Sunbelt Software Announces Third-Generation ''All-in-One'' Messaging Security; Integrated antivirus, antispam, and attachment filtering packaged into single solution; more security add-ons planned; free attachment filtering available to all.

CLEARWATER, Fla. -- Sunbelt Software, a leading provider of Windows security solutions, today announced the release of its new third-generation enterprise messaging security solution, Sunbelt Messaging Ninja(TM). Built for Microsoft Exchange, the product delivers best-of-breed antivirus, antispam and anti-phishing along with the most powerful attachment filtering available, wrapped in a plug-in framework that allows additional security features to be added easily. Significantly, Sunbelt is offering the attachment filtering component of Ninja at no charge to all organizations for a limited time.

Because Ninja's plug-in architecture was designed with flexibility and extendibility in mind, Ninja's security functionality will broaden in the future to include automatic disclaimers, content filtering, content auditing, archiving and more.

"Sunbelt Messaging Ninja is a true third-generation mail security platform that provides a multi-layered, policy based approach to protecting enterprises against email security threats. It is an extraordinarily powerful, robust security solution, providing comprehensive protection against all email-borne threats." said Alex Eckelberry, president of Sunbelt Software. "We started work on Ninja over two years ago, looking at security from a ground-up perspective of 'what is relevant and necessary today'. The result is a product that we believe will change the messaging landscape, and reports from beta testers confirm the excitement behind this release."

Ninja has been extensively field-tested and the results from customer sites have been overwhelmingly positive. "Since upgrading to and installing Sunbelt's Messaging Ninja, RadioFrame Networks has experienced a severe drop in spam and malicious emails while still maintaining low false-positives," said Christopher Smith, Information Systems Manager for RadioFrame Networks. "Once again, Sunbelt Software has outdone themselves with a stellar product. With the ease of management, automatic RBL and SPF policies, along with integrated antivirus, no company should be without a product such as Ninja."

Analysts agree that Ninja's all-in-one approach is compelling for enterprise customers: "Ninja's advantage is that it provides integrated antispam, antivirus and attachment protection with an extendable plug-in architecture. This provides organizations a single solution to combat today's messaging threats while extending email security functionality to protect against new messaging threats in the future," says Michael Osterman, principal of Osterman Research. "Sunbelt's Messaging Ninja provides customers with the ability to protect against spam, viruses and dangerous attachments through one integrated interface that combines best-of-breed plug-ins for a very complete way to manage email security."

"We're seeing a shift from standalone antispam and antivirus products to solutions that incorporate more powerful, comprehensive protection against a wider array of messaging security threats," said Laura DiDio, Research Fellow for Yankee Group, a Boston-based consultancy. "Corporate IT departments are extremely cost conscious. A single solution lowers TCO and reduces the time it takes to apply and administer multiple solutions. Sunbelt's Messaging Ninja delivers this 'all-in-one' solution with excellent technical support at an affordable price point," DiDio added.

Policy-based plug-in framework

Using Ninja's plug-in architecture, administrators can create custom policies for Active Directory users or groups and separate policy templates can be created for different groups or individuals, fine-tuning each policy to suit different constituent needs.

SMART(TM) Attachment Filtering

Unlike legacy security products that filter at the gateway, Ninja's Suspicious Mail Attachment Removal Technology(TM) (SMART) is the first policy-based attachment filter that filters all attachments based on email direction- inbound, outbound or within the organization. Additionally, it actually looks inside many types of files to determine their true identity, as opposed to simply relying on file extensions. For a limited time, Sunbelt is offering Ninja's SMART attachment filtering for free to all organizations.

Server-based dual-engine antivirus

Ninja uses multiple industrial strength antivirus engines, Authentium and BitDefender, to scan inbound and outbound email. This layered approach is significantly more effective than the common practice of relying on one vendor's antivirus engine.

Server-based dual-engine antispam

For its antispam capabilities, Ninja uses two scanning engines: Cloudmark's(TM) and Sunbelt's, providing users with both a heuristic and signature-based approach. Spam can be managed in a variety of ways: deleted, centrally quarantined, tagged with a Subject line identification, or sent to a custom folder in the end-user's Exchange mailbox. In addition, users can allow or block specific senders without any special desktop software required.

Support for Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and RBLs

With the increasing number of phishing attacks, identifying legitimate email addresses from spoofed addresses is important. SPF helps determine if emails are spoofed, testing whether a specific email originated from its claimed domain. Ninja also supports the administrator's choice of Real Time Blackholes (RBLs) as an added layer of spam protection.

Powerful reporting options for all plug-ins

Ninja delivers a broad range of pre-defined reports with the ability to customize reports based on individual needs. The database-driven reporting engine can generate information at the system, group, and/or user level. Administrators can choose options to show the number of inbound mail messages scanned, number of spam deleted or marked, number of viruses intercepted, number of filters triggered, percentage of viruses by name, and more.

Pricing and system requirements 

Sunbelt Messaging Ninja is priced aggressively for all corporate environments and includes one year of support, updates and upgrades. New customers can purchase Sunbelt Messaging Ninja on a per-mailbox basis. Pricing includes the first year maintenance and starts at $166.25 for 5 mailboxes and goes down to $5.75 per mailbox in volume. Users of Sunbelt's other mail security solution, iHateSpam for Exchange, can upgrade to Ninja's improved antispam functionality at no charge.

Both the free attachment filtering component and a trial version of Sunbelt Messaging Ninja are available on Sunbelt Software's website at http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm.

Minimum system requirements: A Microsoft Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Advanced Server, or Windows 2000 Datacenter Server with SP3 or later; Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition; Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition or Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition; with a one GHz or higher processor and 256 MBs of RAM and 100MBs of free disk space (additional disk space as needed for the quarantine store). NTFS is required for the system partition, the partition storing Ninja Messaging Suite binaries, partitions containing quarantine store files and partitions containing database files.

About Sunbelt Software

Headquartered in Tampa Bay (Clearwater), Fla., Sunbelt Software was founded in 1994 and offers product solutions to protect and secure systems from costly inefficiencies such as spam and spyware.

Sunbelt Software is part of the Sunbelt International Group, which includes Sunbelt Software and Sunbelt System Software in Europe. The Sunbelt System Software group has offices in the UK, France, Belgium, Sweden and Germany.

For more information about Sunbelt Software, please visit the company's website at: http://www.sunbelt-software.com.

Copyright (C) 2006 Sunbelt Software. All rights reserved. All trademarks used are owned by their respective companies.