Chances are that your email address has been acquired by some less salubrious party by any number of illegitimate means. You will, no doubt, have heard of trojans, worms and mobile malicious code; all of which can acquire your email address and the addresses of your business and personal contacts. As if this wasn't enough, there is the ever-present threat of email-borne viruses and "phishing" scams - one capable of wiping out your computer network, the other of stealing your on-line identity. All pretty scary stuff, I'm sure you'll agree. |
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Wouldn't it be great if the senders of emails could be verified so that you were certain of their identity? That the email from your boss promising a pay rise really has come from him and isn't another clever phishing trick or virus-laden spoof email?
PKI, sounds straightforward, but I don't know anyone who uses these systems for regular email and they're not the most user-friendly things to implement.
Until recently, the accepted method to provide email encryption was the deployment of a public key infrastructure (PKI) system. You would purchase a private encryption key from a certificate authority (CA) and provide a public key to your intended recipients. Once the recipient has your public key, they can decrypt email you've encrypted with your private key. Sounds straightforward, but I certainly don't know anyone who uses these systems for regular email and they're not the most user-friendly things to implement.
People are "fed up" of dealing with problem email, and are looking for a more effective solution
As the administrative overhead of managing an internet email policy becomes more of a headache, I am asked more and more often about an alternative. In the past, In the past, I would recommend an on-site solution for email management such as MAILsweeper from Clearswift. This is still a solid product, it's just that now organisations have the choice of a managed versus 'manage yourselves' option.
As email quantities increase (and the overall "quality" of email decreases), customers are reporting that more and more time is spent releasing quarantined mail, deleting Spam and dealing with potential virus outbreaks. One customer I attended recently reported a record of 55,000 emails in a single working day!
Servo has had a relationship with MessageLabs for some time now, and has seen this relationship blossom in recent months. I believe this is a direct result of people being "fed up" of dealing with problem email, and looking for a more managed solution in this area.
MessageLabs seems to be solving the problem for Servo customers
MessageLabs is the leading provider of managed email security services for businesses. Operating at Internet level, the service offers protection against threats such as spam, viruses and other unwanted content before they reach the internal network. It is an outsourced managed service, and as a result needs no additional investment in hardware or software, delivering a very low total cost of ownership - this makes it very compelling. The service is based on their trademarked technology called SkepticT which provides a globally replicated, intelligent system for the scanning of email. It incorporates:
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Virus scanning using multiple scanners and the SkepticT predictive technology. The service offers a 100% SLA to the majority of its clients and has protected thousands
of organisations from the major outbreaks of recent times.
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Anti-Spam. MessageLabs Anti-Spam 4.0 is the first multi-layered solution to combat all spam techniques. It provides you with complete, multi-layered defence - stopping up to 99.99% of spam messages. It includes the world's largest database of spam signatures, meaning that no single solution in the world can beat it. Customers I have spoken to who have implemented the solution report a significant improvement in this area.
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Image and content control allows you to identify and control confidential, malicious or inappropriate content sent or received by your employees. You can monitor and enforce your acceptable usage policy, helping to protect your employees and your brand - safeguarding against the increasing risk of litigation. |
The solution was recently enhanced to include encryption, offering a secure private email network
In March, MessageLabs announced their managed email encryption solution: MessageLabs Boundary Encryption ("MBE") - the only 100% guaranteed service in the world. MBE provides a transparent encryption service for email sent and received from designated partner organisations. All email is encrypted using the industry-standard Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol, making it very secure.
MBE offers organisations the ability to set up a secure private email network between themselves and their partner organisations to ensure the end-to-end delivery of encrypted communications without the need for complicated hardware or software to setup, configure or maintain.
It includes the following features:
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Deployed transparently - end users are unaffected |
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Email messages are encrypted automatically according to your policy |
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Keeps the entire message private - including all message header information |
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Authentication based on genuine Authority-signed certificates - ensures email is only sent to the correct destination |
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No complex certificate management |
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Interoperable with the most common mail servers including MS Exchange, Lotus Domino and Sendmail |
Unlike other encryption technologies, all incoming and outgoing encrypted email will still be scanned for viruses, spam and other inappropriate content. Your security need never be compromised due to viruses hiding within an encrypted email.
Summary of benefits
The benefits of the new MessageLabs solution are as follows:
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Privacy - the message is kept secret |
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Integrity - the message is kept intact |
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Authenticity - know who sent the message |
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Compliance - satisfies corporate and government regulations |
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Consistency - encryption policy clearly defined, understood and automatically enforced |
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Simplicity - no changes in user behaviour |
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Guaranteed - enforced security with no "fall-back" to unencrypted delivery |
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Minimal cost of ownership - only one encrypted channel to maintain with MessageLabs |
Free 7 day trial
Servo offers a free 7 day trial of the MessageLabs service which will tell you exactly how you are faring in the battle against viruses and give you figures on the amount of spam landing on your employees' inboxes. Click here for more information www.servo.co.uk/asp/messagelabs .
For more information on the recently announced Boundary Encryption service visit:
www.messagelabs.co.uk/services/encryption |
