--- title: "Phishing Prevention: Not All Advanced Security Solutions are Created Equal | DuoCircle" description: "Smart companies use phishing prevention technology to protect their employees and organization from phishing attacks." image: "https://www.duocircle.com/images/og-default.png" canonical: "https://www.duocircle.com/blog/email-security/phishing-prevention-not-all-advanced-security-solutions-are-created-equal/" --- Quick Answer Microsoft Office 365 includes no phishing protection without Advanced Threat Protection (ATP), a paid add-on. ATP blocks emails with known malicious attachments or links matching its blocklists, but is weak against business email compromise, lacks real-time threat intelligence, has no clear post-delivery incident indicators, and offers limited end-user controls. Gartner projected that 40% of Office 365 deployments would add third-party email security by end of 2018, rising to 50% by 2020\. Stronger alternatives layer real-time link click protection, smart quarantine, domain and display name spoofing detection, malicious attachment blocking, and the full authentication stack: SPF, DKIM, DMARC, ARC, and BIMI. The trade-off matters because Office 365 is the most-targeted email platform in the world. Share [ ](https://www.linkedin.com/sharing/share-offsite/?url=undefined%2Fblog%2Femail-security%2Fphishing-prevention-not-all-advanced-security-solutions-are-created-equal%2F "Share on LinkedIn") [ ](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=Phishing%20Prevention%3A%20Not%20All%20Advanced%20Security%20Solutions%20are%20Created%20Equal&url=undefined%2Fblog%2Femail-security%2Fphishing-prevention-not-all-advanced-security-solutions-are-created-equal%2F "Share on X/Twitter") [ ](https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=undefined%2Fblog%2Femail-security%2Fphishing-prevention-not-all-advanced-security-solutions-are-created-equal%2F "Share on Facebook") [ ](https://reddit.com/submit?url=undefined%2Fblog%2Femail-security%2Fphishing-prevention-not-all-advanced-security-solutions-are-created-equal%2F&title=Phishing%20Prevention%3A%20Not%20All%20Advanced%20Security%20Solutions%20are%20Created%20Equal "Share on Reddit") [ ](mailto:?subject=Phishing%20Prevention%3A%20Not%20All%20Advanced%20Security%20Solutions%20are%20Created%20Equal&body=Check out this article: undefined%2Fblog%2Femail-security%2Fphishing-prevention-not-all-advanced-security-solutions-are-created-equal%2F "Share via Email") ![Phishing Prevention](https://media.mailhop.org/duocircle/images/2019/06/spf-record-7425.jpg) _Smart companies use phishing prevention technology to protect their employees and organization from phishing attacks._ And whether they use their own, on-premises email server, or opt for a **cloud-based email provider**, companies have some important security decisions to make. One of the most popular email service providers is Microsoft with their Office 365 product. [Office 365](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office%5F365) is a cloud-based subscription service offered by Microsoft to replicate their Office product line, including Outlook, their email service. When it comes to protecting their Office 365 email users, Microsoft offers something called [Advanced Threat Protection](https://products.office.com/en-us/exchange/advance-threat-protection) or ATP, which of course requires a separate monthly service charge. According to [Ironscales](https://ironscales.drift.click/0c143ccf-0b04-40d9-975b-e8d1a84a3bfe), “_Currently Office 365 offers no phishing protection without Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)._” So, if you want **phishing protection**, you have to purchase ATP, at least that’s what Microsoft hopes. [![Advanced Threat Protection](https://media.mailhop.org/duocircle/images/2019/06/spf-record-check-7426.jpg)](https://media.mailhop.org/duocircle/images/2019/06/spf-record-check-7426.jpg) If you use Office 365 for your mail service and you want to protect your company from phishing attacks, the obvious question to ask is, is ATP any good? Or, since you have to pay for it separately, is there something out there that might be even better than ATP? Something you could use in its place? These are important questions because, due to its popularity, Office 365 is the [most targeted email platform there is](/phishing-protection/microsoft-office-365-a-phishing-attack-waiting-to-happen/). And unfortunately, attacks against Office 365 are often extremely effective. There are a few reasons for this. The first one is [fake, non-delivery emails](/content/office-365-phishing-protection/office-365-phishing). In this circumstance, the email [masquerades as Microsoft](https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/phishing-attack-pretends-to-be-a-office-365-non-delivery-email/). _This fake, non-delivery email from “Microsoft” looks harmless, so users don’t think twice about clicking on “send again.”_ Another reason attacks against Office 365 email are effective is because, frankly, ATP isn’t particularly good when it comes to stopping **advanced phishing attacks**. It will probably block an email if the attachment is suspicious or the embedded link matches ones known to be from a malicious site. Other than that, it doesn’t do much. Other limitations of ATP include the following: - Questionable effectiveness against business email compromise (BEC) - No clear indicators of post-delivery incidents - No real-time threat intelligence - Limited end-user controls The market understands these limitations. “According to figures from [Gartner](https://ironscales.drift.click/0c143ccf-0b04-40d9-975b-e8d1a84a3bfe), in order to bolster protection, an estimated 40% of Microsoft Office 365 deployments will incorporate third-party tools by the end of 2018 with the figure predicted to rise to half of all deployments by 2020.” [![protection