MessageLabs expands reach

The e-mail security vendor takes its protective services to the Web.

E-mail security vendor MessageLabs is extending its managed services to the Web with its announcement last week of three services that protect companies from threats on the Web.

MessageLabs' Web Protect comprises anti-virus, anti-spyware and Web filtering services designed to keep threats from entering a corporate network and to control employees' Web access, says Brian Czarny, vice president of product management with MessageLabs. The company, which has played in the messaging anti-virus and anti-spam space for years, says increased threats originate from intended and unintended Web downloads.

"What you're starting to see now is this convergence - threats across e-mail, the Web, instant messaging - so we're really focused on taking the intellectual property and knowledge we've developed around e-mail [security] and applying that to the Web," Czarny says, adding the company plans to release services for securing IM communications within the next year.

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E-mail security vendor MessageLabs is extending its managed services to the Web with its announcement last week of three services that protect companies from threats on the Web.

MessageLabs' Web Protect comprises anti-virus, anti-spyware and Web filtering services designed to keep threats from entering a corporate network and to control employees' Web access, says Brian Czarny, vice president of product management with MessageLabs. The company, which has played in the messaging anti-virus and anti-spam space for years, says increased threats originate from intended and unintended Web downloads.

"What you're starting to see now is this convergence - threats across e-mail, the Web, instant messaging - so we're really focused on taking the intellectual property and knowledge we've developed around e-mail [security] and applying that to the Web," Czarny says, adding the company plans to release services for securing IM communications within the next year.

Of the three areas that the new Web services cover - anti-virus, anti-spyware and Web filtering - MessageLabs says it's gotten the most interest from customers in fighting spyware.

At Perkins Eastman Architects, which has more than 500 employees in seven offices throughout the country, spyware is a major headache for the IT department, says Michael Gonda, senior systems administrator with the architecture firm. "There was a time when 80% of the phone calls [to the help desk] were directly related to spyware, even though the users didn't know it," he says. The company is beta testing MessageLabs' new suite.

Protecting customers

The anti-virus and anti-spyware services protect customers by having their Web traffic flow through MessageLabs' servers so downloads can be cleansed of viruses and other malware using heuristics and scanning techniques, says Martin Brown, group product manager of Web services with MessageLabs.

With the Web filtering service, a customer's traffic first flows through MessageLabs' servers so that predefined corporate policies, such as not allowing employees to access auction sites during business hours, can be applied and requests are blocked accordingly, Brown says.

These new Web offerings from MessageLabs compete with products from SurfControl, Websense and others that block malware and control Web access from a company's desktops, servers and gateway.

Easing administration

But MessageLabs says it's the only company to offer this protection as a managed service, making setup and ongoing administration easier. And that is a key reason why Perkins Eastman Architects is evaluating MessageLabs' offerings.

"A lot of our offices are unmanaged, so because there aren't a lot of hands on the hardware we try to keep our machines as clean as we can," Gonda says. "Because we have so many machines and no way of physically touching them, the only way to clean up spyware is to send one of our IT people to one of these sites, and that's not really a good use of our time."

Because the company already uses MessageLabs' managed e-mail security services, the Web services seem like a natural fit, he says.