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Proofpoint Announces Proofpoint Network Content Sentry, Extending Proofpoint's Content Security and Policy Enforcement Features to Webmail, Message Board Postings, FTP and Other Message Streams

Posted on: Tuesday, 9 August 2005, 09:00 CDT

CUPERTINO, Calif., Aug. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Proofpoint, Inc., the leader in large-enterprise messaging security solutions, today announced the Proofpoint Network Content Sentry(TM), a new product that extends the power of the Proofpoint Content Security suite -- which helps enterprises enforce outbound email policies, defend against leaks of confidential information and ensure compliance with regulations -- to additional outbound message streams including web-based email, blog and message board postings and other HTTP- or FTP-based activity. The Proofpoint Network Content Sentry inspects all outbound network traffic in real-time, monitoring for confidential information, private customer or employee data (including private healthcare, financial and identity information) and other sensitive content that may leak outside the enterprise. When such breaches are detected, Proofpoint Network Content Sentry actively alerts managers (such as compliance officers) so appropriate actions can be taken.

"The Proofpoint Network Content Sentry helps companies reduce the substantial legal, financial and regulatory risks associated with leaks of proprietary information and violations of data protection and privacy regulations," said Gary Steele, CEO of Proofpoint. "While the corporate email system is still the number one source of these risks, enterprises must also take steps to ensure that sensitive content isn't leaving via other communication channels. The Proofpoint Network Content Sentry lets organizations take immediate action against activities that violate internal policies or external regulations, regardless of whether those occur over email or other web transmissions such as webmail, blogs, message board posts or FTP."

A recent Proofpoint survey of more than 300 large organizations revealed that, beyond the corporate email system, IT professionals are most concerned about Web-based email as a source of private information leaks. More than 70% of respondents reported being concerned or very concerned about web-based email as a source of risk and more than half shared the same concerns about postings to blogs and other types of message boards. (For a copy of the complete results of this survey, please visit http://www.proofpoint.com/outbound.)

"The core of my job is keeping our company's most valuable data and customer information inside the organization," said Tony Placilla, Director of Information Security for Sutherland Global Services, Inc., a leading provider of CRM and business process outsourcing services. "We already depend on the Proofpoint Regulatory Compliance and Digital Asset Security products to prevent this data from leaving via email. We're excited about the Proofpoint Network Content Sentry because it solves that same problem for webmail and other protocols that would be extremely difficult to monitor otherwise."

"Protecting sensitive information from unauthorized disclosure has become a major concern for organizations worldwide. Recent industry and government regulations require organizations to maintain the integrity of customer and employee personal information, as well as sensitive corporate digital assets, from being misused or from falling into the wrong hands," said Brian Burke, Research Manager, Security Products for IDC. "As a result, they are actively seeking security solutions that offer new capabilities for detecting and/or preventing information leakage via email, the web and other channels. Proofpoint is the first enterprise messaging security vendor to extend its email content security and policy enforcement capabilities to webmail, message board postings and FTP."

Enhanced Protection for Intellectual Property and Improved Compliance

Proofpoint's messaging security solutions protect large enterprises, universities and government organizations from both inbound and outbound message-borne threats. Proofpoint's highly-scalable, enterprise-grade solutions are proven to protect even extremely large organizations with more than 150,000 users. By adding the Proofpoint Network Content Sentry, these organizations can apply the same content security, regulatory compliance and acceptable use policies they apply to SMTP-based email to HTTP and FTP protocol-based communications.

