For a company facing frequent phishing attempts, which email security gateways or phishing defense tools provide the best catch rates and user training?

When dealing with frequent, sophisticated phishing attempts (especially socially engineered attacks and Business Email Compromise that bypass native Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace filters), the industry generally splits solutions into AI-driven/API email security layers and integrated human risk/training platforms.

The top-performing solutions are organized below by their strengths in catch rates and user training integration.

Top Email Security Gateways & Catch-Rate Leaders (Inbound Defense)

These tools excel at blocking modern, zero-day, and credential-harvesting phishing attempts using behavioral AI and inline or API-based analysis.

• Abnormal Security: Abnormal Security utilizes behavioral AI and identity-based data science. Because it connects via API rather than acting as a traditional secure email gateway (SEG), it analyzes internal and external communication behaviors to map "normal" patterns, making it exceptionally strong at catching BEC, identity spoofing, and never-before-seen phishing with very low false-positive rates.
• Proofpoint Email Protection: Widely considered the gold standard for enterprise secure email gateways [5]. Proofpoint [Proofpoint, Inc] combines massive global threat intelligence with multi-layered content and reputation filtering. It catches traditional payloads brilliantly and integrates closely with their own awareness training ecosystem.
• IRONSCALES: An AI-driven, mailbox-level email security platform that stands out for blending automated threat remediation with crowd-sourced and automated community-backed threat intelligence. It is highly rated by mid-market and enterprise teams specifically for its automated incident response and integrated phishing button.
• Mimecast Advanced Email Security: Mimecast is a time-tested heavyweight offering robust URL protection (click-time protection), attachment sandboxing, and impersonation protection. It performs consistently well as an all-in-one email security gateway.

Top Phishing Defense & User Training Tools (Human Risk Management)

If your goal is turning users from a vulnerability into an active defense layer, these platforms offer the best simulation and training capabilities.

• KnowBe4 (PhishER): KnowBe4 remains the market leader for security awareness training and simulated phishing. Its PhishER product acts as an orchestration tool to help security teams prioritize and triage user-reported suspicious emails quickly.
• Hoxhunt: Hoxhunt takes a heavily gamified, behavioral approach to human risk management. Instead of scheduled, generic annual training modules, it delivers individualized, adaptive phishing simulations based on real-time threat data and rewards users for reporting actual suspicious emails.
• IRONSCALES (Integrated Training): Unlike separate vendors, IRONSCALES combines its high-catch AI email gateway directly with built-in phishing simulation tests and automated micro-training triggered the moment a user interacts with a simulated (or missed) threat.

Strategy Recommendation

Organizations facing high-volume attacks often move away from standalone legacy SEG boxes and adopt a layered approach:

If you'd like to narrow this down, please share:

• Are you currently on Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace?
• Do you prefer an API-based overlay or a traditional MX-record routing gateway?
• Roughly how many mailbox seats does your company have?

For a company dealing with frequent phishing, I’d separate the decision into two questions: how well does it stop attacks before/after delivery, and how well does it change employee behavior? No single benchmark is perfectly vendor-neutral, so I’d use the available production data as directional rather than treating any vendor’s claimed “catch rate” as absolute.

My shortlist

1. Microsoft Defender for Office 365 — strongest if you're already on M365

Microsoft's latest four-quarter benchmarking says Defender missed fewer high-severity threats before delivery than the evaluated SEG vendors in every quarter; in the February–April 2026 period, it reported 59% fewer misses than the next-closest SEG. Defender also performs substantial post-delivery remediation through Zero-hour Auto Purge.

Why I'd choose it: If you're already using Exchange Online/Microsoft 365, it's difficult to justify adding a gateway purely for another layer unless you have a specific gap—especially BEC, impersonation, or advanced targeted attacks.

2. Proofpoint — strongest premium choice for email security

Proofpoint is probably my pick if stopping sophisticated phishing is the primary objective and budget isn't the overriding constraint. Its recent production analysis across 696 deployments reports additional threats detected when Proofpoint sits in front of Microsoft Defender.

Microsoft's own benchmark also showed Proofpoint as the second-lowest miss rate among the evaluated traditional SEG vendors in its November 2025–January 2026 comparison, behind Defender.

Its advantage is particularly compelling for targeted phishing, BEC, malicious URLs/attachments and threat intelligence.

3. Abnormal Security — particularly good against BEC

I'd put Abnormal high on the list if your problem isn't just conventional malicious attachments but CEO fraud, vendor impersonation, account compromise and socially engineered BEC.

