Proofpoint has unveiled a cloud-based email security and compliance platform, Proofpoint CloudControl. The new offering also features archiving and eDiscovery capabilities.
The product is aimed at large enterprises and is a response to the increasing amount of data being created from the consumer web, such as social media sites, Rami Habal, director of product marketing at Proofpoint, told CBR.
CloudControl works across three levels: Applications, cloud services and a secure infrastructure layer.
The applications layer contains protection, privacy and archiving and eDiscovery features. This includes features to protect against spam, malware, phishing attacks and data loss. The archiving and eDiscovery feature aims to help companies deal with litigation and email storage management. This is where the email and social-media compliance issues are dealt with, the firm said.
The cloud services level is where elements such as threat detection, classification, encryption, search and analysis and policy enforcement are centred, and provide security across the application layer. Its cloud-based nature means lower TCO and faster implementation of new security and compliance applications, the company believes.
The secure infrastructure layer provides the compute, network and storage elements that power the platform. It provides redundant multi-tenancy occupation at data centres across the world, Proofpoint said.
Habal told CBR that all this goes together to provide real-time protection and compliance policies, which is one of the biggest challenges facing organisations these days. "Security, such as spam and botnets, privacy, such as government regulation and data breaches, and litigation, such as Freedom of Information requests, are the biggest threats. Data is everywhere these days due to the consumerisation of IT and there is a fine line between keeping secure and keeping users happy."
Another impact of the consumerisation of IT is that more mobile devices are being used in enterprises. To help companies deal with the security issue here the company has also released Proofpoint Mobile. It runs across the CloudControl platform and extends its email security, compliance and archiving capabilities to mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets.
The mobile apps run either as a native or web-based application and offer three features. Proofpoint Mobile Encryption provides policy-driven encryption and decryption services that aim to protect mobile users against policy violations and data leakages.
Proofpoint Mobile Archive provides what the company calls a limitless inbox, meaning users can store, access and search emails via the cloud, stretching back as long as a company’s policy allows. The final element of Proofpoint Mobile is a dashboard that enables IT admins to manage updates and monitor security and compliance issues from their mobile devices.
The Mobile Encryption app is available for iPhone, BlackBerry, Android and Windows Phone 7 devices, while the Archive and Dashboard are only available of Apple’s device.