from phishing](https://media.mailhop.org/duocircle/images/2019/06/spf-record-tester-7427.jpg)](https://media.mailhop.org/duocircle/images/2019/06/spf-record-tester-7427.jpg) Our advanced threat defense service offers [protection from phishing](/advanced-threat-defense) attacks. It works with all SMTP-based email services, including Office 365\. But, unlike Office 365’s ATP, ATD comes with a complete menu of advanced **phishing protection technologies**. These include: - Prevention against zero day attacks - Real-time link click protection - Smart Quarantine - Domain name spoofing - Display name spoofing - Malicious attachment blocking - SPF (Sender Policy Framework) - DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) - DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance) - ARC (Authenticated Received Chain) - BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Identification) You can quickly see that not all advanced [**email security services**](/) are created equal. If you need to protect your Office 365 email from phishing attacks, and you want a solution that does more than Microsoft’s ATP while costing less, check out [Advanced Threat Defense service](/advanced-threat-defense). It’s quick to set up, comes with no contracts and has a 30 day money back guarantee. ![Brad Slavin](https://media.mailhop.org/dmarcreport/images/team/brad-slavin.jpg) Brad Slavin General Manager General Manager at DuoCircle. Product strategy and commercial lead across the email security portfolio. ## Secure your email infrastructure Protect, authenticate, and deliver. Contact our team to find the right solution. [Contact Sales](/contact/) [Explore Products](/products/) ## Related Articles [ Email Security 8m BIMI in 2026: What the Certificate Authority Does, and What Your DMARC Tool Does May 5, 2026 ](/blog/bimi-2026-what-the-ca-does-what-your-dmarc-tool-does/)[ Email Security 8m Designing A Custom Dkim Architecture For High-Volume Email Senders Apr 28, 2026 ](/blog/designing-custom-dkim-architecture-for-high-volume-email-senders/)[ Email Security 12m DMARC, SPF, and DKIM in 2026: Why Email Authentication Is Now a Regulatory Requirement, Not Just a Best Practice Apr 29, 2026 ](/blog/dmarc-spf-dkim-2026-email-authentication-regulatory-requirement-best-practice/)[ Email Security 5m Email Monitoring Tools: A Complete Guide to Protecting Your Email Ecosystem May 7, 2026 ](/blog/email-monitoring-tools-guide-protecting-your-email-ecosystem-security/) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Organization","name":"DuoCircle LLC","url":"https://www.duocircle.com","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://www.duocircle.com/images/duocircle-logo.png"},"description":"DuoCircle is a portfolio of specialized email products covering protection, authentication, delivery, and routing. We deliver about 90% of category-leader capability at roughly half the price, backed by experts who own the outcome. Trusted by 50,000+ organizations since 2014.","subOrganization":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q138898167","name":"DMARC Report","url":"https://dmarcreport.com"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q138897474","name":"AutoSPF","url":"https://autospf.com"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q138897912","name":"Phish Protection","url":"https://www.phishprotection.com"}],"sameAs":["https://www.linkedin.com/company/duocircle","https://x.com/duocirclellc","https://www.facebook.com/duocirclellc","https://www.g2.com/products/phish-protection-by-duocircle/reviews","https://github.com/duocircle","https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/duocircle-llc"],"contactPoint":{"@type":"ContactPoint","contactType":"customer support","url":"https://support.duocircle.com"},"knowsAbout":["Email Security","Email Authentication","SPF","DKIM","DMARC","Phishing Protection","Spam Filtering","SMTP Relay","Email Deliverability","Email Forwarding"]} ``` ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"WebSite","name":"DuoCircle LLC","url":"https://www.duocircle.com","description":"DuoCircle is a portfolio of specialized email products covering protection, authentication, delivery, and routing. We deliver about 90% of category-leader capability at roughly half the price, backed by experts who own the outcome. Trusted by 50,000+ organizations since 2014.","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"DuoCircle LLC","url":"https://www.duocircle.com","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://www.duocircle.com/images/duocircle-logo.png"},"description":"DuoCircle is a portfolio of specialized email products covering protection, authentication, delivery, and routing. We deliver about 90% of category-leader capability at roughly half the price, backed by experts who own the outcome. Trusted by 50,000+ organizations since 2014.","subOrganization":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q138898167","name":"DMARC Report","url":"https://dmarcreport.com"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q138897474","name":"AutoSPF","url":"https://autospf.com"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q138897912","name":"Phish Protection","url":"https://www.phishprotection.com"}]}} ``` ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"Phishing Prevention: Not All Advanced Security Solutions are Created Equal","description":"Smart companies use phishing prevention technology to protect their employees and organization from phishing attacks.","url":"https://www.duocircle.com/blog/email-security/phishing-prevention-not-all-advanced-security-solutions-are-created-equal/","datePublished":"2019-06-25T13:34:47.000Z","dateModified":"2025-05-06T11:38:13.000Z","dateCreated":"2019-06-25T13:34:47.000Z","author":{"@type":"Person","@id":"https://www.duocircle.com/authors/brad-slavin/#person","name":"Brad