FaceTime Protects Enterprises From Information Leaks Over Collaborative Suites Like Microsoft OCS and IBM Sametime

Survey Reveals 57 Percent of IT Managers Believe Their Corporate Data Is Not Adequately Protected From Leaks via IM and/or Unified Communications


BELMONT, CA--(Marketwire - July 14, 2008) - As instant messaging becomes preferred over e-mail for real-time collaboration in large organizations, security and compliance concerns rise to top of mind for IT managers. In answer to these concerns, FaceTime Communications today announced that its newly enhanced version of IMAuditor provides a dynamic system for information leak prevention that detects and scans message communications as well as file transfer content in real-time.

Since 2001, FaceTime has been the definitive choice for instant messaging management and security in the enterprise. Partnering with both Microsoft (as a Gold Level Partner) and IBM, FaceTime provides perimeter security and deep compliance for unified communications and enterprise IM deployments. With FaceTime, organizations can block in-bound malware threats, prevent information leakage and maintain corporate and regulatory compliance requirements while realizing the productivity and cost saving benefits of real-time communications.

The IMAuditor system scans and applies established policies to all the popular file types transferred over unified communications platforms such as Microsoft OCS and IBM Lotus Sametime, as well as public instant messaging networks such as AIM, Yahoo! Messenger, GoogleTalk and MSN. The system analyzes and detects sensitive or confidential information in both messages and file attachments, can prevent transmission of the information, and will warn the user about established company policy regarding the sharing of corporate intellectual property.

In an information leak prevention survey conducted in June 2008 for FaceTime by Osterman Research, nearly 40 percent of IT staff at mid- to large-sized organizations in North America said they believed that unintentional leaks by employees are a bigger threat to their data security than spyware or malicious software, and 57 percent believe their corporate data is not adequately protected from leaks via IM and/or unified communications.

"This survey confirms that security and compliance issues such as e-mail-based spam and malware are among those that the IT community feels confident have been adequately solved," said Michael Osterman, principal of Osterman Research. "However, compliance for unified communications and the real-time Internet is an area that many realize they must address."

The survey also revealed that nearly 50 percent of IT managers are very concerned about information leak prevention in their current or planned unified communications implementations and 23 percent of those view it as a top priority. Conversely, only 16 percent of respondents said the issue of information leak prevention is not on their radar, and less than 10 percent said they have no plans for unified communications deployment.

"Organizations are deploying unified communications to help their employees be more efficient and to reduce costs," said Frank Cabri, vice president of marketing and product management for FaceTime Communications. "The last thing IT wants to do is to create yet another open security hole for intellectual property to be leaked. File attachments can contain sensitive information and unless their content can be detected and evaluated, control is lost at the gateway."

IMAuditor 9.5 helps organizations realize the benefits of unified communications and enterprise instant messaging deployments by providing guaranteed compliance to meet regulatory and corporate requirements, including logging, archiving and easy retrieval of messaging communications.

About IMAuditor 9.5

FaceTime IMAuditor is a full-featured instant messaging proxy that secures and manages all public and enterprise instant message use over an organization's network. IMAuditor, which resides on the local area network, maintains an integrated trust relationship with FaceTime's secure Web gateway appliance, the Unified Security Gateway (USG). Working together IMAuditor and USG deliver complete end-to-end security, management and compliance for real-time communications in the enterprise, ensuring that corporate data is protected both from outside threats such as spyware, viruses and worms, as well as from intentional or unintentional information leakage from within the company.

The following new features are incorporated into the IMAuditor System with version 9.5:

--  Information leak prevention -- protect intellectual property by
    scanning contents of all the popular file types including Microsoft Office
    and other leading software applications. This capability allows powerful
    data leakage polices to be enforced based on restricted phrase matching,
    detecting and blocking encrypted files and controlling the types of files
    that can be sent internally or externally.
    
--  BlackBerry support -- management, compliance and security for mobile
    workers using BlackBerry devices within an IBM Sametime environment.
    
--  Advanced text search -- delivers fast Boolean and regular expression
    searches across IM conversations to make information retrieval simple and
    efficient during a discovery event, regardless of database size.
    
--  Usage trend reporting -- provides detailed usage information including
    unique logins, number of messages, number of unified communications events
    as well as reports by time interval to provide flexible reporting options
    for IT management.
    

IMAuditor 9.5 is available now from FaceTime and authorized distributors and partners worldwide. For pricing and additional information call 1-888-349-3223 or visit www.facetime.com.

About FaceTime Communications

FaceTime Communications enables the safe and productive use of instant messaging, Web usage and Unified Communications platforms. Ranked number one by IDC for four consecutive years, FaceTime's award-winning solutions are used by more than 900 customers -- including nine of the ten largest U.S. banks -- for security, management and compliance of real-time communications. FaceTime supports or has strategic partnerships with all leading public and enterprise IM network providers, including AOL, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Skype, IBM, and Jabber.

FaceTime is headquartered in Belmont, California. For more information visit http://www.facetime.com or call 888-349-FACE. The FaceForward blog, at http://blog.facetime.com, offers thoughts and views on the changing nature of Internet communications, from the people behind FaceTime.

FaceTime, FaceTime Communications, IMAuditor, GEM, Unified Security Gateway, FaceTime Security Labs, IMPact Index, SpywareGuide.com and the FaceTime logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of FaceTime Communications, Inc. Other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Contact Information: FaceTime Contact: Emily Chamberlin A&R Edelman 650-762-2945