M86 Security

The RSA Conference held in San Francisco’s Moscone Convention Center this week offers a glimpse into the hopes of a post-recession IT boom. Very debatable that the recession is actually over, but to me this year was characterized by more foot traffic than in recent years, the return of bigger booths and promotional stunts including knights in shinny armor, blue girls, and pirates.

When it came to messaging, common discussion points included malicious activity on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, the increase in interest and adoption of email encryption, the rise of hacktivisim, the decrease in spam levels (and the various theories as to why), and the cloud among other topics.

While the show runs an entire week, the first half of this week has seen a variety of news announcements for the messaging space. Here are a few highlights as of press time:

Barracuda Networks Inc. re-announced its Barracuda Web Security Flex, which unifies SaaS, appliance and remote filtering deployment options under a single management and reporting portal.

Cisco announced its new SecureX Architecture, which enables context-aware security enforcement, and that the first to offer the context-aware firewalling and policy enforcement is the Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA).

GlobalSCAPE announced its new hosted MFT (managed file transfer) solution in its GlobalSCAPE’s cloud MFT suite. GlobalSCAPE Hosted Enhanced File Transfer Server is a service that expands the company’s cloud-based Managed Solutions, launched in July 2010.

M86 unveiled M86 MailMarshal 7.0, a complete overhaul and re-architecture of its software-based email policy management solution that boasts support for Microsoft Exchange 2010.

Messageware offered a demo of its new software solution, OWA (Outlook Web Access) Guard for Exchange Server 2010, an endpoint security software enhancement that is designed to protect both businesses and their employees from unauthorized access to corporate information. (The product is in beta and expected to be released next quarter.)

Solera Networks demonstrated its recently announced Solera OS 5.0, a major update to its network forensics platform, which offers real-time and historical views of everything on the network, think surveillance camera.

SRA International, Inc. announced the launch of its SRA One Vault Messenger, an encryption solution for SMS text messaging for BlackBerry smartphones, the latest addition to the SRA One Vault suite of products released in 2010.

ValidEdge unveiled its new Network Malware Security, a combined hardware and software solution, that monitors critical networks for any suspect code intrusion, performs instant analysis and issues alerts for IT personnel.

Voltage Security, Inc. announced v4 of Voltage SecureMail, an email encryption solution. The new version offers enhanced end-user experience and business features for global enterprises.

Websense offered a demo of its new Mobile DLP capability that uses Websense DLP technology to prevent the loss of confidential data on iPads, iPhones, Android, and other mobile devices.

ZixCorp announced a new product, ZixMobility, for the email encryption market that aims to enhance ease of use for encrypted email on a number of major smartphone platforms including Android, BlackBerry and iPhone.

Zscaler, Inc. unveiled Zscaler Mobile, which works in tandem with Zscaler’s existing Web and email cloud security services, to enforce the same policy for users wherever they go, across all devices.

There is always so much to see and learn at RSA. I always leave wishing I had more time for more meetings, more introductions and more lectures. This year proved to be no different!