Commtouch Introduces Unified Internet Security Solution

Commtouch announced the introduction of its new unified Internet security solution, which brings together messaging security, Web security and antivirus into a single engine, at today’s RSA Conference.

The unified engine (UE) was designed to be integrated into products developed by security and networking vendors, and into service providers’ infrastructure. Commtouch believes that solutions reaping the most benefit from the UE are software and hardware solutions or services combining multiple security technologies, i.e., unified threat management (UTM), secure content filtering gateways and SaaS security products.

“With a combined ‘triple-play’ solution, each technology leverages the other to create an even stronger barrier against ever-increasing blended threats,” said Amir Lev, Commtouch’s CTO. “From a business perspective, the single interface also reduces short and long-term integration and operational costs.”

The aim of the engine is for the three security technologies to cross-enhance each other by sharing intelligence about Internet threats, therefore, providing better overall protection. As an example of this sort of information exchange, if a phishing web site threat is detected, using the engine, the malicious URL is shared with Commtouch Anti-Spam so that emails containing the phishing link can be blocked.  This data-sharing is enabled by Commtouch’s cloud-based GlobalView™ Network which collects and analyzes Internet transactions in real-time.

Commtouch feels that using an integrated detection engine offers some clear technical benefits to vendors and service providers that incorporate it into their solutions:

• Enhances performance by reducing resource utilization compared to the larger footprint required by separate components
• Significantly reduces integration time of all three services since there is a unified interface

The unified solution is positioned as a win-win on the business side, as it is designed to simplify operations by providing a single point of contact.

Each of the three solutions within the unified engine are available as stand-alone solutions. As individual products, they each benefit from the shared security information distributed via the GlobalView Network.

The single engine includes the following products: GlobalView™ Web Security, Anti-Spam, Command Antivirus®, and Zero-Hour™ Virus Outbreak Protection. The Command Antivirus division was acquired from Authentium in September, 2010.