Press Release
FaceTime Protects Enterprises from Information Leaks over Collaborative Suites
like Microsoft OCS and IBM Sametime
Survey reveals 57 percent of IT managers believe their corporate data is not
adequately protected from leaks via IM and/or unified communications
BELMONT, Calif. - July 14, 2008 - As instant messaging becomes preferred
over e-mail for real-time collaboration in large organizations, security and
compliance concerns rise to top of mind for IT managers. In answer to these
concerns, FaceTime Communications today announced that its newly enhanced
version of IMAuditor provides a dynamic system for information leak prevention
that detects and scans message communications as well as file transfer content
in real-time.
Since 2001, FaceTime has been the definitive choice for instant messaging
management and security in the enterprise. Partnering with both Microsoft (as a
Gold Level Partner) and IBM, FaceTime provides perimeter security and deep
compliance for unified communications and enterprise IM deployments. With
FaceTime, organizations can block in-bound malware threats, prevent information
leakage and maintain corporate and regulatory compliance requirements while
realizing the productivity and cost saving benefits of real-time
communications.
The IMAuditor system scans and applies established policies to all the popular
file types transferred over unified communications platforms such as Microsoft
OCS and IBM Lotus Sametime, as well as public instant messaging networks such
as AIM, Yahoo! Messenger, GoogleTalk and MSN. The system analyzes and detects
sensitive or confidential information in both messages and file attachments,
can prevent transmission of the information, and will warn the user about
established company policy regarding the sharing of corporate intellectual
property.
In an information leak prevention survey conducted in June 2008 for FaceTime by
Osterman Research, nearly 40 percent of IT staff at mid- to large-sized
organizations in North America said they believed that unintentional leaks by
employees are a bigger threat to their data security than spyware or malicious
software, and 57 percent believe their corporate data is not adequately
protected from leaks via IM and/or unified communications.
"This survey confirms that security and compliance issues such as e-mail-based
spam and malware are among those that the IT community feels confident have
been adequately solved", said Michael Osterman, principal of Osterman Research.
"However, compliance for unified communications and the real-time Internet is
an area that many realize they must address."
The survey also revealed that nearly 50 percent of IT managers are very
concerned about information leak prevention in their current or planned unified
communications implementations and 23 percent of those view it as a top
priority. Conversely, only 16 percent of respondents said the issue of
information leak prevention is not on their radar, and less than 10 percent
said they have no plans for unified communications deployment.
"Organizations are deploying unified communications to help their employees be
more efficient and to reduce costs", said Frank Cabri, vice president of
marketing and product management for FaceTime Communications. "The last thing
IT wants to do is to create yet another open security hole for intellectual
property to be leaked. File attachments can contain sensitive information and
unless their content can be detected and evaluated, control is lost at the
gateway."
IMAuditor 9.5 helps organizations realize the benefits of unified
communications and enterprise instant messaging deployments by providing
guaranteed compliance to meet regulatory and corporate requirements, including
logging, archiving and easy retrieval of messaging communications.
About IMAuditor 9.5
FaceTime IMAuditor is a full-featured instant messaging
proxy that secures and manages all public and enterprise instant message use
over an organization's network. IMAuditor, which resides on the local area
network, maintains an integrated trust relationship with FaceTime's secure Web
gateway appliance, the Unified Security Gateway (USG). Working together
IMAuditor and USG deliver complete end-to-end security, management and
compliance for real-time communications in the enterprise, ensuring that
corporate data is protected both from outside threats such as spyware, viruses
and worms, as well as from intentional or unintentional information leakage
from within the company.
The following new features are incorporated into the IMAuditor System with
version 9.5:
-
Information leak prevention – protect intellectual property by scanning
contents of all the popular file types including Microsoft Office and other
leading software applications. This capability allows powerful data leakage
polices to be enforced based on restricted phrase matching, detecting and
blocking encrypted files and controlling the types of files that can be sent
internally or externally.
-
BlackBerry support – management, compliance and security for mobile workers
using BlackBerry devices within an IBM Sametime environment.
-
Advanced text search – delivers fast Boolean and regular expression searches
across IM conversations to make information retrieval simple and efficient
during a discovery event, regardless of database size.
-
Usage trend reporting – provides detailed usage information including unique
logins, number of messages, number of unified communications events as well as
reports by time interval to provide flexible reporting options for IT
management.
IMAuditor 9.5 is available now from FaceTime and authorized distributors and
partners worldwide. For pricing and additional information call 1-888-349-3223
or visit www.facetime.com.
About FaceTime Communications
FaceTime Communications enables the safe and productive use of instant
messaging, Web usage and Unified Communications platforms. Ranked number one by
IDC for four consecutive years, FaceTime's award-winning solutions are used by
more than 900 customers – including nine of the 10 largest U.S. banks – for
security, management and compliance of real-time communications. FaceTime
supports or has strategic partnerships with all leading public and enterprise
IM network providers, including AOL, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Skype, IBM and Jabber.
FaceTime is headquartered in Belmont, California. For more information visit
http://www.facetime.com or call 888-349-FACE.
The FaceForward blog, at http://blog.facetime.com,
offers thoughts and opinions about the changing nature of Internet communications.
PR Contact:
Emily Chamberlin
650-762-2945
echamberlin@ar-edelman.com
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