Best Phishing Protection Tools

Detect and eliminate threats delivered to your business inboxes before they reach you with these phishing protection tools.

One of the most insecure outlets for your entire network is your business email. It provides an almost completely open-ended chasm directly to your end users, with the capability to share malicious files and content with limited oversight. The truth remains that email is an old method of communicating information, and has all the trappings of an older technology that has been perpetually dragged forward as the rest of the information technology industry moves forwards. Regardless, it’s here to stay, so you need a solution to secure your email—not just from outside threats, but it is equally important to protect your end users from themselves.

Here is our list of the best phishing protection tools:

  1. Guardz – EDITOR’S CHOICE This platform of security monitoring services includes an email scanner that detects phishing attempts as well as spam, malware, and impersonation scams with automated responses, activity logging, and threat analysis utilities. Get a 14-day free trial.
  2. Trustifi While safeguarding your email traffic from BEC attacks, Trustifi effectively identifies infections that transmit malware and ransomware and alters authorized technicians through a first-rate notification system.
  3. Avanan The Avanan Cloud Security Platform offers one of the most complete cloud-based email security solutions on the market thanks to its strong defense capabilities, assuring the security and compliance of your network’s whole email infrastructure.
  4. Abnormal Security Abnormal searches for deviations from the usual by analyzing a wide range of data and creating profiles of recognized acceptable behavior in your surroundings.
  5. Barracuda Sentinel By using a cutting-edge API-based architecture, Barracuda Sentinel’s AI engine can examine past emails and identify users’ unique communication preferences.
  6. BrandShield One such product, BrandShield’s powerful phishing prevention solution, is one of a handful of specialist security solutions that are focused on safeguarding the identity of your company and its personnel.
  7. Proofpoint Essentials A multi-layered anti-virus, anti-spam, and phishing detection engine from Proofpoint offer complete protection against threats sent via email.

Since you’re reading this article, you are probably at the absolute minimum technologically savvy enough to recognize a phishing email as it hits your inbox. However, you might not be familiar with more advanced threats such as ‘spear phishing’—which is the act of using trusted senders to target your business with legitimate-seeming phishing attempts. Your end users are also likely not as technologically aware of phishing attempts, and even with education, phishing scams can still threaten your business.

One of the best methods of securing your email infrastructure is by integrating a phishing protection tool into your environment. These tools integrate with your system typically via a pre-established setup for platforms like Office 365 or Google Workspace; or through an API with flexible integration options for your custom email system.

Phishing protection tools then employ a variety of systems to prevent your end users from falling prey to phishing scams. The most fundamental function they provide is simply scanning your inbound and outbound emails for malicious content, such as predatory URLs or malware attachments. Other features might include phishing simulations, which send fake phishing scams to your end users to test their understanding of email security—a helpful tool in educating your users on the risks posed by email communication.

The best phishing protection tools

1. Guardz (FREE TRIAL)

Guardz Email Security Software

Guardz is a cloud platform that provides security scanning and automated responses. It covers endpoints, cloud data accounts, and email systems. provides email security monitoring as part of a platform of system-wide security tools. The email security service is able to identify phishing attempts and remove them from user mailboxes to a quarantine area. The tool is also a spam blocker and it will detect impersonation attempts. The service also scans attachments and removes emails that are carrying malware.

Key Features

  • Email scanner
  • Cloud-based
  • For Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace
  • Phishing simulator
  • Dark Web scanner

The email scanner operates as a plug-in for Outlook and Gmail. These two systems are part of Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace. Guardz also protects the cloud drive services that are associated with those two suites: OneDrive and Google Drive. The package also protects endpoints by detecting manual intrusion and malware.

Guardz scans each email as it arrives and if malicious content is detected, that mail is moved to a quarantine area. The udder never even knows about the attempted attack. The system administrator gets an alert in the management dashboard for Guardz and can go and inspect the quarantined emails and decide whether or not the algorithm correctly identified each as a threat. Incorrectly classified emails can be restored to the inboxes of their intended recipients.

The Guardz system is intended for use by managed services to operate on the email systems of their clients. The package also includes a phishing simulator for testing and all plans get access to an employee awareness training library at no extra cost. Plans are priced per user and there is a managed security service option available. You can investigate Guardz with a  14-day free trial.