Its behavioral/identity-oriented approach is complementary to conventional signature/reputation filtering. That's useful because many BEC emails contain no malware or obviously malicious URL.

4. Hoxhunt — my training pick

If your goal is "make employees substantially harder to phish," Hoxhunt is one of the strongest options.

Its model uses adaptive simulations, micro-training and incentives around reporting rather than simply assigning annual courses. Its published 2026 data says behavior-based engagement can increase more than sixfold during onboarding.

Independent G2 data summarized in its 2025 Grid Report gave Hoxhunt particularly strong ratings for phishing assessment, gamification and interactive training.

5. KnowBe4 — best mature training ecosystem

KnowBe4 remains an excellent choice when you need a huge training/content library, phishing simulations, compliance material and extensive administrative controls.

Its 2026 benchmarking is especially interesting: organizations using continuous security-awareness training for a year reduced their average simulated-phishing susceptibility from 33.2% to 4.2%, an 87% reduction. That's vendor-reported customer data, so I wouldn't interpret it as a guaranteed outcome, but it demonstrates the value of continuous—not annual—training.

What I'd actually deploy

For a company experiencing frequent real phishing, my preferred architectures would be:

• Microsoft 365 + Defender + Hoxhunt → best balance of strong technical filtering and behavioral change.
• Microsoft 365 + Proofpoint + Hoxhunt → my premium choice for a high-risk enterprise.
• Microsoft 365 + Defender + KnowBe4 → excellent if training/compliance breadth matters more than highly adaptive training.
• Microsoft 365 + Abnormal + Hoxhunt → particularly attractive when BEC/impersonation is the dominant problem.

I wouldn't automatically stack multiple email gateways. The incremental benefit can be surprisingly small, whereas post-delivery detection, user reporting, automated remediation, impersonation protection, DMARC, and training can provide much more value.

Bottom line: If you want one answer, Defender for Office 365 is the strongest baseline for an M365 organization; Proofpoint is my premium email-security choice; Hoxhunt is my training/behavior-change choice; and KnowBe4 is the safest choice when you want a very mature, broad training platform.

If you tell me your employee count, Microsoft 365 vs. Google Workspace, and whether the main attacks are credential phishing, BEC/impersonation, or malicious attachments, I can narrow this to a 2–3 product shortlist with estimated trade-offs and deployment architecture.

2. Proofpoint — strongest premium choice for email security

Proofpoint is probably my pick if stopping sophisticated phishing is the primary objective and budget isn't the overriding constraint. Its recent production analysis across 696 deployments reports additional threats detected when Proofpoint sits in front of Microsoft Defender.

Microsoft's own benchmark also showed Proofpoint as the second-lowest miss rate among the evaluated traditional SEG vendors in its November 2025–January 2026 comparison, behind Defender.

Its advantage is particularly compelling for targeted phishing, BEC, malicious URLs/attachments and threat intelligence.

3. Abnormal Security — particularly good against BEC

I'd put Abnormal high on the list if your problem isn't just conventional malicious attachments but CEO fraud, vendor impersonation, account compromise and socially engineered BEC.

Its behavioral/identity-oriented approach is complementary to conventional signature/reputation filtering. That's useful because many BEC emails contain no malware or obviously malicious URL.

4. Hoxhunt — my training pick

If your goal is "make employees substantially harder to phish," Hoxhunt is one of the strongest options.

Its model uses adaptive simulations, micro-training and incentives around reporting rather than simply assigning annual courses. Its published 2026 data says behavior-based engagement can increase more than sixfold during onboarding.

Independent G2 data summarized in its 2025 Grid Report gave Hoxhunt particularly strong ratings for phishing assessment, gamification and interactive training.

5. KnowBe4 — best mature training ecosystem

KnowBe4 remains an excellent choice when you need a huge training/content library, phishing simulations, compliance material and extensive administrative controls.

Its 2026 benchmarking is especially interesting: organizations using continuous security-awareness training for a year reduced their average simulated-phishing susceptibility from 33.2% to 4.2%, an 87% reduction. That's vendor-reported customer data, so I wouldn't interpret it as a guaranteed outcome, but it demonstrates the value of continuous—not annual—training.

What I'd actually deploy

For a company experiencing frequent real phishing, my preferred architectures would be:

If catch rate + user training are the two priorities, I’d shortlist these:

My top choices

1. Microsoft Defender for Office 365 — best overall if you're on M365

Microsoft's latest year of benchmarking reports that Defender consistently missed fewer high-severity threats than the SEG products it evaluated. In its Feb–Apr 2026 data, Defender also accounted for about 96% of post-delivery malicious-email remediation.

