IronPort combines Sophos anti-virus, Brightmail anti-spam, and reputation filters.

IronPort Systems, the leading email infrastructure products and services company and Sophos, a world leader in protecting organizations against spam and viruses, today announced that the companies have teamed to integrate Sophos anti-virus technology in the IronPort C-Series appliances.

IronPort Systems also announced recently an addition to its C-Series product line, the IronPort C30, targeted for Small and Medium Enterprises. The IronPort C-Series appliances provide the ideal perimeter defense against email virus attacks or malicious spam attacks with a unique layered approach to security. The outer layer is IronPort's Reputation Filters, which prevent blatant spam from entering the network by automatically slowing down or throttling senders with a suspicious reputation. The inner layer of defense uses Brightmail's anti-spam technology to detect spam and Sophos anti-virus technology to detect viruses. This combination of prevention and detection yields the highest performance and highest accuracy of any system on the market.

"Today's speed and variety of virus attacks can easily overwhelm most email gateways with a sudden spike in message volume. Combining our Messaging Gateway appliance with the Sophos virus protection technology allows our customers to protect their email infrastructure against even the most pervasive virus outbreaks," says Tom Gillis, Sr. Vice President of Marketing at IronPort. "By consolidating proven anti-spam technology from Brightmail and anti-virus technology from Sophos, IronPort reduces the hardware required to build out a robust, secure SMTP perimeter."

Integrating Sophos' robust anti-virus solution with the IronPort Messaging Gateway appliances provides enterprises of all sizes the highest performing, most reliable gateway to protect mission critical email. In addition, the Sophos anti-virus engine also shares information with IronPort's Mail Flow Monitor(TM) feature, which provides a single view into all email in the network--increasing visibility and reducing administration time.

"We are pleased to partner with IronPort Systems to provide an integrated solution to protect email," said Phil Stockton, Strategic Alliances Manager at Sophos, Inc. "Over the last three years, Sophos has been recognized for delivering the highest level of customer satisfaction and anti-virus protection in the industry. Integrating our technology with IronPort's Messaging Gateway appliance is yet another demonstration of our ongoing commitment to provide the best technology to businesses of all sizes."

Following a strong demand and rapid adoption of the IronPort C60 by the Global 2000, IronPort Systems has introduced the IronPort C30 email Messaging Gateway appliance targeted for Small and Medium Enterprises (SME). The IronPort C60 appliance is designed to protect email for the largest and most sophisticated corporate networks in the world, including Cisco Systems, Verizon Wireless, and EDS. IronPort worked closely with SMEs to develop a solution that is tailored to the needs of a mid-sized corporation. Businesses of all sizes can now benefit from IronPort's advanced features such as Mail Flow Monitor and Reputation Filters to prevent malicious and unwanted email from entering into the network. The IronPort C30 can protect email systems of companies with up to 1,500 users and is available for general release immediately.