Best overall on published test results: Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense. Best endpoint-layer pick: CrowdStrike Falcon. Best human-layer pick: Cyber Aware. Those are the 2026 verdicts for anti-phishing software detection accuracy, and they rest on independent test scores rather than vendor dashboards: Cisco's Secure Email Threat Defense earned a AAA rating with close to 100% detection and zero false positives in SE Labs email security testing, CrowdStrike Falcon posted a 100% detection accuracy rating in SE Labs' 2025 endpoint protection test, and the human layer is measured by a different number entirely — KnowBe4's 2025 benchmark of 67.7 million phishing simulations across 14.5 million users found 33.1% of staff click a malicious simulation before training, falling to 4.1% after twelve months.
Key takeaways
- Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense is the top email-layer performer on published evidence: a AAA rating, detection of close to 100% of introduced threats and no false positives across legitimate email, in SE Labs' evaluation (test window March to April 2026).
- CrowdStrike Falcon scored 100% detection accuracy, 100% protection and zero false positives against 100 attacks (75 general, 25 targeted) in SE Labs' 2025 endpoint protection test — but it stops phishing emails landing in inboxes only indirectly.
- No filter catches everything: 33.1% of employees in KnowBe4's 2025 benchmark interacted with a phishing simulation before any training, which is why a training and simulation layer belongs in this ranking.
- Coro's email security has been through SE Labs' email protection testing, and its platform bundles awareness training aimed at SMBs — a practical single-vendor route for smaller teams.
What detection accuracy actually measures
Four criteria decide the ranking on this page. Only the first two can be scored by a laboratory; the other two decide what happens after a malicious email gets through.
- Independent test performance — SE Labs' published email security and endpoint protection reports, which mix targeted attacks with live threats found on the public internet.
- False-positive rate — a filter that quarantines legitimate mail costs a business time and trust, so zero false positives carries the same weight as detection percentages.
- Coverage of the human layer — whether the product also trains and simulates staff, because the clicks that matter happen after delivery.
- Reporting and compliance fit — whether click, report and completion data can be handed to an auditor or insurer without manual rebuilding.
Anti-phishing software ranked at a glance
| Rank | Software | Layer | Published result | Main limitation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense | Email gateway | AAA rating, close to 100% detection, zero false positives (SE Labs, tested Mar-Apr 2026) | Email-layer only; no staff training component |
| 2 | CrowdStrike Falcon | Endpoint | 100% detection and protection, zero false positives, 100 attacks (SE Labs 2025 EPS test) | Endpoint scope; phishing emails still reach the inbox first |
| 3 | Cyber Aware | Human layer: training and simulation | Category benchmark: 33.1% phish-prone before training falls to 4.1% after 12 months (KnowBe4 2025, 14.5M users) | Does not filter email itself |
| 4 | Coro | SMB email bundle | Tested in SE Labs' 2025 email protection evaluations; awareness training module added May 2025 | Lighter configuration depth than enterprise gateways |
1. Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense: best for email-borne phishing
Cisco's email security service went through SE Labs' Advanced Security Test using targeted attack techniques and public threats live on the internet during the March to April 2026 test window. Cisco's own summary of the result: detection and blocking of close to 100% of the threats introduced, from advanced phishing lures to payload-carrying attachments, with no false positives on legitimate mail. SE Labs' published test report backs the evaluation method, noting that all malicious and legitimate samples were independently located and verified.
Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense pros:
- AAA rating in SE Labs' latest published evaluation, the top award tier the lab issues.
- Zero false positives on legitimate email in testing, which matters as much as the detection figure.
- Test scope included business email compromise cases, the attack class that costs Australian businesses the most per incident.
Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense cons:
- It filters email. A user who clicks a link on their phone, or a credential page reached through a chat app, sits outside its boundary.
- No staff-facing training or simulation layer, so click behaviour after delivery is not measured or improved.
Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense pricing: enterprise email security is quoted by seat count and volume; get a current quote rather than trusting stale list prices. Best for: organisations that want the strongest published email-layer result and already run enterprise-grade security operations.
2. CrowdStrike Falcon: best for endpoint-level phishing payloads
CrowdStrike's Falcon platform recorded a 100% detection accuracy rating, 100% protection, 100% legitimate software accuracy and a 100% total accuracy rating in SE Labs' 2025 endpoint protection test — blocking all 75 general attacks and 25 targeted attacks used in the evaluation, with zero false positives. When a phishing email survives the gateway and an employee opens the attachment, Falcon is the layer that decides whether the payload executes.
CrowdStrike Falcon pros:
- Perfect published scores across detection, protection and false positives in the 2025 SE Labs test.
- Coverage of post-click behaviour: malicious execution, not just malicious mail.
