Proofpoint secures the business of Life Saving

Security vendor Proofpoint provided a hosted email security service to Royal Life Saving NSW, replacing an existing anti-spam application that had been rendered ineffective.

David Macallister, chief executive officer, Royal Life Saving NSW said email communication is an integral part of the organisation’s every day operations. He explained that the existing anti-spam application was ineffective in addressing an escalating spam problem.

“Like any organisation we rely heavily on email as the major form of communication with most people that we deal with,” he said. “Communicating with people via email becomes a lot more efficient if you do not have to personally sort through all the spam.”

Macallister noted that the previous on-site messaging security solution relied on constant maintenance. The inadequacies became apparent when the employee most knowledgeable in the workings of the solution left the organisation.

Consequently, configuration of the anti-spam application fell into disrepair and staff members began receiving increasing volumes of spam directly into their inboxes.

Caitlin Chellew, health promotion manager, Royal Life Saving NSW claimed that of the 80 emails she received daily, approximately 50 were spam.

“They have become so clever in disguising subject lines, it became tricky working out which was spam without previewing them,” she said. “Some of it can be quite offensive. There would be some things come through that I would not want to see 30 times a day every day.”

There has been a considerable reduction in spam since the deployment of the Proofpoint solution, stated Chellew. “In the last week no one has received any spam. We are literally getting no spam.”

Proofpoint On Demand features anti-spam, anti-virus, email policy enforcement, data loss prevention and policy-based encryption capabilities, claimed the vendor. Gerry Tucker, regional head for Proofpoint in APAC argued that spam can be a more significant problem for SMBs due to limited budgets for IT infrastructure.

“In a small to medium-sized organisation like Royal Life Saving NSW, spam can be a bigger problem than for large organisations because of the lack of specialised IT resources,” said Tucker. “Proofpoint On Demand is in the cloud, making it an easy way for smaller organisations to get rid of the pain that spam causes without taking on any administration overheads.”