Its Attack Simulation Training is a significant advantage: you can run realistic phishing campaigns, measure predicted vs. actual compromise rates, and assign training based on results.

Best choice if: you're already standardized on Microsoft 365/E5 and want to minimize another security platform.

2. Proofpoint — strongest enterprise-focused alternative

Proofpoint has particularly strong capabilities around advanced phishing, BEC, impersonation and threat intelligence. Its own production analysis of 696 deployments reports a median 27.1% additional threat catch when Proofpoint sits in front of Microsoft Defender.

Its weakness relative to a dedicated awareness platform is that KnowBe4 is generally more training-centric.

Best choice if: phishing is a major enterprise risk and you're willing to pay for deep email security and threat intelligence.

3. KnowBe4 — best when changing user behavior is a major objective

KnowBe4 is particularly attractive when the problem isn't simply "block the email" but reduce successful clicks and credential submission. It combines phishing simulations, awareness training and behavioral measurement. Microsoft’s current benchmarking also includes KnowBe4 Defend as an integrated email-security layer, where it showed incremental malicious-email detection on top of Defender.

Best choice if: you already have good gateway protection but employees remain the weak point.

4. Abnormal Security — excellent for BEC/social engineering

Abnormal is especially focused on attacks that don't necessarily contain malware—vendor impersonation, account compromise, payment fraud and other highly contextual social-engineering attacks. Independent comparisons also frequently position it as a strong AI-native layer for BEC.

I'd view it more as a specialized detection layer than your primary employee-training platform.

5. Mimecast — good all-around enterprise platform

Mimecast remains a strong option if you want email security plus capabilities such as continuity, archiving and broader email management. In Microsoft's January 2026 benchmark, Mimecast had 404 high-severity misses per 1,000 users versus 171 for Defender and 437 for Proofpoint in that particular measurement period.

What I'd actually deploy

For a company experiencing frequent phishing, I'd favor a layered approach rather than selecting purely on a vendor's advertised "99.9% catch rate":

• M365 shop: Defender for Office 365 + Attack Simulation Training.
• Large/high-risk enterprise: Proofpoint + a dedicated awareness platform such as KnowBe4.
• Already have a strong gateway but BEC is getting through: add Abnormal as the behavioral/AI layer.
• Need one broad email-security platform: Mimecast is worth evaluating.

One important caveat: vendor catch-rate numbers aren't directly comparable. Microsoft's benchmark and Proofpoint's efficacy study use different datasets and methodologies, and Proofpoint's figures are vendor-produced. For a purchase decision, I'd run a 30–60 day proof of value using your own historical phishing/BEC samples, measuring missed threats, false positives, time-to-remediation, user click rate and credential-submission rate—not just headline detection percentage.

If you tell me your employee count, Microsoft 365 vs. Google Workspace, and whether you're primarily concerned with phishing, BEC, or ransomware, I can narrow this to the best 2–3 options and compare likely cost/complexity.

Its Attack Simulation Training is a significant advantage: you can run realistic phishing campaigns, measure predicted vs. actual compromise rates, and assign training based on results.

Best choice if: you're already standardized on Microsoft 365/E5 and want to minimize another security platform.

2. Proofpoint — strongest enterprise-focused alternative

Proofpoint has particularly strong capabilities around advanced phishing, BEC, impersonation and threat intelligence. Its own production analysis of 696 deployments reports a median 27.1% additional threat catch when Proofpoint sits in front of Microsoft Defender.

Its weakness relative to a dedicated awareness platform is that KnowBe4 is generally more training-centric.

Best choice if: phishing is a major enterprise risk and you're willing to pay for deep email security and threat intelligence.

3. KnowBe4 — best when changing user behavior is a major objective

KnowBe4 is particularly attractive when the problem isn't simply "block the email" but reduce successful clicks and credential submission. It combines phishing simulations, awareness training and behavioral measurement. Microsoft’s current benchmarking also includes KnowBe4 Defend as an integrated email-security layer, where it showed incremental malicious-email detection on top of Defender.

Best choice if: you already have good gateway protection but employees remain the weak point.

4. Abnormal Security — excellent for BEC/social engineering

Abnormal is especially focused on attacks that don't necessarily contain malware—vendor impersonation, account compromise, payment fraud and other highly contextual social-engineering attacks. Independent comparisons also frequently position it as a strong AI-native layer for BEC.

I'd view it more as a specialized detection layer than your primary employee-training platform.

5. Mimecast — good all-around enterprise platform

Mimecast remains a strong option if you want email security plus capabilities such as continuity, archiving and broader email management. In Microsoft's January 2026 benchmark, Mimecast had 404 high-severity misses per 1,000 users versus 171 for Defender and 437 for Proofpoint in that particular measurement period.

