E-mail security vendor readies gateway offering

Declude, which for years has been selling its e-mail security technology for use in mail servers, on Monday announced a version of its antispam and antivirus product for gateways.

Previous to its rollout of the new Interceptor product, Declude’s offerings have been available only for IpSwitch’s IMail and SmarterTools’ SmarterMail e-mail servers.

The core technology behind Declude’s e-mail security products is called Security Flaw Scanning, which is designed to catch structurally flawed messages in which viruses can easily hide and pass through virus scanners undetected, says Dave Barker, director of product marketing.

At the Boston Celtics, where vice president of technology Jay Wessel manages 100 e-mail boxes running on an IMail server, Declude’s antispam and antivirus technology has been in use for about five years. According to Wessel, his organization has been spared a number of e-mail threats attempting to exploit Outlook vulnerabilities by Declude’s e-mail security technology, which he uses in conjunction with other antivirus products.

“We use Declude out at the periphery, and the bulk of the [protection] is done by Declude. I’ve absolutely seen some of those Outlook vulnerability exploits, and they get blocked,” he says. “I would hope that at the user level the other [antivirus] tools would be doing their jobs, but I don’t like taking chances.”

In addition to this zero-hour virus protection, Interceptor features spam protection powered by Commtouch’s integrated RPD engine, integrated AVG virus scanning from Grisoft, whitelist and blacklist monitoring, predefined reports offering threat statistics and automatic updates for administrators.

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While entering the already crowded e-mail security market could be viewed as risky, Declude CEO Rich Person says the company’s unique Security Flaw Scanning technology and pricing strategy set it apart. Interceptor costs from $375 per year for organizations with 10 to 15 employees to a maximum price of $12,500 per year, with discounts taking effect on subsequent years. Those prices include all modules and a service agreement, he says.

In addition, Declude has 3,000 customers using its e-mail security product for mail servers, Person says, so it’s not as if the company is starting from square one.

Aiming primarily at the small and midsize business market, Declude competes with companies such as Symantec, Barracuda, IronPort and Mirapoint.