One inbox standard. One DMARC record. One less 9 PM call from finance.
How a Pune NBFC’s finance team caught a fake vendor email asking for a bank-detail change, nineteen minutes before the payment window closed. Story below.
Proofpoint at a glance
What the platform is, who owns it, and where it actually fits in an Indian estate.
- OEM
- Proofpoint, Inc. Founded 2002 in Sunnyvale, California by Eric Hahn, former Netscape CTO. Listed on Nasdaq in 2012, then taken private by Thoma Bravo in 2021 for roughly $12.3 billion, the largest software go-private deal at the time. CEO today is Sumit Dhawan.
- What it is
- A human-centric security platform. Email filtering, data-loss prevention, security awareness training and insider-threat monitoring sit under one umbrella instead of four separate vendor relationships.
- Scale proof
- Proofpoint’s own published numbers: the engine analyses more than 100 billion data points and 3.4 trillion emails a year, and stops 99.999% of the email and cloud threats it inspects. It was named a Leader in the 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Email Security.
- How it sits in your stack
- As a secure email gateway in front of Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace. Mail routes through Proofpoint, gets filtered and sandboxed, then lands in your existing mailbox. You keep Exchange Online or Gmail exactly as it is.
- The honest caveat
- Since the 2021 Thoma Bravo buyout, reviewers report the price list has grown module by module, and support tickets that used to close fast now sometimes wait on a US time zone. There is no local India support desk from Proofpoint itself. We say that out loud because it shapes which modules we recommend and how we set your renewal expectations.
- Sirius Star’s role
- We are an authorised Proofpoint reseller. We scope the module mix to what your regulator or your finance team actually needs, size it to your mailbox count, and run deployment, tuning and renewal from Vashi, Navi Mumbai.
- Best fit
- Mid-size and larger Indian businesses where email is the main attack surface: NBFCs, brokerages, pharma exporters, manufacturing finance teams, anyone who has already had one BEC scare and does not want a second one.
The 4 products Sirius Star supplies
Proofpoint is bundled, not one box. We scope by where your risk actually sits: inbound threat, outbound fraud, outbound data loss, or the human clicking the link.
Proofpoint Email Protection
The secure email gateway. Filters spam, malware and known phishing before anything reaches the inbox. Targeted Attack Protection (TAP) sandboxes suspicious links and attachments on top of this base, and Threat Response Auto-Pull (TRAP) can pull a message back out of every inbox it already reached.
- Stops known threats before the inbox, sandboxes the unknown ones
- Shows which named users attackers keep targeting
- Three modules to learn, not one. Policy tuning is an ongoing task, not a one-time switch
Proofpoint Email Fraud Defense
Managed DMARC plus supplier and lookalike-domain scoring. Built for the moment a fake vendor asks finance to change bank details on an invoice that looks completely normal.
- Stops spoofing of your own domain, not just inbound fraud
- Scores lookalike and newly registered supplier domains
- Getting to a safe reject policy takes weeks of monitor-mode first; rushing it can bounce your own real mail
Proofpoint Information Protection
One DLP policy engine across email, cloud apps and endpoint. Insider Threat Management adds a recorded activity timeline for the one or two seats your business actually calls high-risk.
- A single rule can cover a careless forward, a cloud upload and an exit-day copy
- Insider Threat Management is a separate licence and a separate HR and legal conversation before you switch on recording
- Needs someone on your side who owns the policy, not just the vendor
Proofpoint Security Awareness Training
Phishing simulations tied to real attack data instead of generic templates. We have seen the repeat-clicker rate fall from around one in five to low single digits within a quarter of consistent runs.
- Simulations mirror the actual lures your inbox is seeing that month
- Gives the board a repeat-clicker number that moves, quarter over quarter
- Only works if someone reviews the results. We have seen licences renew for years with nobody looking at the dashboard
Proofpoint vs Mimecast, Microsoft Defender for Office 365 and Abnormal AI
All four are honest choices. The right one depends on whether your worry is bulk phishing volume, continuity, budget, or a targeted wire-fraud attempt.
