During the past few years, enterprise e-mail security needs have expanded beyond simply fighting spam. As a result, vendors in this space are left having to continuously enhance their products with related features in order to keep up.

These companies, including CipherTrust, Tumbleweed, MessageLabs, Espion, Symantec and many others, continue a steady march beyond what two years ago was the defining task in this market – blocking spam. Today, enterprises need to protect themselves from more than just unwanted e-mail, and are looking to their messaging security providers for myriad functions including instant messaging and Web security, outbound e-mail encryption and policy enforcement, and extra measures to fight viruses.

CipherTrust, for example, Monday announced a new product line designed to secure IM communications at enterprises. According to the Radicati Group, 54 % of employees currently use IM at work, although CipherTrust says most of that communication goes unmonitored and unprotected.

Charlotte Pipe and Foundry, a PVC and cast-iron pipe manufacturer, has used CipherTrust’s IronMail e-mail gateway appliance for two years and plans to test the new IronIM appliance, says network administrator Charles Gautreaux. IM at his company has been sanctioned for some employees, but never controlled, so Gautreaux is looking forward to features such as blocking unauthorized IM use and creating message logs, as well as protecting from threats like spam and viruses.
 
“With what we are seeing out there in the wild, we see a great need for IM security and encryption,” Gautreaux says, adding that CipherTrust’s IronIM appliance is the only one he knows of that offers encryption on outbound IM messages.
 
Available now starting at $5,995, IronIM works with a number of IM services including those from AOL, Yahoo, and MSN. CipherTrust was able to leverage much of the anti-spam and anti-virus technology it developed for its e-mail gateway appliance in this product, says Alex Hernandez, the company’s director of advanced product development.

The addition of an IM product to CipherTrust’s security offerings is part of the company’s plan to provide “messaging security for IT,” Hernandez says. “We support all major [communications] protocols.” Currently CipherTrust is selling IronIM as a separate appliance from its IronMail product, although Hernandez says the company may release one appliance that can protect both types of traffic in the near future, which would likely be aimed at small and midsized businesses.