HealthEast Cures Itself of Unwanted Email with MailFrontier
MailFrontier Protects Twin Cities Hospitals Against Spam, Phishing and Viruses

Palo Alto, Calif. – February 9, 2005– MailFrontier™, a leader in email security, today announced that HealthEast Care System, the largest health care provider in the Twin Cities’ East Metro area, has selected MailFrontier Gateway™ to protect the organization from email security threats. In addition to protection against spam and phishing, HealthEast is using MailFrontier Time Zero Virus Technology™ and MailFrontier’s split configuration option to block unwanted email, including dangerous viruses, at the network perimeter.

“With the increase in spam and phishing, having a way to identify and quarantine both suspect and definite bad email is significant for HealthEast,” said Ron Strachan, vice president and CIO for HealthEast Care System. “Employee productivity has improved without all the spam and phishing attacks, and MailFrontier is a valuable tool for our organization. We’re now using it as part of our multi-layered anti-virus protection too. When a solution like this works so effectively, it raises the credibility of the IT department within the organization. MailFrontier Gateway works very well.”

Receiving more than 40,000 messages a day, close to 60 percent of HealthEast’s email was spam. Previously, HealthEast used a hosted system to block spam for its 4,300 users, but this solution wasn’t able to stop the growing volume of spam and viruses coming into the hospital system. After evaluating a number of software solutions so HealthEast could better manage its email security internally, the hospital system selected MailFrontier Gateway for its ease-of-use for both IT and end users, as well as the product’s ability to protect at the perimeter of their network, before accessing internal systems.

“We desperately needed a system that was effective at catching spam, and other email threats, but didn’t require significant IT time,” said Kristi Reese, IT system administrator for HealthEast Care System. “Not only did MailFrontier install in just 30 minutes, but we’ve saved the IT team hours each day previously spent on blacklisting, and fielding user calls about spam and virus problems. Now we don’t have to spend hours managing keywords. With MailFrontier, I’ve saved three to four hours each day of my time.”

While spam was a continuing problem for HealthEast, phishing was also on the rise. The healthcare provider wanted to protect critical internal systems, patient data and employees from fraudent email attacks. “Last year we received maybe one or two phishing emails a week, but things have increased considerably just this year and now we’re seeing 50 to 100 phishing emails a day. Thankfully, MailFrontier’s anti-fraud protection includes header, content, and contact point analysis to stop phishers from reaching us. Since MailFrontier is specifically designed to find and stop phishing emails for optimal security, we’re also aware of the attacks,” added Reese.

With its high volume of unwanted email, HealthEast’s internal information technology systems had also previously experienced significant slow down with the demands on the network. HealthEast now uses a split implementation of MailFrontier Gateway to support its distributed organization. The healthcare system runs two MailFrontier remote analyzers in the DMZ to block spam, phishing and viruses before they reach internal systems. Now HealthEast’s unwanted email is blocked at the perimeter, before reaching critical internal systems.

About MailFrontier
MailFrontier is a leading provider of email security solutions that stop unwanted email by protecting enterprises from the growing number of dangerous and costly email threats while giving them the ability to anticipate and stop new threats as they emerge. MailFrontier offers a comprehensive defense against all known email threats, including spam, viruses, phishing, blended threats and other attacks, such as directory harvest attacks. The company has more than 900 customers, including HealthEast Care System, Peet’s Coffee & Tea, Pier 1 Imports, PNM Resources, San Francisco Giants and Wyndham International. Founded in February 2002, MailFrontier is headquartered in Palo Alto, California. For additional information, go to www.mailfrontier.com.

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MailFrontier, MailFrontier Gateway and MailFrontier Time Zero Virus Technology are trademarks of MailFrontier, Inc.  All other company and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.