* Intellectual Property and Confidential Information Protection: In conjunction with the Proofpoint Digital Asset Security(TM) module, the Proofpoint Network Content Sentry monitors outbound network traffic for any type of confidential asset. Leveraging Proofpoint MLX(TM) message classification techniques, Proofpoint Digital Asset Security analyzes and classifies confidential documents and then continuously monitors for that information, or parts of that information, in outgoing network traffic. Proofpoint Digital Asset Security can be used to protect hundreds of document types including email messages, text files, word processing files, source code, CAD drawings, spreadsheets and presentation formats. Proofpoint's business user workflow makes managing even tens of thousands of confidential documents easy. Proofpoint Enterprise Data Connector(TM) technology allows the Proofpoint Digital Asset Security module to easily integrate with filesystems, databases, content management systems such as Documentum, version control systems and other external applications to enable automatic indexing of new or modified confidential information * Regulatory Compliance: In conjunction with the Proofpoint Regulatory Compliance(TM) module, the Proofpoint Network Content Sentry monitors outbound network traffic for a wide array of non-public information including PHI (protected health information including drug names, disease names, patient identifiers and treatment codes as defined by HIPAA), personal identifiers (including US Social Security Numbers and UK National Insurance Numbers) and personal financial information (such as credit card numbers and ABA routing numbers). Proofpoint's "smart identifiers" ensure accurate detection of private information with low false positives. Proofpoint Regulatory Compliance makes it easy to ensure that outbound network traffic complies with many different types of privacy and data protection regulations including Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, Gramm-Leach-Bliley, state privacy regulations (such as California AB 1950 and SB 1386), Canada's PIPEDA and various European privacy directives.

In both cases, the Proofpoint Messaging Security Console(TM) provides a convenient graphical user interface for both IT administrators and business users to define and manage all compliance and data protection policies. It provides a central location for managing all Proofpoint modules and policies -- including spam, virus, compliance and outbound email and network content security. It also provides access to graphical reports included with each module, such as charts that monitor content security breaches over time.

Proofpoint's Compliance Incident Manager(TM) interface makes it easy for business users -- such as compliance, security, risk management, HR and other line-of-business managers -- to administer their own email and network content security policies, review violations, approve exceptions and monitor incidents through an easy-to-use interface and email-based notification system. The Compliance Incident Manager actively notifies managers of policy violations and associated severity levels, so they can easily and effectively review non- compliant messages and release, reroute, approve or otherwise manage incidents using Proofpoint's graphical user interface.

Robust HTTP and FTP Protocol Monitoring

The Proofpoint Network Content Sentry intelligently captures and reconstructs all outbound HTTP and FTP protocol traffic at high data rates. All HTTP posting activity -- such as web-based email posting (including webmail services such as MSN Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, AOL Mail and Google GMail), blog postings, message board submissions, use of web-based file storage systems (such as GMail FS) and other general posting activity -- is intercepted and scanned for information leaks and policy violations.

The system monitors both active and passive mode FTP transmissions of binary or text files sent to remote servers. As with HTTP posting, a wide variety of policies can be enforced around FTP activity, including monitoring for specific files, file size limits and detecting FTP transmissions to inappropriate destinations.

Availability

The Proofpoint Network Content Sentry will be available in limited release in the third quarter of 2005. Contact Proofpoint to request a 30-day risk assessment audit, which can help you to better understand the outbound messaging risks and regulations that impact your enterprise.

About Proofpoint, Inc.

Proofpoint provides messaging security solutions for large enterprises to stop spam, protect against email viruses and ensure compliance with corporate policies and regulations through their messaging infrastructure. The company's flagship products, the Proofpoint Messaging Security Gateway(TM) and Proofpoint Protection Server(R) provide future-proof messaging security using Proofpoint MLX(TM) technology, an advanced machine learning system developed by Proofpoint scientists and engineers. Proofpoint was founded by technology visionary and former CTO of Netscape Communications, Eric Hahn. The Cupertino, California-based company is funded by investors including Benchmark Capital, Inventures Group, Meritech Capital, Mohr, Davidow Ventures, and RRE Ventures. For more information, please visit http://www.proofpoint.com/.

NOTE: Proofpoint, Proofpoint MLX, Proofpoint Protection Server, Proofpoint Messaging Security Gateway, Proofpoint Network Content Sentry, Proofpoint Spam Detection, Proofpoint Virus Protection, Proofpoint Content Compliance, Proofpoint Digital Asset Security, Proofpoint Regulatory Compliance, Proofpoint Enterprise Data Connector and Proofpoint Compliance Incident Manager are trademarks or registered trademarks of Proofpoint Inc. All other trademarks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.

Available Topic Expert(s): For information on the listed expert(s), click appropriate link. Gary Steele http://profnet.prnewswire.com/ud_public.jsp?userid=344359

Proofpoint, Inc.

CONTACT: Andy Murphy of SparkSource, Inc., +1-781-274-6061, ext. 208, orpr@proofpoint.com, for Proofpoint

Web site: http://www.proofpoint.com/

Source: PRNewswire

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