What I'd actually deploy

For companies dealing with relentless phishing, the most effective defense combines a robust Email Security Gateway (SEG) or integrated cloud email security (ICES) with a high-engagement Security Awareness Training (SAT) platform.

The industry leaders for catch rates and user training are categorized below by their primary strengths:

Top Email Security Gateways & Catch Rates (Inbound Protection)

• Proofpoint Email Security: Widely considered an enterprise gold standard for threat intelligence and high catch rates. It excels at blocking advanced credential harvesting, BEC (Business Email Compromise), and malicious attachments using deep behavioral and URL analysis. You can explore enterprise features via Proofpoint Threat Protection.
• Microsoft Defender for Office 365 (MDO): Excellent if your infrastructure is already on Microsoft 365. It offers native integration without requiring MX record changes, powerful AI-driven detonation chambers, and automated investigation/response (AIR) features.
• Mimecast Email Security: Known for robust cloud gateway architecture, excellent spam/phishing filtering, integrated DMARC management, and strong internal email inspection capabilities.
• Sophos Email: Highly praised for out-of-the-box filtering accuracy and URL rewriting/sandboxing that actively minimizes the risk of users clicking compromised external links.

Top Phishing Defense & User Training Platforms

• Proofpoint Security Awareness Training: Ties directly into their threat intelligence ecosystem, meaning your simulated phishing campaigns can use templates modeled on live, active attacks captured in the wild.
• Hoxhunt: A favorite for modern, gamified micro-training. Instead of grueling annual compliance videos, it rewards users for real-time reporting of simulated (and real) phishing emails, automatically adapting difficulty based on individual user behavior.
• Cofense PhishMe: Specializes in human-driven phishing defense. It features massive, high-fidelity template libraries and seamless reporting buttons that turn employees into an active sensor network for the security operations center (SOC).
• Sophos Phish Threat: Great for automated campaign management, straightforward user risk scoring, and easy-to-digest remediation training for employees who fail simulated tests.

If you'd like to narrow this down, tell me:

• What email infrastructure are you currently using (e.g., Microsoft 365, Google Workspace)?
• Do you prefer an integrated cloud solution (API-based) or a traditional email gateway (MX-based)?
• Are you looking for a single vendor that does both gateway security and training, or best-of-breed separate tools?

If your priority is high phishing/BEC catch rates plus meaningful user training, I’d shortlist these rather than treating all email gateways as interchangeable. Gartner’s current market research specifically emphasizes detection quality first, with phishing/BEC and social-engineering defenses becoming increasingly important.

Gartner currently includes Proofpoint, Microsoft, Mimecast, Abnormal, Check Point, IRONSCALES and others among the major email-security platforms.

My picks

1. Best overall: Proofpoint

I'd put Proofpoint at the top if budget isn't the primary constraint. It combines mature secure-email-gateway protection, threat intelligence, BEC/impersonation defenses and a substantial security-awareness/training portfolio. Gartner's 2025 Critical Capabilities research ranked Proofpoint first in four of five evaluated use cases, according to Proofpoint's report of the results.

There is also some useful real-world efficacy evidence: Proofpoint reports that, across 696 production deployments from July 2025–April 2026, customers running it in front of Microsoft Defender saw a median 27.1% additional threat detection. That's vendor-reported data rather than an independent benchmark, so I'd treat the number as directional rather than a universal catch rate.

2. Best if you're all-in on Microsoft 365: Defender for Office 365

It's hard to beat the integration, especially if you're already paying for the appropriate Microsoft 365/Defender licensing. You get phishing protection, Safe Links/Safe Attachments, automated remediation and phishing simulation/training capabilities without introducing another mail gateway.

Microsoft has also published methodology around independent SE Labs benchmarking of its email protection, which is preferable to relying solely on vendor marketing numbers.

3. Best specifically for modern BEC/social engineering: Abnormal AI

If your problem isn't primarily malware but things like CEO fraud, vendor impersonation, credential theft and highly personalized social engineering, Abnormal deserves a serious proof-of-concept.

Its behavioral approach is particularly attractive when conventional filtering already catches obvious phishing but sophisticated attacks are still reaching employees. Gartner Peer Insights currently shows Abnormal with a 4.8/5 rating, although user ratings shouldn't be confused with independently measured catch rates.

The tradeoff is training: I'd pair Abnormal with KnowBe4, Proofpoint Security Awareness, or another dedicated awareness platform rather than expecting the email product itself to solve the human-risk problem.

