Email Security and Content Filtering - SC Magazine September 2012

SC Magazine has reviewed a dozen email security and content filtering tools in their September issue.  Their picks?  McAfee email protection received the  Best Buy designation.  Clearswift Secure email Gateway received their Recommended designation.  The fewest number of stars for Overall Rating was given to Trend Micro for their Trend Micro InterScan Messaging Security product.The fewest number of stars for Overall Rating was given to Trend Micro for their Trend Micro InterScan Messaging Security product. Three stars.

Companies whose products received an overall rating of five stars: Axway Mailgate SC, Cisco email Security Appliance, Clearswift  SECURE email Gateway, McAfee email Protection, WatchGuard Technologies SCS 570.

Others in the group test were - Barracuda Spam & Virus Firewall, DataMotion SecureMail Gateway, Echoworx Encrypted Mail Gateway, Fortinet FortiMail, Halon Security Virtual Spam Prevention,  Titus Message Classification, Trend Micro InterScan Messaging Security.

Individuals unfamiliar with SC Magazine’s group test need to realize that these are not round-ups.  The products aren’t pitted against one another and then given some weighted average score (such as with the Forrester Wave).  Think of the products as  being evaluated in silos for features, ease of use, performance, documentation, support, value for money, and overall rating.    

One quibble about the SC Magazine Group Test. They need to be tougher with the vendors on pricing data.  All vendors should have to briefly describe their pricing model, whether it’s tiered, and whether it includes support (and if so, whether other levels are purchased).  SC Magazine should also specify a number of users for which they want the pricing information.  This will enable the reader to better compare the vendors.

The SC Group tests aren’t meant to provide an exhaustive 6-month evaluation of the products, putting them through their paces.  It’s nonetheless a useful set of data points.

A half dozen of the companies in the SC Magazine Group Test are also in the 2012  August Gartner Magic Quadrant for Secure email Gateways document, including McAfee and Cisco. Both of whom are among the Leaders.  McAfee isn't   in the upper most right hand corner of the quadrant.

How Do You Use the Gartner Magic Quadrant?

According to Gartner - Clients use Magic Quadrants as a first step to understanding the technology providers they might consider for a specific investment opportunity.

Keep in mind that focusing on the leaders' quadrant isn't always the best course of action.  There are good reasons to consider market challengers.  And a niche player may support your needs better than a market leader.  It all depends on how the provider aligns with your business goals.

http://www.gartner.com/technology/research/methodologies/research_mq.jsp

Two documents from Gartner that you  may want to purchase “Assessing Secure Web Gateway Technologies”, published in August (ID:  G00231775) and “Gartner Magic Quadrant for Secure email Gateways (ID:  G00231775).  The latter may be available from vendors that are included in the analysis.

You may also want to purchase Forrester’s document, “Market Overview: Content Security, Q3 2011”.

To access the group test  -

http://www.scmagazine.com/email-security--content-filtering/grouptest/273/ 

Security Predictions 2012 - The Crystal Balls Come Out

Leading – edge. Intuitive – interface. Plug – and play. Thought – leadership. It’s that time of the year. The quiet period between RSA/SC Magazine Awards US and Interop – Las Vegas/SC Magazine Awards UK, when you’ll often find internet security vendors look at their crystal balls and make their threat predictions for 2012. M86 Security has just released their nine page Security Predictions 2012. Definitely worth saving along with other security vendor predictions for 2012. Save them in a folder, and then peruse at the end of the year. Alternatively, place bets with your IT and security buds as to which vendor will be the most accurate in 2012. These prediction pieces and surveys help the vendors to demonstrate thought leadership in the security space. Some UK sites are irreverent when the survey pieces come out. Not mentioning by name, but think vulture head.

Below are links to some other security predictions for 2012 from SANS, Security Week, WatchGuard, Websense, McAfee, Trend Micro, and Sophos.

M86 Security predictions for 2012 are:

• Targeted Attacks Grow More Damaging and Complex
• Illicit Social Media Scams Escalate
• Mobile Malware Menaces Users and Organizations
• Third-party Software Exploits Gain Traction
• Exploit Kits and Malware Reuse Proliferate
• Compromised Websites Serving Malicious Content Accelerates
• Botnet Disruption Attempts Short-lived
• Spam Rebounds to Distribute Damaging Malware
• Major Sporting Events Draw Major Cyber Attacks
• Attacks on Cloud Services Inevitable

http://docs.media.bitpipe.com/io_10x/io_103522/item_503511/m86_security_labs_predictions_2012.pdf

http://www.sans.edu/research/security-laboratory/article/security-predict2011

http://www.securityweek.com/securityweeks-2012-it-security-predictions

http://www.watchguard.com/predictions/

http://www.websense.com/assets/reports/2012-Predictions-WS-Security-Labs.pdf

http://www.mcafee.com/us/resources/reports/rp-threat-predictions-2012.pdf

http://www.trendmicro.co.uk/media/misc/trend-micro-2012-security-predictions-en.pdf

http://www.sophos.com/medialibrary/PDFs/other/SophosSecurityThreatReport2012.pdf

Light reading for now and the end of the year. As an aside The SC Magazine Awards UK will be on April 24. Finalists are at

http://kensek.blogspot.com/2012/02/2012-shortlist-sc-magazine-2012-awards.html