PGP Expands E-Mail Security Capabilities

PGP Universal Gateway Email allows users to set encryption rules for outbound and inbound e-mails and e-mail attachments. The new features, announced Sept. 12, include new functionality for delivering encrypted PDFs that can be opened using a standard PDF reader, such as Adobe Acrobat Reader, and a feature that records or logs successful message delivery.

The PDF functionality works with Adobe Reader Version 5 and higher.

The new Secure Delivery options, called PDF Messenger and Certified Delivery, will be available in the next major release of the PGP Encryption Platform later in 2007, said officials of PGP, based in Palo Alto, Calif. With all the companys Secure Delivery options, opening a message requires the authorized recipient to self-authenticate to ensure that only the intended user can read the message.

Click here to read more about PGPs encryption offerings.

"The new solutions dramatically expand our capabilities. … Were pleased to deliver these customer-driven solutions to the market, enabling businesses to realize their enterprise data protection strategies of securing data wherever it goes regardless of device, infrastructure or operating system," CEO Phillip Dunkelberger said in a statement.

A major selling point of PGPs product is that users do not need to specify a special client because e-mail recipients need only the software they already have installed—a mail client, a Web browser and standard PDF reader such as Adobe Acrobat Reader—to securely receive, read and reply to messages.

"Encrypted e-mail is a numbers game—its about having enough different methods that will cover as close to 100 percent of your audience as possible," said Paul Stamp, an analyst for Forrester Research. "Existing methods like push, pull and encrypted HTML attachments still cant cover those elusive final 5 percent of people wholl read your e-mail. Using things that are already installed on the desktop to help you achieve this goal can only help to close that gap."

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