4. Best combined gateway + training option: Mimecast

Mimecast is particularly compelling if you want email security and awareness training under one vendor. Its current offering includes phishing/credential-theft protection and an integrated Awareness Training capability.

It's a strong middle ground between Proofpoint's enterprise depth and Microsoft's native approach.

What I'd deploy by scenario

• Large enterprise / regulated company: Proofpoint + Proofpoint Security Awareness
• Microsoft 365, minimizing vendors: Defender for Office 365
• M365/Google + lots of sophisticated BEC: Abnormal + KnowBe4
• Want one vendor for email + training: Mimecast
• Need email + Teams/Slack/collaboration protection: Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration
• Want strong employee reporting and remediation loops: IRONSCALES

One important caveat: don't choose based on a vendor's advertised "99.x% catch rate." Catch-rate figures depend heavily on the test set, whether spam is included, attack age, false-positive treatment, and whether the test measures initial blocking or post-delivery remediation. Gartner's current guidance explicitly separates core email protection, outbound protection and integrated security capabilities, which is a better evaluation framework.

For a company experiencing frequent phishing, I'd run a controlled POC with your own recent malicious emails and measure missed phish, BEC misses, credential-phishing misses, false positives, time-to-remediation, user reporting rate, and training-induced reduction in click/report behavior. That will tell you considerably more than published headline catch rates.

I'd put Proofpoint at the top if budget isn't the primary constraint. It combines mature secure-email-gateway protection, threat intelligence, BEC/impersonation defenses and a substantial security-awareness/training portfolio. Gartner's 2025 Critical Capabilities research ranked Proofpoint first in four of five evaluated use cases, according to Proofpoint's report of the results.

There is also some useful real-world efficacy evidence: Proofpoint reports that, across 696 production deployments from July 2025–April 2026, customers running it in front of Microsoft Defender saw a median 27.1% additional threat detection. That's vendor-reported data rather than an independent benchmark, so I'd treat the number as directional rather than a universal catch rate.

2. Best if you're all-in on Microsoft 365: Defender for Office 365

It's hard to beat the integration, especially if you're already paying for the appropriate Microsoft 365/Defender licensing. You get phishing protection, Safe Links/Safe Attachments, automated remediation and phishing simulation/training capabilities without introducing another mail gateway.

Microsoft has also published methodology around independent SE Labs benchmarking of its email protection, which is preferable to relying solely on vendor marketing numbers.

3. Best specifically for modern BEC/social engineering: Abnormal AI

If your problem isn't primarily malware but things like CEO fraud, vendor impersonation, credential theft and highly personalized social engineering, Abnormal deserves a serious proof-of-concept.

Its behavioral approach is particularly attractive when conventional filtering already catches obvious phishing but sophisticated attacks are still reaching employees. Gartner Peer Insights currently shows Abnormal with a 4.8/5 rating, although user ratings shouldn't be confused with independently measured catch rates.

The tradeoff is training: I'd pair Abnormal with KnowBe4, Proofpoint Security Awareness, or another dedicated awareness platform rather than expecting the email product itself to solve the human-risk problem.

4. Best combined gateway + training option: Mimecast

Mimecast is particularly compelling if you want email security and awareness training under one vendor. Its current offering includes phishing/credential-theft protection and an integrated Awareness Training capability.

It's a strong middle ground between Proofpoint's enterprise depth and Microsoft's native approach.

What I'd deploy by scenario

When dealing with high volumes of persistent phishing attempts, relying solely on native cloud inbox filters (like basic Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace defaults) often leaves a gap for modern, AI-accelerated or socially engineered attacks.

The industry splits solutions into Email Security Gateways / Inbound AI Detection (which catch the threats technically) and Human Risk/Training Platforms (which condition your users). Some modern platforms uniquely combine both.

Top Email Security Gateways & AI Defense (Best Catch Rates)

These tools excel at stopping credential harvesting, Business Email Compromise (BEC), and zero-day payloads before or immediately after they hit the inbox.

• Proofpoint Threat Protection: Widely considered the enterprise gold standard. It features industry-leading threat intelligence, exceptional accuracy against malicious payloads, and the "Very Attacked People" (VAP) feature, which identifies and protects high-risk employees (executives, finance) who are targeted most.
• Abnormal Security: A cloud-native, API-based behavioral AI platform. Instead of relying strictly on traditional reputation or signature lists, it learns baseline communication behaviors across your organization to effortlessly catch socially engineered attacks and vendor email compromise that bypass traditional gateways.
• IRONSCALES: An API-driven platform that stands out for combining automated mailbox remediation with a crowdsourced human-analyst feedback loop. Its "Themis" virtual SOC helps teams rapidly remediate missed phishes, and it uniquely bundles native simulation tools directly into the email security stack.
• Darktrace / EMAIL: Utilizes self-learning AI to detect subtle anomalies in email communication without depending on prior threat signatures. It scores high marks on Gartner Peer Insights for catching novel, highly targeted spear-phishing attempts.

