MultiCare Health System Selects Tumbleweed's Secure Messaging Suite to Ensure HIPAA Compliance and Fight Spam

Business Wire, May 4, 2004

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 4, 2004

Health Care System Selects One Vendor to

Fulfill All of Its Secure Communications Needs

Tumbleweed(R) Communications Corp. (Nasdaq:TMWD), a leading provider of secure Internet messaging software and appliances for enterprises and government agencies, today announced that MultiCare Health System has chosen Tumbleweed's entire suite of secure communications solutions, including Tumbleweed's email firewall, email encryption, anti-spam service, and secure file transfer products to secure and protect their Internet communications.

"Tumbleweed provided us with a comprehensive secure messaging platform that integrates all functions we needed in one box," said Harold Moscho, Director of Technology Management for MultiCare Health System. "This solution allows us to fight spam and provide email encryption to any recipient, while reducing our administration time and costs. In addition, Tumbleweed's SecureTransport has allowed us to automate the transferring of data securely."

MultiCare Health System, a not-for-profit group of doctors and nurses, clinics and hospitals with headquarters in Tacoma, Washington, serves over 4,000 employees and 2,000 external users, including physicians, business partners, and vendors, and is comprised of 56 separate facilities, including three hospitals, 14 major clinics, and other remote sites. MultiCare initially was evaluating messaging security solutions for compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and learned about Tumbleweed's products to fight spam and securely send large files over the Internet. They soon realized that it didn't make sense to purchase and manage multiple products for secure communications from different vendors.

Secure The Email Channel

MultiCare needed a HIPAA-compliant solution for sending email containing Protected Health Information (PHI). MultiCare put together a set of requirements for a new secure messaging infrastructure, including the ability to inspect each outbound email to determine if it contains PHI, and the ability to encrypt and securely deliver the message to the recipient without the need for any client-side software. After evaluating a number of secure email communications vendors, MultiCare selected Tumbleweed's Email Firewall. The Email Firewall allows MultiCare to automatically scan outbound emails, and identify and encrypt those containing PHI. MultiCare also developed an internal campaign to promote secure communications and train users. Looking ahead, MultiCare plans to establish a system on their Intranet that allows users to determine the best way of securely sending high volumes of patient data, either through Tumbleweed's Email Firewall or SecureTransport products.

Automate Secure File Delivery

MultiCare wanted to automate and secure the transfer of large files containing patient claims data, or business confidential data like payroll and tax information. End users had devised various ad hoc solutions for transferring these files and data, which often involved one-off encryption of large files using PGP or WinZip, sent via FTP or email. But the lack of a centrally managed, standards-based file encryption and delivery infrastructure was causing significant problems. It put the security management burden on end users, clogged the email servers, left some data exposed, and locked other data permanently when users would forget their PGP keys.

To meet the growing need for electronic delivery of files that require encryption, MultiCare selected Tumbleweed's SecureTransport to automate and secure the delivery of large files over the Internet. SecureTransport goes beyond traditional FTP, and supports enterprise-class file transfer features including authentication and access control, automated batch transfers, reliable delivery of very large files, data integrity, logging and auditing, and event-driven agents for application integration.

Fight Spam with an Email Firewall

Like all organizations, MultiCare receives a large volume of Internet email spam. This was becoming an increasingly significant business problem, as more and more network storage and bandwidth was eaten up, and as employees spent more and more time searching through their inboxes to find business related messages. MultiCare's previous solution was not capturing enough spam, so the company decided to look for a replacement.

After installing the Tumbleweed Email Firewall, MultiCare's spam problem was virtually eliminated. The company filters 21,000 email messages each day, blocking 76% of email messages as spam, with a very low false positive rate.

About Tumbleweed Communications Corp.

Tumbleweed is a leading provider of secure Internet messaging software and appliances for enterprises and government agencies. By making Internet communications secure, reliable and automated, Tumbleweed's anti-spam email firewall, secure file transfer, secure email, and identity validation solutions help customers significantly reduce the cost of doing business. Tumbleweed products are used to communicate with millions of end-users and tens of thousands of corporations. Tumbleweed has more than 600 enterprise customers, including ABN Amro, Bank of America Securities, Catholic Healthcare West, JP Morgan Chase & Co., The Regence Group (Blue Cross/Blue Shield), St. Luke's Episcopal Healthcare System, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. Tumbleweed Communications was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in Redwood City, California. For additional information about Tumbleweed go to www.tumbleweed.com or call 650-216-2000.