Ciphertrust Offers Gateway Security Appliance For E-mail, IM

The new IM protection makes CipherTrust the first vendor to offer gateway security appliances for both e-mail and IM, said Jay Chaudry, CEO and chairman of the Alpharetta, Ga.-based company.

CipherTrust&s IronIM product extends the same protection to IM that the vendor offers for e-mail, allowing customers to integrate policy to secure, log, monitor and archive enterprise IM communications in the same way they do e-mail, Chaudry said. IronIM supports multiple IM standards, including AOL Instant Messenger, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk and corporate IM products Microsoft Live Communication Server and IBM SameTime.

The IronIM dashboard allows administrators to track IM use within the company, Chaudry said. “Some companies have no idea who is using IM or how many messages run across their networks, “ he said.

On the management side, IronIM lets administrators establish policy by group or user, and enables them to search archived messages by phrases, words, time or users, Chaudry said. In addition, the appliance automatically encrypts intracompany and intercompany messages. IronIM also leverages CipherTrust&s SpamProfiler and IntruderBlocker technologies to stop spam, viruses, worms and other attacks via IM as well as e-mail.

By combining e-mail and IM protection under one management interface and policy engine, CipherTrust is “packaging what customers need right now,” said Scott Byers, regional vice president at ProSys Information Systems, a solution provider in Atlanta.

“E-mail has been the established form in business communications, but instant messaging is taking over,” Byers said. “By taking the same foundation they use for e-mail and expanding that protection to IM, it gives customers much more flexibility, and it keeps it simple.” Available now, IronIM starts at $5,995.