Top Phishing Simulation & User Training (Best Engagement)

If you are looking to actively turn your employees into a human firewall rather than treating training as a dry compliance checkbox, these platforms lead the market.

• KnowBe4 Security Awareness Training: The market heavyweight for volume, offering a massive library of templates, modules, and rigorous reporting depth. It is best if you prefer extensive customizability and deep calendar-based or remedial training paths.
• Hoxhunt: Highly rated for enterprise engagement. It replaces traditional annual/monthly scheduled drills with bite-sized, gamified, and AI-personalized simulations that adapt to an employee's individual threat level and behavior over time.
• Cofense Phishing Defense Platform: Excellent for building real reporting muscle. Their integrated "Reporter" button feeds user-submitted emails directly into an automated triage and analysis workflow for your security operations center (SOC), bridging the gap between training and actual incident response.
• Proofpoint ZenGuide / Security Awareness: The ideal choice if you are already leveraging Proofpoint for email security, as it unifies real threat intelligence data directly into relevant, bite-sized employee training modules.

To help narrow down the ideal stack, could you share:

• What email provider you use (e.g., Microsoft 365 E5 vs. Google Workspace)?
• Do you prefer an API-based overlay (no mail flow interruption) or a traditional inline gateway?
• Roughly how many mailboxes need coverage?

When dealing with a high volume of sophisticated phishing attacks, the best strategy combines a high-accuracy Email Security Gateway (ESG) or Integrated Cloud Email Security (ICES) with an engaging, data-driven Security Awareness Training (SAT) platform.

Here are the top-rated tools on the market categorized by their strengths:

1. AI-Driven & API-Based Phishing Defense (Best Catch Rates)

Traditional gateways rely on signatures and basic reputation, but modern API-based tools analyze internal/external behavior using AI to catch Business Email Compromise (BEC) and account takeover.

• Abnormal Security: Uses behavioral AI to baseline human communication and detect anomalies without altering MX records. Excellent catch rate for zero-day and sophisticated BEC.
• Proofpoint Email Security: Industry veteran with massive threat intelligence data. Exceptional at traditional gateway filtering, inline blocking, and advanced isolation features.
• Microsoft Defender for Office 365 (Plan 2): Great for organizations already deep in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. Offers robust native filtering, automated investigation, and built-in simulation tools.
• Cofense (formerly PhishMe): Highly focused on human-reported phishing defense and automated response playbooks alongside robust detection.

2. Security Awareness Training & Simulation (Best User Training)

• KnowBe4: The market leader for volume and variety of training content, video modules, and simulated phishing tests. Offers automated remediation and risk-scoring per employee.
• Proofpoint Security Awareness Training: Leverages threat intelligence from their gateway to serve "just-in-time" training to users who actually fail simulated or real-world phishing tests.
• Infosec IQ: Highly rated for customizable, engaging training paths and role-based phishing simulations.

If you'd like to narrow this down, let me know:

• What is your primary email platform (e.g., Microsoft 365, Google Workspace)?
• Do you prefer an API-based cloud tool that sits inside your inbox or an inline gateway?
• Roughly how many users need training and protection?

For a company facing frequent phishing attempts, the strongest options usually combine two capabilities:

1. High detection/catch rates (blocking phishing, BEC, malware, malicious links)
2. User behavior improvement (phishing simulations, reporting workflows, adaptive training)

No single product wins every category. The best fit depends heavily on whether your biggest problem is commodity phishing, ransomware attachments, or sophisticated business email compromise (BEC).

My practical shortlist by scenario

1. Enterprise with targeted phishing/BEC attacks

• Proofpoint + Proofpoint Security Awareness Training
  Best if you have a security team that can tune policies and investigate incidents. Proofpoint is particularly strong where threat intelligence, advanced phishing campaigns, and compliance requirements matter.
• Proofpoint + Abnormal Security is a common defense-in-depth pattern when BEC is a major concern: the gateway catches technical threats while behavioral AI targets social-engineering attacks that look legitimate.

2. Microsoft 365 organization wanting the simplest strong baseline

• Microsoft Defender for Office 365 + Attack Simulation Training

  Good choice if you already license Microsoft 365 E5 or equivalent security features. It avoids adding another mail gateway while providing phishing protection and user testing.

