Press Release
FaceTime Provides Unmatched Malware Prevention for Leading VoIP and Chat Software
First to Protect Skype Users from Malware and Malicious Links
BELMONT, CALIF. - March 20, 2008 - FaceTime Communications, the leading
provider of solutions that control Internet and unified communications (UC) in
the enterprise, today announced enhancements to its Greynet Enterprise Manager
(GEM) including detection of malicious URLs entering the enterprise network via
Skype instant messaging conversations.
Skype is encrypted using a proprietary method, making it impossible for
traditional security products to view the content of a Skype text conversation.
Working in partnership with Skype over the last year, FaceTime is the only
security vendor with the ability to examine the content of a Skype instant
message as it enters the network. Using its leading malware signature database
maintained by FaceTime Security Labs, FaceTime's products verify that content
is safe and free of malicious URL links before entering the network.
With 276 million registered business users worldwide, Skype's growing
popularity and inherent cost savings have made it very attractive to businesses
looking to provide the advantages of presence and real-time Internet
communications to their employees. Being able to protect against the threat of
malware that can enter the network via something as simple as a URL in a chat
screen is crucial to IT's realization of the real-time presence benefits of
Skype.
An add-on to FaceTime's popular Unified Security
Gateway and IMAuditor
products, GEM enables organizations to manage security policies and aggregate
reporting for IM, P2P and malware traffic across distributed enterprise
environments. By integrating with USG, GEM delivers the industry's most robust
network-based anti-malware solution, allowing targeted remediation and repair
of infected endpoints dynamically based on gateway malware detections from USG.
"Simple block or allow policies are no longer sufficient in most
organizations," said Frank Cabri, vice president of marketing and product
management for FaceTime. "IT managers are realizing they need to embrace the
real-time communications that employees have introduced to the business
environment with policies and tools to secure, control, manage, log and archive
their use - as well as their content."
Malware entering enterprise networks via real-time communications such as
instant messaging and Skype costs businesses nearly $289,000 annually on
average, according to the 2007 survey "Greynets in the Enterprise: Third Annual
Survey of Trends, Attitudes and Impact," conducted by NewDiligence Research and
commissioned by FaceTime. The survey revealed that IT managers experience
nearly 39 incidents per month, on average, that require some kind of repair or
remediation to end user PCs, and each repair requires, on average, about nine
hours of work.
FaceTime and Skype
In addition to GEM-based control of in-bound URLs, FaceTime offers IT-oriented
controls to manage Skype in an enterprise environment through its Unified
Security Gateway appliance. Centralized policies can easily be set to allow or
disallow various Skype elements for the entire company, for groups or
departments, or on an individual basis - including file transfer, voice
calling, video calling, voicemail and voice recording.
In addition, proxy settings and listen port settings can be turned on or off
for users and administrators to prevent users from broadcasting their presence
online. IT can set parameters to deny users from becoming supernodes or relay
nodes, and a real-time bandwidth usage indicator provides a constant measure
for IT to determine Skype's impact on network traffic.
GEM 3.5 is available now. Enhancements include:
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Detection and blocking of malicious URLs entering network via Skype IM/chat
conversations insures network integrity
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PC discovery via Active Directory lookup provides ease of configuration and
lower administrative costs
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Users can trigger remediation from their browsers on notification of inbound
malware, lowering exposure to risk, reducing help desk calls, and eliminating
the cost of re-imaging PCs due to infection
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Centralized policies may be set with localized enforcement based on IP ranges
and geographic location, lowering administrative management time and costs
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URL filtering reports may be imported from USG into GEM, providing a
centralized view for all channels across multiple USGs
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Support for Vista desktop prevents exposure to threats and lowers risk for all
endpoints on the network
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Support for VMware as a deployment platform provides enhanced options for
architecture scalability and redundancy
About FaceTime Communications
FaceTime Communications enables the safe and productive use of instant
messaging, Web usage and Unified Communications platforms. Ranked number one by
IDC for four consecutive years, FaceTime's award-winning solutions are used by
more than 900 customers - including nine of the 10 largest U.S. banks - for
security, management and compliance of real-time communications. FaceTime
supports or has strategic partnerships with all leading public and enterprise
IM network providers, including AOL, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Skype, IBM and Jabber.
FaceTime is headquartered in Belmont, California. For more information visit
http://www.facetime.com or call 888-349-FACE. The FaceForward blog, at
http://blog.facetime.com, offers thoughts and opinions about the changing
nature of Internet communications.
PR Contact:
Emily Chamberlin
650-762-2945
echamberlin@ar-edelman.com
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