New Customer Videos: Leaders in Healthcare, Financial Services, Retail and More Describe Why they Use Proofpoint

At our recent "Proofpoint Inner Circle" customer events, we had a great opportunity to interview several of our enterprise customers about how and why they use Proofpoint Enterprise solutions for email security, data loss prevention, email encryption, regulatory compliance, archiving and electronic discovery.

I've collected several of them in this YouTube playlist. In these videos, representatives from Amalgamated, Liberty Health, PETCO, Graubard Miller, MED3000, Zions Bank and Scottsdale Healthcare share some of the reasons they rely on Proofpoint.

Thanks again to all of our terrific customers who took the time to share their stories with us... And you can find a lot more Proofpoint video content in our YouTube channel at http://www.proofpoint.com/youtube.

Increased Security Threats, Data Loss Risks Driving Upgrade Cycle from Legacy Products to Proofpoint: 8 Years of Record Proofpoint Revenues

Many thanks to our partners, fans, friends and customers for helping Proofpoint reach an amazing milestone announced today: Our 32nd sequential quarter - yes, eight straight years - of record Proofpoint revenue.

The dynamics driving Proofpoint's growth in Q2 2011 were similar to those we've seen in recent quarters: A renewed focus in the enterprise on security and threat management,  an increasing number of competitive displacements and a growing interest in cloud-based deployments are playing a huge role.

Quoted in today's press release, our CEO, Gary Steele remarked, “Recent high-profile attacks and data breaches such as those that have struck RSA, Epsilon, U.S. National Laboratories and the International Monetary Fund, among others, have prompted organizations in every industry to re-evaluate their current solutions with an eye toward increasing effectiveness, better securing private data and improving  compliance with regulations. Our solutions meet all of those requirements, which is why – in head-to-head evaluations against competitors – Proofpoint wins nearly 100 percent of the time.”

The full press release describes some of the important large enterprise deals Proofpoint won during Q2 across our key vertical markets including financial services, retail, energy, healthcare and other industries.

Proofpoint added more than one million mailboxes under protection, as those customers replaced solutions from Proofpoint competitors including McAfee (solutions such as CipherTrust, IronMail, McAfee Email Gateway), Google (Postini) and Cisco (IronPort) with Proofpoint’s email security, data loss prevention, email encryption and email archiving solutions.

If your organization is looking for better protection against today's email-related threats, one way to learn more about Proofpoint's solutions is to register for one of our upcoming live demonstrations. Current users of McAfee solutions might be especially interest in downloading our Comparison Guide: Proofpoint Enterprise Vs. McAfee Email Gateway, which you can also access immediately by simply completing the form below:

 

Video: Email Archiving and eDiscovery for Legal, Steven Heller of Graubard Miller

Earlier this year our friend Steven Heller, director of IT for New York-based law firm Graubard Miller, kindly sat down with me to explain how his organization uses our hosted email archiving solution, Proofpoint Enterprise Archive, to reduce the size of their Microsoft Exchange email store, simplify (and speed up) electronic discovery and save time and money in the process.

Steven and his firm have been using Proofpoint's email archiving service for several years now (first purchasing the product when it was known as Fortiva, before that company's acquisition by Proofpoint) and he continues to be a very vocal supporter.

In this short video, Steven talks about the issues the firm had with email retention prior to Proofpoint and explains what he likes about Proofpoint's solution:

Steven will be presenting "How to Save Hundreds of Thousands on eDiscovery," an educationalcase study on email archiving and eDiscovery at the MIS Training Institute's upcoming IT Governance, Risk and Compliance event (co-located with Audit World 2011) at the Hilton Boston Back Bay on September 20, 2011.

He'll also be presenting a similar case study at Computerworld's Fall Storage Networking World 2011 event (October 10-13, 2011 in Orlando, Florida). If you're attending either event, make a point of attending his sessions - he's a great presenter and very knowledgeable about these topics.

We also recently published a short PDF case study on Graubard Miller that you can find here:
Proofpoint case study, Graubard Miller.

Thanks again, Steve, for taking the time to chat with us and for your ongoing support!

Clayton Homes Strengthens Email Security for its Mobile Workforce

In a special mobile security edition of SC Magazine, Clayton Homes demonstrates how they are leveraging Proofpoint to increase email security.

Clayton Homes, established in 1934 and acquired by Warren Buffet in 2003, is the largest manufacturer of mobile, modular, and manufactured houses in the United States.  In order to keep in touch with its customers at all times, Clayton Homes encourages its employees to use consumerized IT devices to send and receive emails.  These email messages often contain sensitive data such as financial, manufacturing, and proprietary designs that could lead to a loss of customer confidence and regulatory compliance fines if stolen or lost.