3. Mid-sized company without a large SOC

• Mimecast or Abnormal Security

  • Mimecast: better if you want a traditional secure email gateway plus continuity/archive features.
  • Abnormal: better if your biggest pain is executives, finance teams, vendor impersonation, and invoice fraud.

4. Company where employees are repeatedly clicking phishing links

• Pair an email gateway with KnowBe4, Proofpoint Awareness Training, Hoxhunt, or similar adaptive training.

  Technology alone will not eliminate phishing; organizations generally get better results when users regularly practice identifying and reporting simulated attacks.

Features I would require in an evaluation

A strong phishing defense platform should include:

• AI/BEC detection (not just spam filtering)
• URL rewriting and time-of-click analysis
• Attachment sandboxing
• DMARC enforcement and spoof protection
• One-click user phishing reporting
• Automated mailbox remediation
• Phishing simulations
• Risk scoring by user/team
• Integration with SIEM/SOAR tools
• Low false-positive rate

A common “best practice” architecture

For organizations with serious phishing exposure:

Email gateway: Proofpoint / Mimecast / Microsoft Defender
+ Behavioral layer: Abnormal Security or similar
+ Training: KnowBe4 / Proofpoint / Hoxhunt
+ Policy controls: DMARC, MFA, payment verification procedures

That combination addresses both the technical side (blocking attacks) and the human side (reducing successful compromises).

If you share your company size, email platform (Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Exchange, etc.), and whether the attacks are mostly credential theft, ransomware attachments, or BEC/invoice fraud, I can narrow this to a short vendor list.

For a company dealing with frequent phishing and BEC attempts, I’d separate the decision into two layers: email detection/blocking and employee behavior/training. No single “catch rate” is universally reliable because vendors test different attack sets, and some published benchmarks are vendor-sponsored.

My current shortlist

1. Microsoft Defender for Office 365 — strongest if you're already on M365

Microsoft's latest published benchmarking found Defender missed fewer high-severity threats than the other SEG vendors it evaluated; in its February–April 2026 test period, Microsoft says Defender missed 59% fewer high-severity threats than the next-closest SEG.

Why I'd shortlist it: native Microsoft 365 integration, strong phishing/BEC detection, URL and attachment protection, automated investigation/remediation, and phishing simulations through Microsoft's security stack.

Caveat: those catch-rate figures come from Microsoft's own benchmarking, so I wouldn't treat them as an independent universal leaderboard.

2. Proofpoint — best all-around enterprise choice

Proofpoint is particularly compelling if you want email protection and human-risk management from the same vendor. Gartner Peer Insights currently shows Proofpoint Threat Protection at 4.7/5 from roughly 1,400 reviews, with users specifically citing strong phishing, BEC and social-engineering filtering.

Its ZenGuide training/simulation platform is also very mature: Gartner reviewers rate its phishing simulations, training content and end-user training highly.

My pick for: larger enterprises, organizations with high-value executives/finance users, and companies wanting tight correlation between attacks reaching users and subsequent training.

3. Hoxhunt — strongest for changing employee behavior

Hoxhunt is particularly interesting when your problem isn't just blocking phishing but getting employees to recognize and report the attacks that inevitably get through.

Gartner Peer Insights currently gives Hoxhunt 4.9/5 from 1,275 reviews, with 98% saying they'd recommend it. Reviews highlight its gamified reporting, realistic simulations and high user participation.

I'd consider Hoxhunt alongside Defender, Proofpoint or another SEG rather than as a replacement for one.

4. KnowBe4 — best dedicated security-awareness platform

If your gateway is already good and the biggest weakness is employees clicking/reporting, KnowBe4 remains one of the safest choices. Gartner currently shows 4.6/5 across ~2,400 reviews, with particularly strong scores for phishing simulations and training content.

Its strength is the breadth of simulations, training, risk scoring and automated campaigns—not being your primary email gateway.

5. Mimecast — strong traditional SEG alternative

Mimecast remains a serious contender if you need a mature secure email gateway with archiving, continuity, policy controls and phishing/BEC protection. Gartner includes it among the major current email-security platforms.

I'd generally put it behind Defender/Proofpoint for a new deployment if maximum phishing detection plus integrated human-risk management is the overriding goal, but it can be very attractive for organizations that need broader email-management capabilities.

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What I'd deploy

Microsoft 365 + moderate phishing problem:
Defender for Office 365 + KnowBe4 or Hoxhunt

Microsoft 365 + serious BEC/executive targeting:
Defender + Proofpoint or Defender + Hoxhunt, depending on whether you prioritize another detection layer or behavioral change.

