Email Security Tools Converge

The message from recent email security product rollouts: Consolidation is officially under way.

Declude today launched an email security package that combines several features -- including antivirus, antispam, and email flaw detection -- into a single email gateway.

The announcement was the second multifunction email security product in the last two business days: ISS' new Proventia Network Mail Security System appliance contains IPS technology as well as the traditional antivirus, anti-spam, and content-filtering features, and ISS' proprietary behavioral-based virus protection. (See ISS to Unveil IPS-based Email Security.)

Although Declude's product is software and ISS's is an appliance, both announcements are about folding more features into fewer boxes, security experts say.

"[Small- and medium-sized businesses] definitely want fewer boxes to configure and manage, and this is the space Declude is targeting," says Charlotte Dunlap, an information security analyst with Current Analysis.

Declude, which has been quietly operating for the past five years and boasts customers such as the Boston Celtics, is turning the Interceptor announcement into a sort of coming-out party.

IT security people, especially in small- to medium-sized businesses, are under pressure to consolidated email security functions, rather than purchasing extra boxes, says Rich Person, CEO of Declude. "There's a lot of price sensitivity out there," he says. Interceptor, which provides another layer of enterprise security for businesses, is targeted at SMBs.

Declude users agreed. "I would like to try to get out of so many different boxes doing so many different things," says Jay Wessel, vice president of technology for the Boston Celtics, which currently runs an Ipswitch email switch and Declude's older antivirus and antispam software to protect its Exchange mail system.

Wessel says Declude's new gateway could potentially replace what his switch is doing today, but he won't be taking any chances with basketball season just around the corner. For now, the Celtics will keep email scanning separate from the team's Exchange mail system. "I would like this [Interceptor] to run in the DMZ and scan messages before letting them in the network," Wessel says. "I would leave it out as far away logically from Exchange [as possible]."

"One of Declude's main differentiators is that its technology uses identity-based scanning [versus] content-based scanning," Dunlap says. "Some might say that's a weakness, but [Declude is] interested in tackling the problem of CPU-intensive applications, so these real-world concerns tell me [Declude is] listening to customers' needs." Dunlap says Declude's approach is efficient and also protects against image-based spam.

Declude's proprietary approach, dubbed Security Flaw Scanning, looks for structural flaws in messages, says Dave Barker, director of product management at Declude. "For every one virus, you're getting eight structurally flawed emails," he says, and a virus scanner can't catch many of these.

Interceptor is available now and starts at $375 per year for up to 25 users.

— Kelly Jackson Higgins, Senior Editor, Dark Reading