Business Email Compromise (BEC) Protection -- Proofpoint Alternatives
Business email compromise is the most financially damaging form of email attack, with the FBI reporting over $2.9 billion in losses in 2023 alone. BEC attacks use impersonation, social engineering, and account takeover to trick employees into making fraudulent wire transfers, changing payment details, or sharing sensitive information. These attacks contain no malicious payload — no malware, no malicious links — making them invisible to traditional email security that relies on content scanning. Effective BEC protection requires behavioral analysis, identity verification, and AI-powered anomaly detection.
Map the employees most likely to be targeted by BEC attacks: executives whose identities are impersonated, finance team members who process wire transfers, HR staff with access to employee data, and procurement teams who handle vendor invoices. These high-risk individuals need the most stringent BEC protections and should be prioritized for awareness training.
Implement an email security solution with behavioral analysis that profiles communication patterns across your organization. The system should detect anomalies such as unusual sender behavior, atypical requests for wire transfers or data, and emails from lookalike domains. Abnormal Security and Tessian specialize in this behavioral approach; Proofpoint and Mimecast include behavioral detection within their broader platforms.
Set up impersonation detection rules for executive names, high-value employee names, and critical vendor identities. Configure lookalike domain detection to catch typosquatting attacks. Enable display name spoofing detection to identify emails where the display name matches an executive but the sending address does not. Apply the strictest policies (quarantine or block) to emails impersonating your highest-risk individuals.
BEC attacks increasingly originate from compromised legitimate accounts rather than external impersonation. Deploy account takeover detection that monitors for suspicious sign-in patterns, impossible travel, new email forwarding rules, and unusual email sending behavior. Microsoft Defender's XDR integration and Abnormal Security's account takeover module both address this vector.
Technology alone cannot prevent all BEC losses. Implement business process controls including verbal verification for wire transfers above a threshold, dual approval for payment changes, independent confirmation of vendor banking detail changes through a known phone number (not one provided in the email), and mandatory cooling-off periods for urgent financial requests. These controls catch BEC attacks that evade technical detection.
Custom pricing / per-user licensing
Purpose-built for BEC detection with behavioral AI that profiles every identity and detects communication anomalies. Industry-leading detection of vendor fraud, invoice manipulation, and executive impersonation attacks that lack any malicious payload.
Custom pricing / per-user licensing
Behavioral AI detects BEC alongside its unique misdirected email prevention capability. Real-time user coaching helps employees identify suspicious requests before acting on them. Now part of Proofpoint but still operates as a separate product.
Custom pricing / per-user licensing
Strong impersonation detection with targeted threat protection that covers executive impersonation, domain spoofing, and lookalike domains. Provides BEC protection within a comprehensive email security platform.
Plan 1 from $2/user/month / Plan 2 from $5/user/month / included in E5
Anti-phishing policies include impersonation protection for specified users and domains. Cross-domain XDR detection can identify account takeover that leads to internal BEC. Included in E5 licensing for cost efficiency.
Custom pricing / per-user licensing
Writing Style DNA uses AI to model executive writing patterns and detect emails that deviate from established styles. An innovative approach to BEC detection, though it requires a training period to build accurate profiles.
AI-powered email security platform specializing in behavioral detection of social engineering attacks
Custom pricing / per-user licensing
Organizations facing sophisticated social engineering and BEC attacks that bypass traditional email gateways
Human layer security platform preventing inbound threats and outbound misdirected emails
Custom pricing / per-user licensing
Organizations concerned about both inbound email threats and accidental data loss from misdirected emails and human error
Cloud email security platform with threat protection, archiving, and continuity
Custom pricing / per-user licensing
Mid-to-large enterprises wanting a unified email security, archiving, and continuity platform with strong API integrations
Microsoft's native email security for Microsoft 365 with XDR integration
Plan 1 from $2/user/month / Plan 2 from $5/user/month / included in E5
Microsoft 365-centric organizations wanting native email security with XDR integration and cost efficiency through E5 licensing
Cloud email security gateway with AI-powered BEC detection and XDR integration
Custom pricing / per-user licensing
Organizations wanting capable email security integrated with Trend Micro's broader Vision One XDR platform
BEC attacks are specifically designed to evade gateway detection. They contain no malicious URLs, no malicious attachments, and no malware — just persuasive text that impersonates a trusted person. Email gateways like Proofpoint detect threats by scanning content for malicious indicators. When there is no malicious content to scan, the attack passes through. This is why behavioral AI tools like Abnormal Security are effective — they detect the anomaly in communication patterns rather than scanning for malicious content.
For pure BEC detection, yes. Abnormal Security's behavioral AI is purpose-built for detecting socially-engineered attacks and consistently demonstrates higher BEC detection rates than traditional gateways. However, Abnormal only addresses BEC and social engineering — it does not protect against malware, ransomware, spam, or provide archiving and compliance. Most organizations deploy Abnormal alongside Proofpoint rather than replacing it, getting the best of both approaches.
AI enables BEC detection by learning the normal communication patterns, writing styles, and behavioral baselines of every person in an organization. When an email deviates from these established patterns — even if the content appears legitimate — the AI flags it as suspicious. For example, AI can detect that a CEO never sends wire transfer requests to the finance team on weekends, or that a vendor's writing style has suddenly changed, or that a payment redirect request came from a domain registered yesterday. This contextual analysis is impossible with traditional rule-based detection.
Both use AI but approach BEC detection differently. Trend Micro's Writing Style DNA focuses on modeling the writing style of protected executives and flagging emails that claim to be from them but have a different writing pattern. This is effective for executive impersonation but requires a training period and only protects specifically enrolled users. Abnormal Security takes a broader approach, profiling every identity in the organization and detecting communication anomalies across all users, senders, and vendors. Abnormal's approach covers more attack types including vendor fraud and supply chain compromise.
AI-powered email security platform specializing in behavioral detection of social engineering attacks
ComparisonHuman layer security platform preventing inbound threats and outbound misdirected emails
ComparisonCloud email security platform with threat protection, archiving, and continuity
CategoryCompare the best AI-powered email security alternatives to Proofpoint in 2026. Abnormal Security, IRONSCALES, Tessian — behavioral detection, BEC protection, and pricing compared.
CategoryCompare the best enterprise email gateway alternatives to Proofpoint in 2026. Mimecast, Cisco Secure Email, Barracuda — detection, archiving, pricing, and features compared.
Use CaseCompare the best Proofpoint alternatives for phishing prevention in 2026. Abnormal Security, Mimecast, Microsoft Defender, IRONSCALES — detection, deployment, and pricing compared.
Use CaseCompare the best Proofpoint alternatives for email DLP in 2026. Tessian, Microsoft Defender, Barracuda, Trend Micro — DLP capabilities, behavioral detection, and compliance compared.
Use CaseCompare the best Proofpoint alternatives for email archiving and compliance in 2026. Mimecast, Barracuda, Microsoft Purview — archiving, eDiscovery, retention policies, and compliance features compared.