EDITOR'S CHOICE

Guardz is our top pick for phishing protection software because it also blocks spam and identifies business email compromise (BEC) attacks. The service scans attachments and quarantines malware. The remediation actions of the package kick in automatically, so the system requires very little manual intervention. There is no minimum team size for a Guardz account, so the system can cater to any type and size of business. The full Guardz package also protects endpoints and cloud drives. The plans include Dark web scanning to detect compromised email addresses, a phishing simulator, and a library of security awareness training videos.

Official Site: https://guardz.com/free_trial

OS: Cloud-based

2. Trustifi

Trustifi

Trustifi robustly detects viruses that spread malware and ransomware, while protecting your email traffic from BEC attacks, and altering authorized technicians through an excellent notification system. The system includes options for whitelisting and blacklisting for better overall protection. General options such as integrated spam filtering, spoofing, phishing, and fraud detection, vastly improve your network security. The Inbound Shield employs specialized AI and several dynamic and comprehensive engines to safeguard your inbox against harmful links and attachments.

Key Features

  • Malware and ransomware detection
  • Email encryption
  • White/blacklisting tools
  • AI-driven safeguarding
  • Compliance assurance

Trustifi also includes several data-loss prevention tools such as real-time information on email delivery, opening, and reading times with tracking and certified delivery. You can enforce system-wide two-factor authentication for all of your users, or group-specific user groups to dedicate security options for better system verification. The system ensures apt cooperation with compliance standards such as HIPAA/ HITECH, PII, GDPR, FSA, FINRA, LGPD, and CCPA.

Included email encryption in addition to comprehensive DLP with an advanced rules engine to accommodate any use case means you can be certain in the protection of your internal and external email traffic. The system also includes secure mobile relays for whole-device protection, while granting you the ability to recall, block, alter, and establish customized expiration dates for emails.

There’s no trial available for the product, but you can request a demo of the platform for a better insight into the precise inner workings of the system. Trustifi is designed to easily integrate with Office 365 or Google Workspace but includes a full integration API to facilitate a variety of email systems. For pricing, you can contact Trustifi directly to get a personalized price quote based on your exact business requirements.

3. Avanan

Avanan email gateway dashboard

With in-depth defense capabilities, the Avanan Cloud Security Platform provides one of the most comprehensive cloud-based email security solutions on the market, ensuring the safety and compliance of your network’s entire email infrastructure. Through the detect and protect mode, deploy a cutting-edge security stack, which provides an automated policy action to quarantine malware, phishing assaults, etc. To keep any emails or attachments that are quarantined during the scanning process by policy or via human actions, you can set up a dedicated quarantine mailbox.

Key Features

  • Security workflows
  • Detect and Prevent system
  • Quarantine Mailbox
  • In-depth alerting
  • Distinct user policies

Three distinct workflows are offered through the system to manage malware and anti-phishing attacks entirely within the platform. After an email is delivered to the user, the ‘Detect and Prevent’ system scans it and mitigates any issues before delivery is completed. This system ensures that your end users are never exposed to potential malicious threats.

Avanan has a 14-day free trial of their services which you can use to test out the features, such as the customizable security workflows and fast deployment. The full solution is divided into three separate SaaS models with varying features and costs.

The basic Protect package comes with all the basic features and costs $4.30 per user/month; the Advanced Protect package comes with file sandboxing to protect from zero-day malware exploits and costs $5.50 per user/month. Finally, the Complete Protection package adds encryption and data-loss prevention, which might be necessary features for certain compliance requirements—it costs $7.20 per user/month.

4. Abnormal Security

Abnormal Security

Abnormal works by analyzing a vast array of data and builds profiles of recognized acceptable behavior in your environment to look for deviations from the norm. The system is designed to quickly and without interrupting mail flow integrate with Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace. After integration, Abnormal creates automatic profiles of your employees to create baselines and secure your business, and get you running quickly. All the vendors in your ecosystem are automatically identified by the platform so that you may determine each one’s level of risk.

Key Features

  • Behavioral analysis
  • Broad integrations
  • API deployment
  • Email automation
  • In-depth reporting

Abnormal can identify situations where a vendor may pose a significant risk of fraud, indicating when an email should be thoroughly checked for signs of malicious behavior. For both Microsoft and Google environments, Abnormal centralizes data, insights, actions, and the maintenance of global block lists in one location, across hundreds of tenants. Abnormal’s behavioral analysis systems can also work for its users, and as users transfer emails between folders in their mailbox, the software learns their preferences.

