Astaro unveils email security appliances

BURLINGTON, MA, USA:  Astaro Corporation, a leading vendor of security appliances, announced it is entering the small and mid-sized business (SMB) market for email security with the launch of its new Astaro Mail Gateway (AMG) family of integrated email security appliances. The launch is Astaro's answer to increasing demand among SMBs for comprehensive, easy-to-manage email security solutions.

Astaro Mail Gateway offers powerful functionality to protect against spam, viruses, and phishing, alongside email encryption, Active Directory and eDirectory integration and a web-based user portal, which until now has only been available to larger companies. The unique browser-based management interface is designed for quick and easy administration and makes it possible to automatically generate useful reports with just a few mouse clicks.

Gert Hansen, Chief Software Architect and co-founder of Astaro, says: "More than 100,000 customers already rely on Astaro for email security within our UTM solutions. Our aim with AMG is to offer the established and award-winning email defenses of our UTM solutions in a dedicated email security appliance. The AMG will pave the way for our partners to enter a market segment with 40 percent growth rates."

AMG security features:

Spam protection: In addition to traditional anti-spam technologies, Astaro also integrates patented, reputation-based filtering to enhance detection significantly. Global analysis of the dissemination of spam emails can be used to reliably identify even previously unknown types of spam. This also helps eliminate the problem of personal emails being incorrectly identified

as spam.

Virus protection: Two parallel virus scanners block known and unknown malware in SMTP and POP3 emails. The two scanners receive virus pattern updates independently of each other, reducing reaction time in the event of a new outbreak. Phishing attacks are also reliably thwarted.

Email encryption: Encryption techniques based on recognized standards like S/MIME, OpenPGP, and TLS protect the confidentiality of emails. Client software is not needed, as all encryption processes run transparently on the Gateway.

Remote Exchange access: Mobile users can access their exchange mailbox with their Outlook client from any location via a secure SSL-VPN connection. This means no functionality is lost when using web-based access, e.g. via Outlook Web Access. Users can manage their spam box and view the current status of each email via a web-based user portal (in 15 languages) and daily email reports. This significantly reduces the administrator's workload.

The Astaro Mail Gateway will be available as a hardware, software or virtual appliance at the beginning of September 2008.