After evaluating several solutions, Clayton Homes chose Proofpoint Enterprise Protection (SaaS email security) and Enterprise Privacy (data loss prevention and email encryption) to help manage the substantial security and compliance risks posed by mobile email. 

Jodie Swafford, information security manager at Clayton Homes, noted, “We looked for one that was cost effective and could provide us with strong security and compliance across multiple mobile platforms as well as offer control, flexibility and scalability.”

Proofpoint Enterprise Protection helps to prevent spam, viruses, malware, and phishing for inbound and outbound email while Enterprise Privacy defends against leaks of confidential information and ensures compliance with common international, industry and US data protection regulations.

Swafford outlined how easy it was to start protecting sensitive data, “With Proofpoint, we were able to use out-of-the-box rule sets, tweak them slightly as needed, and even create custom rules for different business units.  Once rule sets were defined, we really only need to turn Proofpoint on.  It immediately began governing all email communications at the rate of thousands per day.”

As with many of our customer cases, Proofpoint’s products can help reduce overall costs by lowering time spent on IT administration, saving employees from time spent sorting spam and preventing data breaches and regulatory fines.

Click here to read the full case study (reprinted from SC Magazine) and as all always, you can check out our Learning Center for more.

Don't Miss Our Compliance for Office 365 Webinar with Special Guest Mike Blake, CIO of Hyatt Hotels Corporation

Proofpoint's live web seminar series continues next week with a brand new topic, Microsoft Office 365: Meeting Encryption, Privacy and Compliance Requirements, presented at two times (7 AM PT/10 AM ET and again at 11 AM PT / 2 PM ET) on Wednesday, July 20th, 2011.

Pictured at left is special guest Mike Blake, CIO of Hyatt Hotels Corporation, who will be joining us to share how his organization is using Proofpoint to ensure that their Microsoft Office 365 deployment meets a variety of compliance requirements.

This is a rare opportunity to hear first hand about how one of the world's leading organizations is leveraging the cloud to achieve its security and compliance objectives.

If your organization is moving - or thinking about moving - to Microsoft's next-generation hosted email environment, you are not going to want to miss this one!

Come and learn about the compliance and security features built into Office 365 and how those match today's enterprise data protection and privacy requirements. You'll also learn about our newest solution, Proofpoint Compliance for Office 365, and how it enhances Office 365's encryption, data loss prevention, archiving and security capabilities.

As always, registered attendees will receive a link to a replay of the webinar and we'll answer your questions live, during a Q&A session. Follow the link below to register:

 Register for Microsoft Office 365: Meeting Encryption, Privacy and Compliance Requirements »

Email Security Case Study: Why Grand Valley State University Switched to Proofpoint Enterprise Protection

We recently published an updated case study on Grand Valley State University's use of Proofpoint Enterprise Protection for anti-spam, anti-malware and email policy enforcement. The university switched to Proofpoint from McAfee's IronMail solution (originally developed by Ciphertrust). Grand Valley State University is a four-year public university with more than 23,000 students and 4,000 faculty members.   

The university originally deployed McAfee’s IronMail solution to combat the plethora of spam messages being sent to its 20,000 mailboxes but did not find the effectiveness and flexibility it was looking for.  Many legitimate messages were misidentified as spam and some malicious emails were getting through to end users causing IT administrators to waste time sorting email.

Email administrator Tom Norman, noted, “We needed to find a new product that would excel at correctly identifying spam and viruses and reduce the amount of time IT staff spent on email administration. We were also looking for a vendor to provide a superior level of customer service and support.”

Grand Valley State University turned to Proofpoint’s Enterprise Protection deployed as appliances to meet its requirements.  Proofpoint’s appliance deployment model is easy to integrate with any SMTP mail server, features real-time reporting tools and an intuitive interface. 

With its 99%+ spam detection rate, Proofpoint's high performance email security solution provided much needed relief for Tom Norman and his team. Norman says, “Proofpoint has just been a godsend to me because I’m now viewed as the ‘good guy’ for finally fixing our problem with spam and viruses.”

Read the full case study (PDF format) on Grand valley State University and visit our Learning Center for more case studies.

Franz Lebert & Co., Tualatin Valley Fire and Rescue Deploy Proofpoint Enterprise Protection for Email Security

We have two great email security case studies to share with you today.

German logistics company Franz Lebert & Co. and Oregon fire fighters Tualatin Valley Fire and Rescue have deployed Proofpoint Enterprise Protection to effectively block spam, viruses, and malicious email.

With as much as 80% of all incoming messages identified as spam, Franz Lebert & Co. needed to protect the organisation’s 400 mailboxes and chose to deploy Proofpoint’s virtual appliance technology for easy integration with VMware, simplified administrative management, and advanced backup recovery.

“The solution also achieves an optimum price-performance ratio, meeting virtually all our specified requirements,” recalls Stefan Bungartz, I.T. executive at Franz lebert & Co.

