CipherTrust's IronMail 305 Solution Stands At The Ready To Battle Spam, Provide E-Mail Security

The solution's e-mail rules and dictionaries are easy to set up and administer and can be configured in incredible detail. For example, the Enterprise Spam Profiler can perform specific actions on individual messages based on a scoring system set by the administrator. Administrators can specify what action to perform based on a message's score. For instance, if a message scores a 50, the e-mail should be quarantined in a specific folder. If a message's score is a 60, it should be quarantined in a different folder. Rules can be made based on the sender, recipient or subject. Once the rule is created, administrators can apply it to inbound or outbound mail or both. Administrators can also create and apply a given set of rules to a single user, domain or group of users.

IronMail creates reports using a dashboard-style design that shows realtime activity from a policy perspective. Inbound and outbound delivery services are shown, as well as which services are enabled. If a company's mail system allows proxying, IronMail can secure the proxy for IMAP and POP. SMTPI and SMPTO are turned on by default; IMAP and POP are disabled but can be turned on by an administrator to allow proxying.

The solution can queue and prioritize tasks based on the preferences of an administrator. For instance, one administrator may prefer to scan for viruses before performing other tasks, while another administrator's highest priority is checking for spam. The solution can set up separate queues for each administrator based on his or her objectives.

The Enterprise Spam Profiler feature really sets IronMail apart from other antispam solutions. IronMail goes beyond standard antispam techniques such as importing spam lists from legacy antispam programs. IronMail continually checks the top Realtime Blackhole Lists (RBLs), lists of IP addresses whose owners refuse to stop the proliferation of spam. The solution uses the information from these RBLs to instantly update and provide threat response updates (TRUs).

The company provides these updates based on current threats and security industry news. TRUs can be automated or the administrator can perform them manually without rebooting. CipherTrust has a team dedicated to analyzing TRU information to accurately predict the solution's effectiveness against current threats.

The Enterprise Spam Profiler combines many different approaches to spam control into a single appliance. No single method is used more than others; each is a contributing factor in spam filtering tasks. Most other solutions use either signatures or heuristic checking, but IronMail uses both to ensure a higher level of success.

HTML is a common tool of spammers, which include varied types and quantities of tags in their messages so that an exact match against similar previous messages can't be made. IronMail's intelligent content-filtering engine can check message text for evidence of spam, or the appliance can render text from the message to determine if it is spam. The device also has an adaptive learning engine that uses probability to identify spam based on the words in the message.

The appliance ships with the complete e-mail security and antispam solution, but additional modules are available. Iron-WebMail protects Web mail environments and acts as a reverse proxy. Many organizations buy and install separate products to protect Web mail accounts, increasing the total cost of ownership of their solution. The IronWebMail module costs an additional $5,500, which is significantly less than a third-party add-on.

CipherTrust's first formal channel program was launched this month. The Partner Connection program includes three tiers based on annual product sales and quarterly sales forecasts. Partners can receive sales and technical training, marketing and sales resources, participation in joint-sales opportunities, integration assistance, technical support, sales incentives and a bi-weekly e-mail newsletter. Pricing starts at $9,500 and can reach $50,000, depending on the size of a customer's e-mail system. The average reseller margin is 30 percent.

CHANNEL PROGRAM SNAPSHOTS
>IRONMAIL 4.1
COMPANY: CipherTrust
Alpharetta, Ga.
(678) 969-9399
www.ciphertrust.com
DISTRIBUTORS: Deloitte, Dimension Data, IBM, direct from vendor
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Note: Vendors can earn up to five stars for technical merit and five for their channel program. If the average of these two scores is four stars or greater, the product earns CRN Test Center Recommended status.