There has been much publicity surrounding the recently discovered Internet e-mail security flaw. Now Worldtalk Corporation says its WorldSecure Server, an e-mail firewall and policy management application, completely protects organisations from the flaw.
Worldtalk`s products are represented in South Africa by Server Tools. MD Dave Terespolsky says the company has also announced a new version of its software, WorldSecure Server version 3.0.2, that includes a default policy addressing this and other potential security threats.
"WorldSecure Server achieves this by detecting malicious messages as they are received from the Internet and totally blocking their distribution to end-users," says Terespolsky. "Existing WorldSecure Server customers can simply add that policy to their current configuration. We are offering the new release as a free 30-day evaluation to all organisations that want to deploy a centralised solution, rather than having their users individually install patches from Microsoft and Netscape."
"Organisations that don`t protect themselves against this latest flaw are simply sitting ducks," comments Simon Khalaf, VP of marketing at Worldtalk. "Organisations can either download patches to their e-mail systems and upgrade all their desktops, which is a rather expensive proposition, or deploy WorldSecure Server in one centralised location and catch all malicious messages that could trigger the discovered flaw."
Background to the flaw
The flaw, originally found by Finnish researchers, and officially confirmed by security experts at the US Department of Energy on July 28, affects millions of users running Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, or Netscape Messenger. It has the potential to wipe out a computer hard drive, destroy and even steal sensitive data.
Microsoft and Netscape are working on patches to address the problem and have made some of these patches available on the Web, but they require an IS organisation to install the patches on each user`s computer, which could be costly and time-intensive.
WorldSecure Server centrally detects all malicious messages at the server and prevents them from entering the organisation. The server resides between a network firewall and the e-mail server. The newly implemented policy detects malicious messages and informs network administrators of their interception as they come in over the Internet. These administrators can also detect the source of these messages using WorldSecure Server`s reporting tools.
WorldSecure Server is helping hundreds of organisations protect themselves from e-mail security threats such as spams, viruses, e-mail bombs, denial of service attacks, hacking, and tampering. The latest threat underscores the immediate need for organisations across all industries to protect their assets and intellectual property by deploying these solutions.
"This is not the first flaw and it will not be the last. We are constantly testing and monitoring e-mail applications for serious flaws so that we can update WorldSecure Server with the appropriate countermeasures," comments Blake Ramsdell, Worldtalk`s Chief Cryptographer.
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