Messaging News RSA Special Review

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There was no shortage of announcements coming from RSA Conference 2010, which is being held this week in San Francisco and concludes tomorrow. No single approach seemed to emerge, as security vendors offer a menu of choices. While it is impossible to cover all the messaging-oriented news in this edition, here are a few highlights.

WatchGuard Technologies unveiled its new, state-of-the-art series of multifunction security appliances: the WatchGuard XTM 5 Series. Targeting mid-market enterprise organizations with up to 1,500 users, the WatchGuard XTM 5 Series resets the definition of high-security and performance for protecting commercial networks, applications and data, according to the company. “Next generation threats and regulatory compliance pressures are forcing businesses to recalibrate and recalculate risk management practices,” says Eric Aarrestad, vice president of marketing for WatchGuard Technologies. “Facing pressures to reduce IT costs and complexities, while increasing protection is a challenge. The WatchGuard XTM 5 Series is the ideal solution for growing businesses and mid-tier enterprise organizations that need powerful protection that is flexible, scalable and affordable.”

Proofpoint announced Proofpoint 6.1, the latest version of its SaaS and appliance-based email security and data loss prevention (DLP) platform. Of the announcement, Peter Galvin, chief marketing officer for Proofpoint said: “Across the globe, we’re seeing a trend toward more stringent data protection regulations that promise stricter breach notification requirements, bigger fines and more headaches for organizations that fail to properly protect private data. That trend, combined with a growing awareness of data protection as a best practice, is driving increased demand for data loss prevention and encryption solutions. Proofpoint 6.1 answers that demand with improved DLP and encryption capabilities while also continuing to innovate on inbound email protection.”

Encryption was a common theme, as most security vendors now offer some flavor of encryption. During the show, Zix Corporation announced new versions ZixGateway 4.0 (formerly ZixVPM) and ZixPort 3.7. “ZixGateway 4.0 is the latest generation of the company’s directory driven, policy-based Email Encryption Service. ZixGateway 4.0 continues to allow ZixCorp customers to send and receive secure email automatically and transparently while delivering new capabilities including support for virtualization, multiple languages and DKIM,” notes the company.

Cloud offerings remain a hot topic, as does how to secure the cloud. The Security Division of EMC unveiled a shared vision with Intel Corporation and VMware, Inc. for building a more secure, transparent and accountable infrastructure for business-critical cloud services. “For the cloud to mature into an enterprise-grade platform running high-value business processes and data, we must be able to trust the security of the underlying physical and virtual infrastructure without question,” says Pat Gelsinger, president and chief operating officer, EMC Information Infrastructure Products. “Today most organizations have little to no visibility into what’s occurring within the infrastructure layers of clouds, making it impossible to verify their security. Together our companies are demonstrating that internal and external clouds can be visible, measurable and reportable for the secure management of a company’s most important business processes.”

Also during the RSA show, Axway issued its top three proactive considerations for cloud security to remind organizations they must confront related security questions as data moves between cloud and on-premise environments. The considerations included:

Revisit Cloud Security Expectations - Organizations must have the same expectations for data security in the cloud as for on-premise and expect vendors to work with them to meet these expectations. Cloud security strategies to date have remained passive, largely consisting of directing organizations to ask questions of cloud providers about how they secure access to data. Moreover, cloud providers often overlook internal data security, rather focusing merely on perimeter and data center security.

Leverage On-Premise “Command and Control” – Many cloud vendors only provide vague assurances of data center perimeter security, but offer no guarantees on who can access sensitive customer data. This means enterprises must be able to extend their internal access control and data loss prevention policies to cloud applications.

Consider ‘Private Cloud’ Models – Multi-tenant cloud applications can be inexpensive but do not assure the segregation of data, or the visibility required for corporate governance and regulatory compliance. Private, single tenant applications in the cloud can still offer many of the advantages of cloud computing, while limiting the security risk.

More show news and replays of keynotes and select panels can be found by going to the RSA show Web site.

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