Abnormal is a SaaS platform built for scalability and flexible distribution, you can also integrate the solution directly through Microsoft’s Azure marketplace. While there is no available free trial or publicly listed pricing, you can contact Abnormal directly to arrange a demo and receive a personalized quote on your business price.

5. Barracuda Sentinel

Barracuda Sentinel

The company employs an innovative API-based architecture that enables its AI engine to analyze previous emails and discover users’ distinctive communication styles. Additionally, the system is designed to thwart phishing attempts that gather login information for account takeover. It discovers and deletes all fraudulent emails sent from compromised accounts after detecting aberrant email behavior and notifying IT. To uncover and stop socially engineered assaults in real-time, it can then detect irregularities in communication metadata and content.

Key Features

  • AI-Driven Behavior analysis
  • Account Takeover Protection
  • Domain Fraud Protection
  • Detailed reporting
  • API-based Architecture

DMARC authentication is set up with the aid of Barracuda Sentinel, which provides you with the ability to see and analyze reports at a granular level to help you reduce false positives, safeguard valid emails, and stop spoofing. In the multi-layered email protection system Barracuda Total Email Protection, Sentinel offers AI-based defense against spear phishing, account takeover, and compromised corporate emails.

Barracuda Sentinel can be purchased on a license basis from any number of partnered stores. Each license costs around $3.99 per user per month, but costs will change based on where you purchase the licenses from. The solution is designed to work alongside any email solution but is specially built for Office 365 environments, and will be easily integrated into your Microsoft email suite through pre-established plugins. Other email solutions are accessible through the flexible API.

6. BrandShield

BrandShield

BrandShield comes equipped with several specialized security tools that are focused on protecting the identity of your business and its employees—one such tool is their robust phishing protection solution. By monitoring the Internet, including social media, to find phishing sites and pages, impersonation, and online fraud, BrandShield offers a comprehensive digital threat map. You can also access the takedown services from the system’s inbuilt threat dashboard, which can swiftly identify and eliminate threats to your business.

Key Features

  • Advanced Anti-Phishing
  • Identity theft protection
  • Social Media protection
  • Anti-Counterfeiting
  • Brand Protection

The system provides you with the means to maintain control by providing regular updates on your enforcement actions and takedowns. Additionally, innovative tools like the website duplication detector, automated takedown notices, blacklists, and more are part of the anti-phishing solution. The platform also includes modernized systems, such as the ability to monitor popular social media sites for executive impersonation efforts and phishing scams that could expose members of your organization.

You can request a demo of the product from BrandShield directly, which also includes an online threat map of your current outward-facing business identity—this makes requesting the demo worthwhile even with no intentions of getting the product. For pricing on the full product, you’ll need to contact the company directly for a personalized quote on pricing.

7. Proofpoint Essentials

Proofpoint Email Protection dashboard

Proofpoint provides a multi-layered anti-virus, anti-spam, and phishing detection engine that provides a comprehensive defense against threats delivered via email. The system’s powerful AI-driven detection engines scan every one of your emails, and all known viruses are precisely and successfully captured and quarantined. Proofpoint provides reliable heuristics screening for even better defense, which identifies unknown email threats and aids in your immediate protection from them.

Key Features

  • Fully integrated AI-driven solution
  • URL and attachment scanning
  • Targeted attack protection
  • Malware quarantine
  • Simulated phishing

The system provides you with a cutting-edge system interface that helps with the comprehension of your overall threat scenario. Using the system, you can also quickly access a thorough breakdown of particular threat categories and attack frequency, which equips you with all the knowledge and resources necessary to make wise security decisions. To assist safeguard your staff, the system employs targeted attack protection, with a premier email analysis solution. With the aid of this innovative technology, you may analyze URLs and attachments through sandboxing.

Proofpoint provides a 30-day trial upon request that begins with a meeting with one of their cybersecurity experts, followed by them deploying the system to your infrastructure within 24 hours. The Essentials package is divided into four separate tiers for the email security package, with the most basic Beginner package costing $1.65 per user per month. More advanced tiers increase the cost but exponentially add more features to their included package.