Clearswift Delivers Effortless E-Mail Security; Launch of MIMEsweeper(TM) Email Managed Service Takes Simplifying Content Security to the Next Level.

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. -- Clearswift today announced the launch of MIMEsweeper Email Managed Service, a fully hosted e-mail content security service designed to deliver effortless e-mail security. This new service takes the burden of e-mail security away from overworked IT teams in order to free up internal resources, while maintaining the highest standards of content security.

The MIMEsweeper Email Managed Service combines the rigor of the Clearswift MIMEsweeper product portfolio with expert hosted management and implementation. Every e-mail message, whether inbound or outbound, is subject to detailed checks by best-of-breed anti-spam, anti-virus and content security technologies before being released to continue its journey with the minimum of delay. It represents a simple way to manage e-mail systems of all sizes, with no requirement for additional software or hardware at the customer's site and the ability to deploy the system in stages for large and complex e-mail environments.

Key features of MIMEsweeper Email Managed Service include:

--Effortless e-mail security -- no software, hardware or maintenance

--24x7 fully redundant hosting -- offering complete physical security, software resilience and support with 99.999% availability

--Eliminate 98% of spam with less than 1 in 300,000 false positives

--Multiple virus filters for maximum protection

--Bi-directional content security ensures all inbound and outbound traffic is filtered

--Dedicated image filter to eliminate distasteful material

--Full archiving to support compliance and business continuity

--Secure encrypted e-mail between participating parties

--Total visibility, with Web-based logging, reporting, audit and control

--Zero end user disruption

--Advanced graphical reporting and message tracking

Ian Bowles, SVP of Global Operations at Clearswift, commented: "There are a huge number of inbound threats from spam to phishing, and almost 60% of a business' critical information is transmitted via e-mail. IT departments are under immense pressure to provide fast and efficient solutions to the problem of content security, within tight budget restraints. With this service, we're saying to our customers that they can leave their e-mail security to us."

MIMEsweeper Email Managed Service offers customers a number of benefits including real-time dual location replication of both static and transient data, a unique feature of the Clearswift solution that ensures no loss of e-mail. Furthermore, the purpose built MTA (Mail Transport Agent) greatly improves throughput and outstrips the scalability offered by many other technologies, thanks to its specific design for the high throughput, volatile e-mail environment. MIMEsweeper Email Managed Service also incorporates market-leading external and internal e-mail archiving, and a full audit trail to meet today's exacting corporate governance standards. Designated "data custodians" are able to oversee archiving access activity for compliance purposes and the service can be adapted at any time to suit "strict compliance" conditions. Unlike many competing services, no extra hardware or software is required for the archiving functionality.

MIMEsweeper Email Managed Service also offers market-leading multilayered anti-spam defenses including mass outbreak detection (a function that enhances the system's ability to detect spam by delaying processing of suspect messages until the nature of the threat is identified), multiple configurations for "Dark Mail" protection and silent rejection of "Dark Mail."

"'Dark Mail,' or spam sent to guessed e-mail addresses, makes up about 40% of e-mail traffic, which is a significant problem. Most managed services can reject 'Dark Mail' but that actually gives the spammers confirmation of valid addresses. Uniquely MIMEsweeper Email Managed Service silently rejects these messages so that the spammers don't get any useful information back," added Bowles.

MIMEsweeper Email Managed Service features a powerful and flexible rules-based engine that enables organizations to manage and deploy multiple compound rules. Policy rules can be set at account, domain or user level -- depending on your requirements.

MIMEsweeper Email Managed Service uses acclaimed "zero-hour" protection to safeguard customers against the newest forms of attack, be they malware or spam. Using a combination of heuristics and real-time analysis of Internet activity and propagation rates, MIMEsweeper Email Managed Services protects against both past and real-time malicious activity. In the unlikely event of any performance issues, customers are grouped in small "clusters" to minimize the impact upon other users.

The service also includes image scanning capabilities to deliver a complete solution. MIMEsweeper Email Managed Service allows organizations to set granular thresholds to control exactly what types of images are allowed or rejected, a greater level of functionality than offered by alternative services on the market. Furthermore MIMEsweeper Email Managed Service allows companies to "whitelist" images that it wants to allow over e-mail such as corporate logos or promotional pictures.

Management of the system is crucial so Clearswift has included a number of intelligent management functions including sophisticated search capabilities, full traffic monitoring, granular permission structure, detailed event logging and detailed graphical reporting to allow customers to have a deep understanding of their e-mail security. MIMEsweeper Email Managed Service also allows organizations to delegate certain functions so that users can manage their own quarantines, image and audit logs for maximum flexibility.

"This is focused on both in and outbound mail -- for example, MIMEsweeper Email Managed Service's TLS encryption ensures that all e-mail messages that are meant to be encrypted are encrypted, alerting the administrator if there is then a problem delivering the e-mail so that he can then take appropriate action. That's an unusual way to approach this as most solutions will simply deliver the e-mail unencrypted in that scenario, which seems to defeat the point!" concluded Bowles.

About Clearswift

Clearswift simplifies content security.

Our products help organizations enforce best-practice e-mail and Web use, ensuring all traffic complies with internal policy and external regulations. Our range of content filtering solutions makes it easy to deploy, manage and maintain no-compromise e-mail and Web security for both inbound and outbound traffic.

Clearswift is the only vendor to offer comprehensive, policy-based content security in all three deployment methods: as software, as an appliance and as a managed service. All three platforms are designed to take the hassle out of securing Internet traffic, with a clear, intuitive management interface; automatic, "zero-touch" updates; powerful reporting and common-sense policy management.

Twenty years of experience across 15,000 organizations has helped us raise security standards while simplifying security management at the same time.

We've helped many of the world's most successful organizations use the Internet with confidence and are committed to staying ahead of the market and helping our customers defend against all emerging threats.