| Brand | Where it wins | Best fit |
|---|---|---|
| Proofpoint | People-centric targeting that names your most-attacked users. The broadest single-vendor stack: email, DLP, awareness training and insider threat under one roof. Named a Leader in the 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Email Security. | Mid-size to large Indian businesses that want one vendor across inbound threat, outbound fraud, data loss and training. |
| Mimecast | Email security bundled with archiving and continuity in one contract. Useful when a mail outage or a compliance hold is your bigger fear than a targeted attack. | Businesses that want continuity and long-term archiving alongside the filter, not just the filter on its own. |
| Microsoft Defender for Office 365 | Already paid for inside an E5 tenant. Deep native integration with Exchange Online and Purview, one less agent to manage. | Microsoft-committed estates already on E5, where the catch rate clears the bar without another vendor. |
| Abnormal AI (Abnormal Security) | API-based behavioural model built specifically for BEC and account-takeover patterns that a signature-based gateway can miss. No MX record change needed to deploy it. | Businesses whose biggest fear is one targeted wire-fraud email, not bulk phishing volume. |
How a Sirius Star Proofpoint procurement runs
Free 30 minute risk review first. Then a written quote in 24 working hours.
Risk + DMARC review
Free, 30 min. We check inbound threat exposure and your current DMARC posture.
Written quote
In 24 working hours. Module-by-module, GST broken out.
PO + phased rollout
Scoping call, deployment waves, then a 30-day stabilisation window.
Renewal + tuning
Vashi team owns quarterly policy tuning and the renewal conversation.
Buying email security in India, a field guide
The deeper read for finance heads, IT heads and compliance owners.
- The full Pune NBFC nineteen-minute story
- Four questions to ask before signing an email security PO
- A DMARC monitor-to-reject checklist
- What actually differs between Proofpoint, Mimecast, Defender and Abnormal AI in 2026
Proofpoint India FAQ
Direct answers first. Hover any underlined term for a plain-English definition.
Is Proofpoint too expensive for a mid-market Indian business?
It can be, if you buy every module. The premium detection sits behind add-on modules priced separately, and that catches SMB and mid-market buyers off guard. We scope the mix to what your regulator or your finance team actually asks for, usually Email Protection plus one or two add-ons, and tell you honestly which modules to skip. Deals with Sirius Star typically run INR 1 lakh to 5 lakh a year, depending on the module mix and mailbox count.
Does Proofpoint replace or sit alongside Microsoft 365 email?
It sits in front. Proofpoint is a secure email gateway ahead of Exchange Online, so mail routes through it, gets filtered and sandboxed, then lands in your Microsoft 365 mailbox. You keep Exchange Online. Many Indian estates run Proofpoint for inbound threat and managed DMARC and lean on Microsoft for the mailbox itself.
How does Proofpoint stop business email compromise and invoice fraud?
Email Fraud Defense runs managed DMARC to stop spoofing of your own domain, then scores supplier and lookalike domains to flag the pattern where a fake vendor asks finance to change bank details. Targeted Attack Protection sandboxes the payloads that come with it. Together they are built to catch the wire-fraud email before the payment runs.
Why does Proofpoint need so many separate consoles?
Because it grew by acquisition. Email filtering, TAP, TRAP, DLP and awareness training started as different products and still show up as different consoles with different tuning needs. This is the fair complaint reviewers raise most often. We handle the initial console setup and the quarterly tuning so your team is not learning four dashboards from scratch.
What happened to Proofpoint’s support after the Thoma Bravo buyout?
Several reviewers report slower ticket response and rising module prices since the 2021 take-private deal. There is no dedicated India support desk from Proofpoint itself, so escalations often cross into US working hours. We are honest about this at quote time. Sirius Star handles Tier 1 and Tier 2 support from Vashi, Navi Mumbai on IST hours, and only escalates to Proofpoint for Tier 3 issues.
What India support and SLA does Sirius Star offer for Proofpoint?
We are an authorised Proofpoint reseller in India. You get a free 30 minute risk review and a written quote in 24 working hours on every order. We run a structured rollout across Email Protection, Email Fraud Defense, Information Protection and Security Awareness Training, with Tier 1 and Tier 2 support from Vashi, Navi Mumbai and vendor escalation for Tier 3.
Ready for a written Proofpoint quote?
Tell us your mailbox count and which risk worries you most: bulk phishing, BEC, data loss, or all three. We size the module mix and quote it.
Pair this on one PO
What buyers typically add to a Sirius Star Proofpoint order. Each link is a live page on the Sirius Star site.
Related reading from the Sirius Star blog
Long-form context on BEC fraud, DMARC rollout and email security buying in India.