VeriSign Introduces Email Security Service
To Protect Enterprises From Spam, Viruses and Attacks
Service Uses Filtering, Authentication and Accreditation To Protect
Enterprise Email Infrastructure
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA. – June 28, 2004 - VeriSign, Inc. (Nasdaq:
VRSN), the leading provider of critical infrastructure services for
the Internet and telecommunications networks, today announced the launch
of VeriSign Email Security Services. This new offering, an extension
of VeriSign Intelligence and ControlSM Services, will help businesses
of all sizes combat the threat of spam and email-borne viruses. VeriSign
Email Security Service offers enterprises a cost-effective, service-oriented
approach that delivers a measurable and immediate return on investment
by improving IT and employee productivity, reducing bandwidth and storage
costs, and increasing email reliability.
VeriSign Email Security
Service is easy to deploy and guarantees high levels of availability
and accuracy. It provides automatic, rapid updates of heuristics
and signatures to reduce the burden on an IT staff. This service
leverages VeriSign’s global, scalable infrastructure to ensure 99.999%
network uptime.
Email has rapidly become
the communications DNA for business. However, the threats of spam, email
borne viruses and worms are threatening take away unprecedented productivity
gains. According to Allan Carey, program manager for Security
and Business Continuity Services at IDC, “The problem is growing exponentially.
In-house IT resources struggle to keep pace with the new email-generated
attacks, which make a service-based protection model very attractive
for enterprise email systems. Messages can be filtered and cleansed
prior to hitting the edge of the company infrastructure.”
VeriSign Email Security
Service provides the following capabilities:
- Triple-Layer Spam Filtering – Custom blacklists, fingerprinting and heuristics with over
10,000 rules results in high detection rates with a minimum of false
positives
- Multi-Engine Virus Scanning –
Regularly updated scanning using three anti-virus engines to deliver
early warning and effective blocking of malicious emails
- Policy Enforcement – Domain-level filtering for content and attachments for effective
enforcement of both inbound and outbound corporate email policies
- Disaster Recovery– Automatic switch-over to VeriSign’s network to provide SMTP
connections that queue email, in the event a corporate email server
is unavailable
- Quarantine Access – End-user ability to view suspicious email to determine its
legitimacy
“The introduction of this
service will help enterprises restore the productivity gains from email
communication that are now under threat from spam and viruses,” said
Judy Lin, executive vice president, VeriSign Security Services. “With
a service-oriented approach, enterprises can easily obtain comprehensive
email protection in a matter of hours, without deploying any software
or hardware. This service will enable customers to rely on VeriSign’s
highly available and scalable infrastructure for mission critical functions.”
Future enhancements to
the Email Security Service will embrace industry initiatives for email
authentication, including
- Sender ID Verification – Verifying
the source of all incoming messages, and stopping those that display
forged or "spoofed" sender addresses
- Domain Authentication – Ensuring all e-mail comes from legitimate business entities
by checking addresses against VeriSign’s own Verified Domains List (VDL).
Based on VeriSign’s SSL digital certificate issuance process, the VDL
contains domain names that are manually verified to have legitimate
business owners with authentic and traceable identities.
VeriSign will make its
Verified Domains List freely accessible to anti-spam software and service
providers, to help drive the adoption of email authentication, and pave
the way to the eventual elimination of spam.
"We welcome VeriSign
joining the fight against spam and other email attacks," said Ryan
Hamlin, general manager of Microsoft's Anti-Spam Technology and Strategy
Group. "We are pleased that VeriSign will adopt Sender ID verification
in its Email Security Service to help further adoption of this important
proposal. We look forward to working together to help address the spam
and phishing problem for users worldwide."
VeriSign Email Security
Service will be available beginning July 12, 2004. Starting today,
however, enterprises are invited to take advantage of a 30-day free
trial of the service. For more information on the service, please
go to: http://www.verisign.com/products-services/security-services/Email_Security_Service/index.html
About VeriSign
VeriSign, Inc. (Nasdaq: VRSN), delivers critical infrastructure services
that make the Internet and telecommunications networks more intelligent,
reliable, and secure. Every day VeriSign helps thousands of businesses
and millions of consumers connect, communicate, and transact with confidence.
Additional news and information about the company is available at http://www.verisign.com.
For more information, contact:
VeriSign Media Relations: Brendan P. Lewis, brlewis@verisign.com,
650-426-4470
VeriSign Investor Relations: Kathleen Bare, kbare@verisign.com,
650-426-3241
Statements in this
announcement other than historical data and information constitute forward-looking
statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of
1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These statements
involve risks and uncertainties that could cause VeriSign's actual results
to differ materially from those stated or implied by such forward-looking
statements. The potential risks and uncertainties include, among others;
the ability of VeriSign to successfully develop and market new services
and customer acceptance of any new services, including VeriSign’s E-mail
Security Services; the risk that VeriSign's announced strategic relationships
may not result in additional products, services, customers and revenues;
increased competition and pricing pressures. More information about
potential factors that could affect the company's business and financial
results is included in VeriSign's filings with the Securities and Exchange
Commission, including in the company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for
the year ended December 31, 2003 and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q.
VeriSign undertakes no obligation to update any of the forward-looking
statements after the date of this press release.
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