Slavin","url":"https://www.duocircle.com/authors/brad-slavin/","jobTitle":"General Manager","description":"Brad Slavin runs DuoCircle, the company behind DMARC Report, AutoSPF, Phish Protection, and Mailhop. His focus is product strategy, customer relationships, and the commercial and compliance side of email authentication (DPAs, SLAs, enterprise procurement).","image":"https://media.mailhop.org/dmarcreport/images/team/brad-slavin.jpg","knowsAbout":["Email Security Strategy","SaaS Product Management","Enterprise Compliance","Customer Success","Email Deliverability Business"],"worksFor":{"@type":"Organization","name":"DuoCircle LLC","url":"https://www.duocircle.com"},"sameAs":["https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradslavin"]},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"DuoCircle LLC","url":"https://www.duocircle.com","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://www.duocircle.com/images/duocircle-logo.png"},"description":"DuoCircle is a portfolio of specialized email products covering protection, authentication, delivery, and routing. We deliver about 90% of category-leader capability at roughly half the price, backed by experts who own the outcome. Trusted by 50,000+ organizations since 2014.","subOrganization":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q138898167","name":"DMARC Report","url":"https://dmarcreport.com"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q138897474","name":"AutoSPF","url":"https://autospf.com"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q138897912","name":"Phish Protection","url":"https://www.phishprotection.com"}]},"mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://www.duocircle.com/blog/email-security/phishing-prevention-not-all-advanced-security-solutions-are-created-equal/"},"articleSection":"email-security","keywords":"","wordCount":534,"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://media.mailhop.org/duocircle/images/2019/06/spf-record-7425.jpg","caption":"Phishing Prevention","width":900,"height":600},"speakable":{"@type":"SpeakableSpecification","cssSelector":[".answer-block","h1"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Blog","item":"https://www.duocircle.com/blog/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Email Security"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Phishing Prevention: Not All Advanced Security Solutions are Created Equal","item":"https://www.duocircle.com/blog/email-security/phishing-prevention-not-all-advanced-security-solutions-are-created-equal/"}]}] ``` ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://www.duocircle.com/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Blog","item":"https://www.duocircle.com/blog/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Email Security","item":"https://www.duocircle.comundefined"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":4,"name":"Phishing Prevention: Not All Advanced Security Solutions are Created Equal","item":"https://www.duocircle.com/blog/email-security/phishing-prevention-not-all-advanced-security-solutions-are-created-equal/"}]} ``` ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BlogPosting","headline":"Phishing Prevention: Not All Advanced Security Solutions are Created Equal","description":"Smart companies use phishing prevention technology to protect their employees and organization from phishing attacks.","url":"https://www.duocircle.com/blog/email-security/phishing-prevention-not-all-advanced-security-solutions-are-created-equal/","datePublished":"2019-06-25T13:34:47.000Z","dateModified":"2025-05-06T11:38:13.000Z","dateCreated":"2019-06-25T13:34:47.000Z","author":{"@type":"Person","@id":"https://www.duocircle.com/authors/brad-slavin/#person","name":"Brad Slavin","url":"https://www.duocircle.com/authors/brad-slavin/","jobTitle":"General Manager","description":"Brad Slavin runs DuoCircle, the company behind DMARC Report, AutoSPF, Phish Protection, and Mailhop. His focus is product strategy, customer relationships, and the commercial and compliance side of email authentication (DPAs, SLAs, enterprise procurement).","image":"https://media.mailhop.org/dmarcreport/images/team/brad-slavin.jpg","knowsAbout":["Email Security Strategy","SaaS Product Management","Enterprise Compliance","Customer Success","Email Deliverability Business"],"worksFor":{"@type":"Organization","name":"DuoCircle LLC","url":"https://www.duocircle.com"},"sameAs":["https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradslavin"]},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"DuoCircle LLC","url":"https://www.duocircle.com","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://www.duocircle.com/images/duocircle-logo.png"},"description":"DuoCircle is a portfolio of specialized email products covering protection, authentication, delivery, and routing. We deliver about 90% of category-leader capability at roughly half the price, backed by experts who own the outcome. Trusted by 50,000+ organizations since 2014.","subOrganization":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q138898167","name":"DMARC Report","url":"https://dmarcreport.com"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q138897474","name":"AutoSPF","url":"https://autospf.com"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q138897912","name":"Phish Protection","url":"https://www.phishprotection.com"}]},"mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://www.duocircle.com/blog/email-security/phishing-prevention-not-all-advanced-security-solutions-are-created-equal/"},"articleSection":"email-security","keywords":"","wordCount":534,"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://media.mailhop.org/duocircle/images/2019/06/spf-record-7425.jpg","caption":"Phishing Prevention","width":900,"height":600},"speakable":{"@type":"SpeakableSpecification","cssSelector":[".answer-block","h1"]}} ```