Proofpoint Release Takes On Message Security, Compliance Issues

Officials at Proofpoint introduced a new product March 12 that uses message tracing and e-mail log analysis to address compliance and security issues affecting enterprises.

Proofpoint Smart Search features enterprise-class log search and message tracing features and is powered by IT search technology licensed from Splunk.

The new release works in conjunction with the Proofpoint Protection Servers logging and reporting features and allows message logs to be analyzed from a single graphical interface, company officials said.

"The advanced features of Proofpoint Smart Search reduce the amount of time it takes to locate a specific message and understand all the filtering and handling actions that were applied to it from hours to just seconds," said Sandra Vaughan, senior vice president of products and marketing for Proofpoint, in a statement.

An annual survey by Forrester Consulting found 25 percent had to produce e-mail as evidence.

Resource Library:

In addition, one in three investigated a suspected e-mail leak of confidential or proprietary information, and 36 percent investigated a suspected violation of privacy or data protection regulations in the last 12 months.

The study was released in May 2006 and was commissioned by Proofpoint, headquartered in Cupertino, Calif.

In the area of compliance, Proofpoint Smart Search can find all messages related to a specific incident or an entire class of violations, company officials said.

Users can search for messages using a wide variety of criteria including message sender, message recipient and subject.

Extended free-text searching allows for the quick creation of complex searches using regular expressions and Boolean operators, officials said.

Proofpoint Smart Search makes it possible to trace both inbound and outbound messages anywhere in an enterprises messaging infrastructure and was designed with an eye toward easy integration with non-Proofpoint messaging systems, including Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes, encryption servers and other gateway devices, company officials said.

"Enterprise users have come to expect the same easy-to-use search capabilities theyre familiar with from desktop and Internet applications," Vaughan said.

"Now Proofpoint Smart Search brings the benefits of intelligent search to the enterprise messaging security space with features, performance and capabilities that go far beyond basic message tracing functionality."

Check out eWEEK.coms Security Center for the latest security news, reviews and analysis. And for insights on security coverage around the Web, take a look at eWEEKs Security Watch blog.