareness reduce data breaches significantly
What is our primary use case?
The main use case for Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration is addressing numerous issues my customer faced with phishing emails and malware that was pushed into their system. They were using Microsoft Defender as a standard security for their email services, so they wanted to implement a more focused solution for Email Security.
What is most valuable?
When Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration was chosen, the specific features that stood out to my customer were the integration of solutions with Office 365 as email service wherein Check Point excelled. They have a very tight integration with Microsoft Office 365.
The customer ended up purchasing just the email component initially. The comprehensive and unified protection across users, devices and applications under various parameters is entirely a USP for Check Point Solution. Apart from the standard security such as email security, endpoint security, browser security, mobility security and the enhanced visibility of the solution in a single pane of glass through a unified portal, these are the basic features. What stood out was where the solution excels in providing customer reports of users sending mails to non-domain email addresses, which was showcased during POC.
Reporting on users sending emails to non-domain email addresses helped the customer because they were unable to stop emails going to non-domain due to their business requirements. They had many vendors using non-domain specific Email IDs such as gmail.com or hotmail.com, which they couldn't block. Instead of blocking, they wanted to monitor people sending emails to non-domain email aliases. There had been cases of data breaches where customer users were sending IP data to users outside the organization. The customer wanted intervention, and if they couldn't block this practice, they wanted something that could be monitored by the IT team.
They formed a group of three people wherein all emails sent to non-domain specific email addresses were reported weekly, later changing to daily reports. This allowed them to clearly pinpoint how many users were sending out emails and identify clear offenders of sending print emails, even after being advised not to.
The measurable reduction in risky email behavior improved once users realized there was a system in place. During POC, they discovered some malware that was pushed to their system to check the solution's efficacy. These files passed through Defender but were caught by Check Point Solution, demonstrating the efficiency of Check Point Harmony Email Security.
Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration has positively impacted my customer's organization overall because once the system was implemented, there was a proper reduction in the number of data breaches and phishing emails.
What needs improvement?
I don't see any incoming pain points regarding Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration. It has been a leader in Magic Quadrant already for 24 and comes from Check Point, a well-known vendor loved among tech people. For tech people who want to dive deep into self-servicing capabilities, Check Point could improve in this area. In terms of user experience, it has limited self-servicing capabilities for end users. A bit more customization would be great as.
For how long have I used the solution?
My customer has been using Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration for one year now.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration is stable in my customer's environment with no downtime or reliability issues. When the demo POC was set up, most of the solution took place. Once the order was approved and the licenses were delivered, we only needed to upload those licenses into the customer's admin account, as all the policies and other configurations were already in the system.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration is fully scalable. This is the first year, so there haven't been many additional users. We are looking forward to the next year when the renewal comes up. The product grows with the company and the organization structure.
How are customer service and support?
Customer support for Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration has been excellent. We were able to fine-tune most of the queries the customer had without requiring Check Point vendor support. There have been no bugs or formal issues needing vendor support. Check Point has everything in place according to standard policy, including email, phone support, text support, and community support from fellow users. The product has been running smoothly and reliably, so the customer hasn't required any support.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Before Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration, my customer was only using Microsoft Defender.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup with Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration was straightforward since the customer was well aware of the use cases. We simply needed to fulfill those use cases, which was done easily with documents available in communities and community pages, along with clearly defined documentation on how to address common problems in the system.
What was our ROI?
There has been a 70% decrease in phishing emails and data breaches since implementing Check Point Harmony Email Security.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing, setup costs, and licensing were competitive and clear for my customer. Everything was well defined with proper SKUs, starting with all the modules they were looking for, including Check Point Email and a web solution.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
My customer evaluated Barracuda and Cisco IronPort before choosing Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration.
What other advice do I have?
Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration integrates seamlessly with other cloud services my customer uses, especially with Microsoft O365.
The metering and billing experience was transparent and easy to manage with an annual contract structure.