Meanwhile in Oregon, Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue was seeing a rising level of spam and false positives that trimmed away time for emergencies and fighting fires.  The fire department deployed Proofpoint’s Enterprise Protection in the cloud to ensure vital messages are received by their users and eliminate virtually all spam. 

Proofpoint’s cloud-based email security service does not need an I.T. administrator to maintain, freeing up time for other high priority issues.  Each customer is simultaneously deployed on multiple datacenters for continuous availability in the event of a disaster.

TVF&R IT supervisor remarked, “Proofpoint has a good hosted model, and we haven’t seen anything like it. As far as I know, there’s no need for scheduled maintenance. That’s the way a solution like this should work.”

Download the full case studies for Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue and Franz Lebert & Co. (also available in German) to learn more. 

Talking FISMA, Cloud Computing and Secure Messaging: Proofpoint and Proofpoint Customers in the News

A couple of recent news items I wanted to point out in case you haven't seen them.

First, our VP of Technology, Andres Kohn chatted with security blogger Alan Shimel for his ashimmy blog Security.EXE podcast. Andres and Alan talk about Proofpoint's work with Microsoft on what might be the biggest federal deployment of cloud technology to date (at the USDA), FISMA compliance and the ongoing battle between Microsoft and Google for cloud dominance.

You can also listen to that segment right here:

Next, Proofpoint customer Kelsey-Seybold Clinic of Houston, TX is included in a recent Healthcare Informatics feature, "Secure Messaging via the Cloud and Mobile Devices." In that article, Martin Littmann, director IT systems for Kelsey-Seybold, briefly describes how that healthcare system uses Proofpoint's SaaS email security and data loss prevention solutions to help ensure the security of sensitive data.

Finally, we recently published a new customer case study on Adventist Health, a large California-based health system, that uses Proofpoint's cloud-based solutions for email security, HIPAA compliance and data loss prevention. Download a PDF copy of "Adventist Health gives Proofpoint's cloud-based email security solution a clean bill of health."

 

HIPAA Email Security: Adventist Health Deploys Proofpoint to Keep PHI Safe, Employee Inboxes Clean

We're proud to welcome Adventist Health to the roster of leading healthcare organizations that use Proofpoint Enterprise Protection and Proofpoint Enterprise Privacy to ensure the security, privacy and confidentiality of patient data while also protecting employees from spam, viruses and other malicious email.

Adventist Health is a leading West Coast healthcare provider with 17 hospitals and more than 130 clinics and outpatient facilities located across California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington—and about 18,000 email inboxes to protect.

When Adventist sought to replace its legacy email security solution with a more flexible, effective and easier-to-manage SaaS solution, they turned to Proofpoint, after consulting Gartner's 2010 Magic Quadrant for Secure Email Gateways.

Quoted in our full press release issued today, Adventist's information security officer, Alain Bouit, explained that improving the security of patient information and providing better service was a primary goal of the switch to Proofpoint.

“In any email security solution, a primary goal is to protect patient information. If a patient believes we are taking care of their personal information properly, it is one of the factors that helps ensure confidence to patients about our abilities as a provider,” says Bouit. “After examining many solutions, Proofpoint was the best fit because it had the flexibility to handle regulatory compliance, as well as protect patient personal health records.”

If you're tasked with protecting personal healthcare information for your organization, you can learn more about how Proofpoint provides superior defense against email-borne threats and comprehensive protection against exposures of HIPAA-regulated data by requesting a Proofpoint HIPAA Risk Assessment.

Visit: http://go.proofpoint.com/HIPAA-Risk-Assessment-Audit.html

Video: Proofpoint Customer Case Study - Redwood Credit Union

Following up on my previous video post featuring some great anti-phishing and password tips from Proofpoint customer Tony Hidlesheim of Redwood Credit Union, here are two more videos where Tony talks about how his organization uses Proofpoint to secure inbound email while preventing data loss via outbound email and HTTP traffic.

Redwood Credit Union is the 10th largest credit union in the state of California. In part one of our video interview, Tony explains how the credit union uses Proofpoint for email security while also applying those same security policies to HTTP (web or "port 80") traffic. Tony also shares some security insights about social media and the security.

 

In part two of our customer case study interview, Tony talks more about the specific inbound email security and outbound data loss prevention policies that his organization enforces. Tony discusses some of the features he most likes about Proofpoint.

He also comments on the impact of data privacy rules and regulations such as PCI and GLBA, noting that while compliance with regulations is important, his number one concern is keeping credit union members' private financial information secure because his business is all about member service.

  



Thanks again to Tony and the rest of our friends at Redwood Credit Union for taking the time to share these perspectives with me!

(And as a reminder: If you're a customer and would like to share your Proofpoint story with us, do send us an email to pr@proofpoint.com!)