- Broad deployment base, which means mature documentation and partner support.
CrowdStrike Falcon cons:
- By the time an endpoint product is relevant, the phishing email has already been opened — prevention at this layer is inherently later than the gateway.
- Nothing in its published test scope measures whether staff learn to stop clicking.
CrowdStrike Falcon pricing: per-endpoint subscription, quoted by seat and module; enterprise sales motion. Best for: teams that already run Falcon and want their anti-phishing stack anchored on the strongest published endpoint result.
3. Cyber Aware: best for cutting the clicks that filters miss
Filters and endpoint agents do not change what a person does at 4:55 pm on a Friday when an email looks like the payroll system. That gap is where phishing simulation and training platforms operate, and the benchmark evidence for the category comes from KnowBe4's 2025 Phishing by Industry report: across 67.7 million simulations and 14.5 million users, the average phish-prone rate was 33.1% before training, dropped after 90 days and settled at 4.1% after twelve months of ongoing simulation-based training — an 86% reduction.
Cyber Aware builds its simulation library around Australian scam patterns tracked in Australian Cyber Security Centre threat reporting, including AI-generated lures, QR code phishing and deepfake voice pretexting, with reporting mapped to the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme. For a compliance owner, human risk reporting turns click and report data into evidence an auditor or insurer can read directly.
Cyber Aware pros:
- Attacks the measured gap: a third of staff click before training; roughly one in twenty after a year of it.
- Australian scam content and NDB-aligned reporting rather than generic global templates.
- Gap assessment tooling maps awareness to NIST, ISO 27001 and the Essential Eight.
Cyber Aware cons:
- It does not filter email — it complements a gateway like Cisco's, it does not replace one.
- Human-layer results depend on simulation cadence; a once-a-year campaign will not reproduce the 33.1% to 4.1% curve.
Cyber Aware pricing: pay-per-seat with no minimum, quoted on request. Best for: Australian SMBs and enterprises that want the measured human layer improved, not just the mail flow filtered.
4. Coro: best for SMBs that want one vendor
Coro's email and cloud security service has been through SE Labs' email protection testing, published in the lab's 2025 evaluation cycle. In May 2025 the company added a dedicated Security Awareness Training module to its platform — training, simulations and reporting bundled with the same agent and dashboard that runs its other 14 modules, aimed squarely at small and midsize businesses without a dedicated security team.
Coro pros:
- One vendor and one dashboard covering email security and awareness training, which removes tool sprawl for a two-person IT team.
- SE Labs-tested email protection at the SMB end of the market, where most vendors are untested.
- Adaptive, behaviour-based training delivery built into the platform rather than bolted on.
Coro cons:
- Lighter configuration and integration depth than enterprise gateways such as Cisco's.
- Content and reporting are generic rather than mapped to Australian frameworks.
Coro pricing: modular subscription priced by seat; quote on request. Best for: SMBs that want email filtering plus training from a single vendor and will trade depth for simplicity.
How we ranked
The ranking uses only published, checkable results: SE Labs' email security and endpoint protection reports for the technical layers, and KnowBe4's 2025 Phishing by Industry benchmark (67.7 million simulations, 14.5 million users, 62,400 organisations) for the human layer. False-positive rates carried the same weight as detection percentages, and no vendor's own marketing claims were used. Vendors without a published independent result were left out rather than scored on opinion.
Which anti-phishing software should you choose?
Run Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense if email is your main exposure and you have the security operations to manage it. Add CrowdStrike Falcon if endpoint payloads are the risk you cannot absorb. If the honest gap is people rather than mail flow, start with Cyber Aware — the benchmark shows simulation-based training moves click rates from one in three staff to one in twenty inside a year. SMBs that want one line item should shortlist Coro. Compare platforms side by side before committing budget.
FAQ
Which anti-phishing software has the best detection accuracy in 2026? On published independent results, Cisco Secure Email Threat Defense leads the email layer with a AAA rating, close to 100% detection and zero false positives in SE Labs' 2026 evaluation. CrowdStrike Falcon holds a 100% score at the endpoint layer from SE Labs' 2025 test.
What is a good phishing click rate after training? KnowBe4's 2025 benchmark of 14.5 million users puts the pre-training rate at 33.1% and 4.1% after twelve months of ongoing simulation-based training — roughly one in twenty staff.
Do email filters remove the need for phishing awareness training? No. Filters reduce volume, but the KnowBe4 data shows a large share of staff still interact with malicious mail, so a training and simulation layer remains necessary in 2026.
Is CrowdStrike's 100% detection score for phishing emails? It is for endpoint-level attacks, including payloads delivered through phishing, in SE Labs' 2025 endpoint protection test — not for filtering phishing emails from the inbox.