Sophos email appliances provide protection from spam, phishing,
malware and information leakage.
IT security and control firm Sophos has published a new white
paper discussing how unwanted email threatens business
productivity, regulatory compliance and network security.
The paper, entitled "Liberating
the inbox: How to make email safe and productive again",
discusses the challenges of spam, malware and information leakage.
It also discusses how organizations want their email systems to
comply with both internal acceptable use policies and industry
regulations such as HIPAA and Sarbanes-Oxley.
Companies are facing a growing number of leaks of confidential
data, proprietary information, or intellectual property by their
employees. According to analyst firm IDC*, data stolen by an
employee or a business partner ranks as the seventh-greatest threat
to enterprise security and the most costly incidents are those that
are deliberate and malicious.
"Spam isn't going away, and neither is malware. But now
organizations are facing challenges with keeping confidential
information away from prying or unintended eyes," said Jeff
Epstein, product marketing manager at Sophos. "The risk of unwanted
disclosure ranges from embarrassment to fines to legal liability.
Fortunately, there are relatively simple ways to avoid a great deal
of these situations as they pertain to email."
Sophos stresses that the key to making email safer is to secure
all the points of vulnerability - protecting all layers and
ensuring that the gateway and groupware solutions integrate
protection against spam, viruses, and phishing as well as filter
email for unwanted or confidential content.
* Source: Worldwide information protection and
control (IPC) 2007-2011 forecast and analysis: securing the world's
currency, IDC, May 2007.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.