The procurement process was straightforward. After the joint meeting with IT and procurement teams, a consensus was reached among the Check Point call manager, myself, and the customer stakeholder. Price negotiation was completed in a single day, and the PO was released within a week.
My advice to others considering Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration is to have a clear understanding of their requirements. The solution offers numerous services, so potential users should have their use cases prepared. They should conduct a pilot project, demo, or POC aligned with those use cases to determine which services they require. While the tools are managed through a single console, they are priced separately, and advanced features could be costly.
I rate Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration 10 out of 10 due to its ease of installation, solution capabilities, integration with other solutions, and Check Point's leading support in Cyber Security. The tool provides an extra layer of security to endpoints and offers proactive protection from cyber threats.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
cloud based email security and collaboration protection solution
and also the learning curve for the beginner is not straight forward
AI-driven email protection boosts threat detection and operational efficiency
What is our primary use case?
My main use case for Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration involves protecting against email threats that are present in the current landscape, and it has been effective for our organization, stopping many different kinds of threats for us, including phishing attacks and ransomware attacks, and this effectiveness has made me particularly impressed by the AI capabilities because it helps stop AI-driven email attacks and provides insights about alerts.
Regarding a specific incident where Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration's AI features stopped a threat, we receive most alerts via email notifications to the admin, and whenever there is an alert, we check the dashboard to investigate. The dashboard presents various kinds of threats and AI indicators that confirm why threats were stopped, allowing us to easily determine whether to quarantine an email based on its classification as a true positive or false positive.
One specific example of a threat caught recently involved an email that was triggered safe by Microsoft, but Check Point triggered an alert because it contained a malicious attachment, which we confirmed through the report that showed the indicators of the threat.
How has it helped my organization?
Checkpoint Harmony email and collaboration has significantly improved our email security by effectively blocking phishing, malware and ransomware threats. With the implementation of checkpoint harmony email and collaboration we are not able to detect many kinds of threats which we were lacking in earlier email security solution. Its seamless integration with microsoft 365 environment and offers real-time threat intelligence, helping our IT teams to detect and respond to incidents faster. We are also benefitting from the centralized management console that has improved visibility and made it easier to enforce consistent policies.
What is most valuable?
The best features of Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration that stand out to me include its API-based email security, which allowed us to deploy it quickly compared to Barracuda, and its ability to protect not just incoming and outgoing emails but also internal emails.
The positive impact of Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration on our organization includes a noticeable reduction in threats, as we are now able to detect different kinds of threats that we could not before, alongside an impressive dashboard that provides analytics on phishing emails and malware threats, which helps us understand what alerts we could have missed without this solution.
What needs improvement?
While checkpoint Harmony Email and collaboration offers useful analytics, there is potential for improvement in providing deeper insights. More granular , detailed analytics on email traffics, threat patterns, and user behavior would help our team better understand risks and make informed decisions. Additionally, enhancing reporting capabilities with customizable and advanced analytics feature would greatly improve our ability to detect trends and proactivly address emerging threats. There improvements would offer a clearer, more comprehensive view of our email security landscape.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration for almost a year now.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously used Barracuda, which could not detect several threats, prompting us to switch to Harmony Email & Collaboration for its improved capabilities.
What was our ROI?
We have seen a return on investment with Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration because the investigation process is streamlined with a clean dashboard that saves us time in alert investigations.
What other advice do I have?
My advice for others looking into Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration is to opt for this solution if you seek email security that is not hard to deploy, as it simplifies the process compared to other gateway-based products, allowing you to get started quickly with just the admin credentials of your email service while offering a robust set of features to detect various types of email threats. I rate this solution nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Checkpoint Harmony: Protecting Emails beyond the Providers
User-friendly portal protects applications and emails efficiently
How has it helped my organization?
What is most valuable?
What needs improvement?
For how long have I used the solution?
What other advice do I have?
Boosting email protection with checkpoint harmony email and collaboration.
AI-driven email protection secures data and prevents threats with seamless integration