Tumbleweed Releases Anti-Spam Service Built for Business
Initial Customers Report High Spam Capture Rates And Low False Positives While Preserving Legitimate Business Communications
Redwood City, CA – MAY 22, 2003 – Tumbleweed(r) Communications Corp. (NASDAQ:TMWD), a leading provider of mission-critical communications software for businesses and government organizations using the Internet, today announced the general availability of the Tumbleweed Dynamic Anti-Spam Service and Message Protection Lab. Part of a comprehensive e-mail firewall solution, this extension to the current anti-spam capabilities of Tumbleweed MMS provides high spam capture rates and low false positives with minimal administrative overhead.
Enterprise and consumer e-mail providers share a common need to block the relentless daily flood of unwanted messages, both to protect network and storage resources and maintain end-user satisfaction. But businesses and government agencies face a specific set of additional challenges when fighting spam. Definitions of what constitutes spam and how to handle it can vary wildly from organization to organization and even from department to department. Businesses also need to aggressively protect themselves from potential legal liabilities and lost employee time, without losing critical business communications. Building on over 6 years of experience in fighting spam for some of the world’s largest companies, the Dynamic Anti-Spam Service combines automated anti-spam measures with the ability to fine-tune settings to meet each organization’s specific requirements.
“The first weekend we had Tumbleweed’s Dynamic Anti-Spam Service installed we doubled the amount of spam we were capturing. Over the past month of operation, our false positive rate has dropped to one tenth of one percent, ” said Bill Oldenburg, Manager of Security Control for Mutual of Omaha. “This new service has also automated tasks. We can now free staff up to do other more valuable activities.”
Packaged as an optional module that plugs into the Tumbleweed MMS 5.5 e-mail firewall, the Tumbleweed Spam Analysis Engine applies heuristic and statistical analysis to e-mail traffic to identify and categorize spam at the Internet gateway, before it reaches the enterprise e-mail server. Because the engine does not require a unique fingerprint for every piece of spam, it allows the organization to address the problem proactively, rather than reactively.
“We were initially using Tumbleweed’s e-mail firewall to help us meet the HIPAA requirements to secure patient data traveling by e-mail”, said Nancy Darveau, Enterprise Messaging Technical Lead of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida. “But we also had to deal with the same spam problem everyone else is experiencing. We didn’t want to install a separate and relatively unproven point product into our mission-critical e-mail system just to fight spam. In addition, given the confidential nature of most of our communications, outsourcing spam prevention wasn’t appropriate. Since activating the Tumbleweed Anti-Spam Service in the server we already had, we’ve been able to more easily automate the process of identifying and handling spam.”
“Integrating with the existing anti-hacker, anti-virus, policy compliance and secure messaging capabilities of MMS, the Dynamic Anti-Spam Service adds yet another line of defense to our e-mail firewall solution,” said Bill Bradford, VP of Marketing for Tumbleweed. “By centralizing all of these functions into a single policy engine and management console, we’re able to provide our customers with a cost efficient way to completely protect and secure their mission-critical e-mail stream.”
About Tumbleweed Communications Corp.
Tumbleweed is a leading provider of mission-critical communications software for businesses and government organizations using the Internet. Tumbleweed provides the security, control, protection and integration necessary to conduct business transactions through e-mail. Using Tumbleweed’s e-mail firewall and secure messaging applications, businesses can stop spam and malicious code before they enter the corporate network, regulate corporate traffic to ensure policy compliance, and secure and automate communications with customers, suppliers, and partners. Tumbleweed is trusted by hundreds of blue-chip customers including Amgen Inc., Bank of America Securities, JP Morgan Chase & Co., Oppenheimer Funds, Inc., The Regence Group (Blue Cross/Blue Shield), Salomon Smith Barney Inc., St. Luke’s Episcopal Healthcare System, TD Waterhouse Investor Services, Inc., the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and the U.S. Navy/Marine Corps. Tumbleweed Communications was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in Redwood City, California. www.tumbleweed.com
Tumbleweed cautions that forward-looking statements contained in this press release are based on current plans and expectations, and that a number of factors could cause the actual results to differ materially from the guidance given at this time. These factors are described in the Safe Harbor statement below.
Except for the historical information contained herein, the matters discussed in this press release may constitute forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected, particularly with respect to the potential sales for spam related products, the capacity of Tumbleweed’s solutions to effectively assist customers in managing spam and the results use of Tumbleweed spam products. In some cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as “may,” “will,” “should,” “potential,” “continue,” “expects,” “anticipates,” “intends,” “plans,” “believes,” “estimates,” and similar expressions. For further cautions about the risks of investing in Tumbleweed, we refer you to the documents Tumbleweed files from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, particularly Tumbleweed’s Form 10-K filed March 20, 2003, the Form 10-Q filed May 12, 2003 and the registration statement on Form S-4 filed May 20, 2003
Tumbleweed assumes no obligation to update information contained in this press release, which represents the Company’s expectations only as of the date of this release and should not be viewed as a statement about the Company’s expectations after such date. Although this release may remain available on the Company’s website or elsewhere, its continued availability does not indicate that the Company is reaffirming or confirming any of the information contained herein.