Select and Implement an Email Security Gateway
The emails you want are only the tip of the iceberg compared to what you get.
- Within the Email Security Gateway (ESG) marketplace, there are numerous vendors with varying options. Each of these vendors claim to be the best fit for your organization and it can be difficult to determine which vendor to choose.
- Today, ESG technology offers a wide variety of security and IT related functions. An ESG must serve a multitude of functions for the organization as well as meet an array of requirements, all of which can be hard to accurately assess and include confidently.
- IT security always struggles with costs. An email gateway can become expensive, but it is vital and a strong case must be made for implementation, improvement, or replacement scenarios.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- Get it out to the cloud: Cloud adoption among business functions is already high. Moving email to the cloud is just another step. Take this into consideration when selecting an ESG.
- The professional attack: They are advancing day in and day out. Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) and Zero-Day attacks are changing the way organizations deal with threats. Recognize the need for greater visibility and tools that stay on top of these developments.
Impact and Result
- Gain visibility into your organization’s email related security incidents and email volumes.
- Identify your organization’s requirements for an ESG.
- Understand what’s new within the ESG market to properly evaluate all capabilities and functions of an ESG.
- Evaluate ESG vendors and products based on your enterprise requirements.
- Implement an ESG with supporting policies and processes.
- Develop standard operating procedures around gateway and email handling to ensure high security value and sustainable benefits from the ESG.
Workshop: Select and Implement an Email Security Gateway
Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
Module 1: Gather and align requirements for the Email Security Gateway
The Purpose
- Conduct current state assessment to gain visibility into current email security maturity and capability levels.
- Collect organizational and architectural requirements to narrow ESG options.
- Collect security requirements to understand your risk appetite.
- Conduct requirements assessment .
Key Benefits Achieved
- Realize the necessity for an email gateway.
- Identify the specific requirements that an email gateway must carry out for your organization.
- Understand gateway requirements to understand deployment options.
Activities
Outputs
Know the volume of your security incidents and the volume of your email and related statistics.
- Identified email volumes and related email based security incidents
2Identify all architectural, organizational, security and other requirements of your ESG.
- Defined requirements of ESG solutions
Determine what email security solutions your organization needs.
- Identify relevant features of your ESG
Module 2: Capture costs and benefits of Email Gateway
The Purpose
- Understand benefits of various deployment options.
- Determine costs of implementation.
- Develop a financial analysis of an Email Gateway implementation.
Key Benefits Achieved
Calculate the total cost of ownership (TCO) and the return on investment (ROI) of an email gateway implementation.
Activities
Outputs
Determine inputs for TCO calculations.
- Determine your TCO and ROI of your ESG
Identify incident related costs/losses for ROI calculations.
- Understand how to effectively use your TCO and ROI within your ESG project
Identify organization email information for ROI calculation.
Module 3: Evaluate Email Gateway solutions and vendor selection
The Purpose
- Understand the email gateway product landscape.
- Determine key advanced features to meet your organization’s requirements.
- Prepare to evaluate potential vendors.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Understand what products best meet your organization’s requirements.
- Prepare proper documentation, such as an RFP, as well as a vendor demo script to comprehensively evaluate your shortlist of chosen vendors.
Activities
Outputs
Understand the ESG vendor landscape.
- Create a shortlist of vendors
Determine a shortlist of vendors.
- Create an RFP.
Create an RFP.
- Prepare a demo script
Prepare a demo script.
Module 4: Prepare for Email Gateway implementation and continued operations
The Purpose
- Determine your deployment method.
- Create incident response team.
- Create an email attack information page.
- Maintain information in central document.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Understand key consideration points for the deployment of an email gateway.
- Develop an incident response team.
- Construct an email attack information page.
- Understand what is required for the maintenance and sustainability of an email gateway while developing processes to ensure this.
Activities
Outputs
Develop supporting policies.
- Deployment Roadmap
Develop a stakeholders communication plan.
Develop education plan on proper email security.
- Email attack information page
Manage vendor contracts and relationships, vendor risk and vendor performance.
- Incident response team
Develop ESG continuing governance plans.
- Email gateway business case and operations plan
Create an computer incident response team (CIRT).
About Info-Tech
Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.
We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.
What Is a Blueprint?
A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.
Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.
Need Extra Help?
Speak With An Analyst
Get the help you need in this 1-phase advisory process. You'll receive 4 touchpoints with our researchers, all included in your membership.
- Call 1: Email security gateway event analysis
Determine the appropriateness for your ESG. Properly understand what constitutes an email-related incident and which ones are most prevalent, what your email volumes mean for you, and what this means for your email security risk posture.
- Call 2: ESG requirements gathering
Determine what you need based on the solutions provided and not the features themselves. Know the available solutions that are being provided by current ESG offerings and what features your organization requires. This is the first major step in vendor evaluation.
- Call 3: ESG TCO and ROI
Develop an accurate TCO and ROI in order to best gauge the financial parameters of your ESG as well as develop a strong communication point. Understand what goes into the costs of an ESG and the financial benefits that can be realized from proper implementation of one.
- Call 4: Vendor Landscape: Email Security Gateway
Discuss the market space and how vendors are evaluated. Review vendor RFPs and ensure the solution is meeting your needs. Review contracts and discuss best practices in negotiation tactics to get the best price for your solution.
Contributors
- Marc St Louis - Canadian Blood Services
- Terry Honeycutt - Pueblo of Isleta - Tribal Government
- Barracuda
- Cisco
- Clearswift
- Fortinet
- Microsoft
- Proofpoint
- Sophos
- Symantec
- TrendMicro
- Websense
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