Clearswift ENTERPRISEsuite Delivers ... Policy-Driven Secure Messaging; ClearSecure Offers Inexpensive, Easy-to-Use Encryption for Gateway E-Mail Protection and Management.

Business Editors & High-Tech Writers

BELLEVUE, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 12, 2002

Clearswift, the world's leading provider of software for managing and securing electronic communications, today announced a further software module of its ENTERPRISEsuite solution: ClearSecure, for message encryption.

ENTERPRISEsuite meets the needs of security and IT executives seeking control of electronic communications and to reduce costs and risks of spam, pornography, loss of intellectual property and breaches of confidentiality. It delivers the e-policy infrastructure and the enforcement technology required to deploy a comprehensive management and security solution across multiple protocols, multiple locations and multiple servers.

Eliminates need for client software

ClearSecure offers all aspects of secure messaging -- authentication, encryption, message integrity, non-repudiation and audit. It provides an inexpensive, easy-to-deploy way of encrypting e-mail and delivering it to virtually any recipient's desktop, whether they are a private consumer, in a large organization or in a small business.

ClearSecure's "SendAnywhere" message delivery technology eliminates the need for recipients to install client software or manage specialized encryption keys. Secure message content is delivered direct to the recipient's inbox and the use of ClearSecure is completely transparent. Encryption is integrated with content filtering and other e-mail management functions for total security.

"When e-mail security is essential, it will be accomplished more reliably when it does not depend on user choice and responsibility, but simply takes place behind the scenes," said Joyce Graff, vice president and research director at Gartner Inc.

"Right-to-privacy debates are driving the adoption of strict consumer privacy laws around the world. To meet the needs of this legislation, organizations and individuals require access to robust, easy to use, ubiquitous and inexpensive policy driven secure messaging. With ClearSecure, Clearswift is leading the world in meeting these requirements," said Paul Rutherford, chief marketing officer, Clearswift.

"The value to the enterprise customer is that the use of encryption is policy driven," he commented. "The organization can determine when a message should be encrypted, rather than rely on individual discretion. That protects organization, employee and recipient from the kind of mistakes that can end up in court."

ClearSecure supports both secure messaging between e-mail users and secure statement delivery. Secure statements include invoice statements, trade confirmations, medical laboratory results or any standard form that an organization might send on a regular basis to another organization or individual.

ClearSecure is tightly integrated with ClearEdge 4.9, the SMTP gateway e-mail management software module of ENTERPRISEsuite. The organization can be sure that the material being encrypted is appropriate to be sent at all.

About ClearSecure Encryption and Authentication

Encryption is the practice of modifying the format of information so that it is unreadable by anyone unless they have the key to decrypt it. The encryption technology employed in ClearSecure is the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), which is an official U.S. Government standard. AES is also the recommended encryption standard for use in complying with the US Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). ClearSecure applies a unique 128-bit AES key to every encrypted message.

Authentication is the mechanism for verifying that the message recipient is who they claim to be. ClearSecure uses the symmetric key encryption technique, which involves a single encryption key and relies on a 'shared secret' between the sender and recipient. ClearSecure integrates with many existing shared secret/authentication mechanisms, including smart cards, secure IDs, personal digital certificates, user IDs and passwords. ClearSecure supports the OASIS SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language) standard for authentication and authorization and can, therefore, integrate with other SAML-compliant applications.

About Clearswift

Clearswift is the world's leading provider of software for managing and securing electronic communications, with a 23% share of the global content filtering market. Clearswift delivers the capabilities for organizations to protect themselves against e-mail and Web-based threats, meet legal and regulatory requirements, implement productivity-saving policies and manage intellectual property passing through their network.

The company's expertise lies in establishing and enforcing e-policies. Content security threats include the circulation of inappropriate images and text, spam and oversize files, loss and corruption of data, breaches of confidentiality, as well as viruses and malicious code. Clearswift's software portfolio includes Clearswift MIMEsweeper, a product family for e-mail and Web e-policies and Clearswift ENTERPRISEsuite, a software infrastructure for managing e-policies in complex environments. More information about Clearswift, its products and services is available at www.clearswift.com.

(c) 2002 Clearswift Ltd. All rights reserved. The Clearswift Logo and Clearswift product names including ES, ES ClearPoint(TM), ES ClearEdge(TM), ES ClearBase(TM), ES ClearSurf(TM), ES Bastion(TM), ES X.400, MIMEsweeper(TM), MAILsweeper(TM), WEBsweeper(TM), e-Sweeper(TM), IMAGEmanager(TM), SECRETsweeper(TM) are trademarks of Clearswift Ltd. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Clearswift Ltd. (registered number 3367495) is registered in Britain with registered offices at 1310, Waterside, Arlington Business Park, Theale, Reading, Berkshire RG7 4SA, England.