Symantec launches hosted e-mail security service

Network World - Symantec Corp. yesterday announced the third component of its e-mail security strategy, a hosting service that filters spam and viruses and controls compliance for companies.
Symantec Hosted Mail Security, starting at $1,710 per year for 50 users, complements the company's gateway software and gateway appliance. All three options provide the same virus protection, spam filtering and enforcement of corporate and regulatory compliance, allowing each company to decide which approach is the best fit, said Chris Miller, group product manager with Symantec.
"We're not forcing a solution down the customer's throat. They're picking whatever form factor is right for them," Miller said. While a number of messaging security vendors, including Proofpoint Inc. and CipherTrust Inc., offer both software and appliances to combat e-mail abuses, Symantec is unique in making all three approaches available and in maintaining a consistent set of features and functions across the three options, he said.
Companies that subscribe to Symantec's new service would reroute their incoming and outgoing mail to pass through one of the company's hosting centers, where messages are scanned before being sent on to the enterprise or out to the Internet. This eliminates the need for dedicated hardware and software, and related management, on a company's network. A Web-based management console lets administrators set e-mail policies and run reports.
The service does not scan messages sent across a company's internal network, although Symantec offers other products that perform the same tasks at the mail server level, Miller said.
Symantec's Hosted Mail Security performs policy-based filtering of messages and attachments to ensure sensitive information isn't leaving the company via e-mail, allowing companies to enforce regulatory and corporate policies regarding content.
The service's antispam technology comes from Brightmail, which Symantec acquired last year. The antivirus component is Symantec's own technology.