Mail.com Announces Enhanced MailWatch Solution With Advanced Virus Protection and Filtering Capabilities

Business Wire, August 24, 2000

Business/Technology Editors

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--August 24, 2000

Corporate Level Security Available To Outsourced Customers

With Powerful Combination of MailWatch(R) Solution

and Mail.com's Advanced Business E-mail

Mail.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: MAIL), a leading Messaging Service Provider (MSP) to businesses, announced the next generation in its scalable, fully outsourced e-mail firewall services - enhanced MailWatch(R) solution- providing innovative and robust protection for corporate e-mail systems against viruses, spam, offensive or threatening content, and inappropriate attachments. The advanced MailWatch(R) service features are available to businesses as a stand-alone service or can work in conjunction with Mail.com's leading edge business e-mail services. As an additional layer of security, customers of Mail.com's business e-mail services are protected through SSL (secured socket layer) encryption for all user authentication and messaging.

Building on the proven success of Mail.com's popular MailZone service, Mail.com's MailWatch(R) network-level security solution reinvents the capabilities of the e-mail firewall with new features to increase security, control and ease-of-use. MailZone's industry-leading anti-virus capabilities were reinforced in May 2000 with the virulent "ILOVEYOU" virus, also known as the "Love Bug." MailZone was configured to block the virus in less than 20 minutes after the Company discovered it, instantly protecting all of MailZone's clients and their business partners against the onslaught of a virus that was being intercepted at an extremely rapid rate.

MailZone's 2,000 existing corporate clients, including Ford Motor Company and the largest U.S. law firm, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom - have been migrated to the enhanced MailWatch(R) solution and companies new to the service can begin using it immediately.

An Internet-based, platform-independent e-mail firewall, the enhanced MailWatch(R) service gives organizations the ability to establish and enforce policies controlling the use of the corporate e-mail system. It acts as a first line of defense ensuring infected e-mails do not reach their intended destinations, without the need for client-side software or hardware. Completely transparent to the user, the service scans inbound and outgoing messages and eliminates the threat of rogue viruses while they are still on the Internet, preventing suspect e-mails from ever reaching or leaving the corporate network. Its ease of use, combined with advanced virus protection, filtering capabilities, cost efficiency and scalability, makes the enhanced MailWatch(R) solution a premier choice for e-mail network protection and control.

"Our customers are looking for an instant, scalable, customizable solution to protect their networks from viruses, their employees from inappropriate material, and their valuable information from being leaked," said Tom Murawski, chief executive officer of Mail.com Business Messaging Services. "Most companies are deeply concerned about keeping their defenses up in an era of rapidly escalating security threats, but very few have the resources to stay ahead of the game.

"By combining MailWatch with our SSL enhanced e-mail service, Mail.com provides a solution to corporate customers that gives them the comfort of knowing they can read their e-mail at home, at work or on the road and it is as safe as if it were behind their corporate firewall," added Murawski.

Enhanced virus protection ensures unhampered business communication

For virus protection, the advanced MailWatch(R) solution has the ability to not only detect embedded and attached viruses, but also to attempt to disinfect the message or remove attachments. If successful, the message is allowed to pass on to the recipient without being held up in quarantine, thus preventing a virus from hampering business communication and productivity. The newest anti-virus definitions are automatically updated at Mail.com's data center around the clock. The service also offers administrators top ten virus lists with up-to-the-minute virus information and network performance statistics.

Fully customizable criteria and real-time reports for added safety

Building on the standard ability to filter incoming and outgoing messages based on content, the enhanced MailWatch(R) service can be fully customized to allow different levels of filtering for different individual users. Messages with inappropriate content are intercepted through familiar techniques: lexical weighting and keyword detection. It allows system administrators to define the weighting assigned to particular words and phrases and the policy's overall sensitivity for more precise control over the messages that are blocked. Exception lists can be built, allowing specified users to send and receive certain file types.

Administered through an intuitive Web-based configuration system, a company can create incoming and outbound e-mail policies, with customizable criteria and user lists. Changes can be made remotely and on-the-fly to ensure the organization is prepared for the latest threats. Within its real-time reporting function, critical in helping administrators assess the effectiveness of filtering policies, MailWatch(R) protection services can track messaging volume, which allows managers to identify employees who abuse the e-mail system.