Large enterprise / very high-risk users:
Proofpoint Threat Protection + ZenGuide, with targeted training for finance, executives, admins and other high-risk groups.

Already have a good SEG but users keep clicking:
Don't necessarily buy another gateway. Add Hoxhunt or KnowBe4 and measure reporting behavior, click rates and repeat offenders.

One important point: don't optimize solely for “catch rate.” A gateway that catches 99.x% in a vendor test can still leave you exposed to credential theft, vendor impersonation and BEC that looks like ordinary business correspondence. Gartner's current email-security guidance explicitly emphasizes phishing detection/prevention, URL analysis, attachment inspection and broader security capabilities.

If you tell me your email platform (Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, etc.), company size, and whether BEC/credential phishing or malware is the bigger problem, I can narrow this to the best 2–3 options and give you a procurement-style comparison.

When dealing with frequent phishing attempts, relying on a traditional Secure Email Gateway (SEG) often leaves gaps, as modern AI-generated phishing, Business Email Compromise (BEC), and credential harvesting bypass standard signature filters.

The industry splits solutions into two categories that increasingly overlap: Email Security/Catch Rates (blocking the threat) and Human Risk Management/Training (educating the user if a threat slips through).

Top Email Security Gateways & Inbox Defense (Best Catch Rates)

1. Proofpoint Email Protection
   • Best For: Enterprise-grade threat intelligence and large-scale deployments.
   • Why it shines: Widely considered the gold standard for high-volume enterprise protection. It uses multi-layered detection on sender reputation, granular content analysis, and excellent URL/attachment isolation. It catches sophisticated spear-phishing and BEC that other gateways miss.
   • Learn more: Explore enterprise capabilities on the Proofpoint Email Protection platform.
2. Abnormal Security
   • Best For: Behavioral AI-driven detection of BEC and vendor fraud.
   • Why it shines: An API-only platform that integrates natively with Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace without altering MX records. It bypasses legacy signature limits by building a behavioral baseline of normal communication, allowing it to instantly flag anomalous requests (like a sudden wire-transfer shift from a known vendor).
3. IRONSCALES
   • Best For: Combining AI detection with crowdsourced human analysis and built-in training.
   • Why it shines: Excellent for mid-market and lean security teams. It integrates automated mailbox-level threat remediation with a community-backed reporting button that empowers employees to act as active defense agents.
4. Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration (formerly Avanan)
   • Best For: Inline-API hybrid protection blocking threats post-and-pre delivery.
   • Why it shines: Highly rated for cloud collaboration suites (securing not just email, but Slack, Teams, and Google Drive). It catches malicious links and compromised internal accounts before they propagate lateral damage.

Top Phishing Defense & Training Tools (Best User Training)

1. KnowBe4
   • Best For: Massive template libraries and compliance-driven awareness training.
   • Why it shines: The market leader in volume and maturity. It features tens of thousands of simulated phishing templates, automated AI-driven campaign scheduling (via AIDA), and real-time remedial coaching when a user fails a test.
   • Learn more: Review the platform via KnowBe4 Security Awareness Training.
2. Hoxhunt
   • Best For: Gamified, behavioral micro-training.
   • Why it shines: Instead of dry, annual compliance videos, Hoxhunt uses adaptive, micro-simulations tailored to individual user behavior and skill level. It converts reporting a real or simulated phishing email into a rewarding, gamified experience, which dramatically increases employee reporting rates.
3. Cofense Phishing Defense Platform
   • Best For: Turning employee-reported emails into actionable SOC intelligence.
   • Why it shines: Cofense focuses heavily on the human feedback loop—making it frictionless for employees to report suspicious emails and using automated triage (Cofense Triage ) to clear out noise and isolate active campaigns instantly.

Architectural Choice: Gateway vs. API-Only

• Inline/Cloud SEGs (Proofpoint, Mimecast): Sit in front of your email provider to filter traffic before it hits the tenant. Best for rigorous perimeter defense and compliance/archiving.
• API-Based Inbox Defense (Abnormal, Harmony/Avanan): Connect via API inside the cloud environment. Best for catching internal-to-internal compromises and deploying without breaking existing mail flow. Many modern organizations deploy a primary SEG or native Microsoft/Google defense layered with a specialized behavioral API tool.

To help narrow down the ideal stack for your organization, tell me:

• What primary email platform do you use (Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace)?
• Are you looking for a single unified vendor (like IRONSCALES or Proofpoint) that does both gateway filtering and training, or best-of-breed separate tools?