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One in Three Companies Operate Without Email Usage Policies, Risking Damage to Their Systems and Reputations, Sendmail Finds

Posted on: Thursday, 25 May 2006, 09:00 CDT

Joint Webinar by Sendmail and Osterman Research Give 500 Companies From Across the World Insights on Email Security and Governance

More than a third of companies are putting themselves at risk by operating their growing e-mail systems without comprehensive, enforceable policies on usage, according to the results of a Webinar survey by Sendmail Inc., the leading provider of enterprise solutions for secure, dependable and compliant messaging, in conjunction with Osterman Research.

The Webinar, entitled, "The New Realities of Email Governance: Effective Email Policy Management for Today's Business Environment," was designed to give large enterprises insight into the email governance challenges facing today's organizations and provide the questions to ask when evaluating and implementing new email and IM technologies to address these challenges. Email governance is defined as effective management of email to satisfy organizational requirements including: security/threat prevention, regulatory compliance and corporate governance.

The majority of attendees of the Webinar represented large enterprise organizations with annual IT technology budgets over $1 million (US). According to these enterprise customers:

-- 36% of companies had no email or IM policies in place

-- 38% had email-only policies in place

-- 20% had email and IM policies in place

-- 6% had only IM policies in place

The Webinar, hosted by Sendmail and Michael Osterman, founder of Osterman Research, shares the latest findings on email governance.

"An effective email governance strategy must address a broad spectrum of vulnerabilities, risks, and technologies. Organizations must balance the need to keep communications open and provide protection for users, systems and information," said Osterman.

A whitepaper, under the same name, is also available. To view the Webinar, visit: "Email Governance Webinar" (http://www.eseminarslive.com/article2/0,2290,1945846,00.asp). For the whitepaper, visit www.sendmail.com/emailgovernance.

Key findings in support of email governance include:

-- Enterprises sent 17% & received 20% more messages in Q1 '06 vs. '05

-- Denial of Service, Directory Harvesting, and Employee-targeted Phishing attacks are on the rise

-- Organizations must comply with a growing list of regulatory requirements, from email privacy, to archiving and storage

-- Email is now considered a legal document, upheld in court

The Webinar concludes that email governance breakdowns can be addressed, largely, through effective policy management. Issues like: spam volumes; privacy leaks; system downtime due to attack; embarrassment, fines, litigation, due to intentional or unintentional misuse of email; all can be minimized with unified email policy.

"Sendmail's unified policy management fills the gaps created by the point solutions that companies commonly deploy within their messaging environments," said Carol Stone, Sendmail VP Marketing. "Sendmail's solution provides companies the ability to address email governance by easily creating or changing policies using a simple Web-based interface, or by implementing pre-built lexicons for HIPAA, GLBA, or SOX compliance."

About Sendmail, Inc.

Sendmail, Inc. is a global provider of enterprise solutions for secure, dependable, and compliant messaging. Sendmail solutions help organizations eliminate unwanted messages, effectively manage their mail stream, and address regulatory compliance and corporate governance requirements. Customers across 33 countries and the majority of the Fortune 1000, rely on Sendmail for their end-to-end email security and infrastructure needs: gateway security, secure routing, policy management, internal and outbound mail management, quarantine, and email access and storage. Sendmail is headquartered in Emeryville, CA, with offices and distributors in Europe, Asia and the Americas. Visit www.sendmail.com or call 1-87-SENDMAIL.

About Osterman Research

Osterman Research has more than 20 years experience in the market research industry, conducting research for a wide variety of technology-based clients. Osterman Research serves a worldwide client base, including BT, Symantec, Trend Micro, Postini, MessageLabs, Microsoft, BorderWare, Cloudmark, FaceTime, Yahoo!, ZixCorp, IronPort Systems and Sendmail, among many others. Visit www.ostermanresearch.com/.

Source: Business Wire

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