Email Filtering + Business Email Management

MessageLabs on Thursday announced upgrades to its content and image control service offerings that feature greater accuracy and can scan more document types for allowable content.

MessageLabs’ Email Content Control 3.0 and Email Image Control 2.0 are offered as managed services that scan inbound and outbound e-mails for inappropriate, confidential or malicious content sent or received by an organization’s employees. The services help companies implement acceptable e-mail use policies and ensure compliance with a range of government and industry regulations, according to company officials.

The upgraded services now feature the ability to scan within Microsoft Office document attachments and include customizable notifications, so that e-mail administrators can change the text within a notification to better fit the organization, they say.

Email Content Control 3.0 also features a reorganized management interface that makes rule details easier to find, and can decompress files for scanning. The service can use the same security policies implemented by a company’s e-mail system, and rules can be set on a user-by-user basis, officials say. Email Image Control 2.0 includes new algorithms for analysing image attributes in order to accurately distinguish inappropriate content, officials say.

“Businesses are increasingly dependent on email as a primary communication tool,” said Michael D. Osterman, President, Osterman Research. “But it presents several risks for controlling confidential and valuable information from leaving the organization. Content filtering — inspecting the content of messages before they are sent — will assume a more important role within messaging management as a means of mitigating risks and managing corporate liability, and to make businesses feel more confident about their email systems.”

On 4 January 2007, Cisco announced a definitive agreement to acquire IronPort Systems, a provider of enterprise messaging security products.

The IronPort acquisition will allow Cisco to move into the fast-growing e-mail security market, which is currently valued at approximately $850 million and growing at a rate of approximately 40% annually. The key technology value that Cisco will receive is a strategic foundation on which to begin building a security infrastructure for unified communications, including e-mail.

Gartner Analysis : The consolidation in the e-mail security market is now almost complete. Other vendors will find it difficult to compete with industry leaders Cisco, Microsoft and Symantec in the enterprise market. IBM and (potentially) Juniper Networks are the only other major vendors that have a strategic interest in this market, though BorderWare and Proofpoint remain as respected independent players. Gartner believes the two remaining service providers, MessageLabs and Postini, will likely be acquired by telecom providers in their respective markets.

Extracted from Gartner – IronPort Buy Will Make Cisco a Major E-Mail Security Player