As a healthcare provider, Virginia Hospital Center faced unique challenges in blocking certain types of spam. Given the nature of medical center communications, using straight keyword filtering for spam was not an option. Blocking keywords like “Viagra” could prevent important patient-related emails from getting through. The hospital’s previous anti-spam protection was only ten percent effective at blocking spam. After an evaluation of competitive products, MailFrontier Gateway was selected for its effectiveness at blocking spam, as well as its integrated threat protection against phishing, viruses and directory harvest attacks.

“Our staff’s email addresses are made public for the benefit of our patients, so our organization is frequently bombarded with spam and directory harvest attacks. These days, phishing emails are also a nightmare,” according to Mark Rein, director of information technology for Virginia Hospital Center. “As a hospital, it is critical to have sophisticated intrusion protection systems in place to protect staff, patients and vital internal systems from attack. MailFrontier provided us the most complete solution for blocking existing email threats and protecting us against new email threat developments. MailFrontier has been exceptional from implementation through our day-to-day use.”

Virginia Hospital Center does not require its employees to use email protection, but as word spread among the staff about the product’s effectiveness and intuitive end-user interface, soon all 2,000 employees requested access to the MailFrontier solution. With close to 50 percent of inbound email as spam, employees were very pleased with the effectiveness and ease-of-use of MailFrontier Gateway and related help desk calls stopped.

“Our help desk doesn’t get calls about spam anymore. Actually, we are now getting thank you letters from various employees thanking us for finding MailFrontier Gateway. Our IT team never gets unsolicited praise from the staff—these thank you letters are a first,” noted Rein. “We are pleased with MailFrontier’s protection of our employees and systems against dangerous phishing emails. We’ve since added MailFrontier Time Zero Virus Technology™ as an additional layer of anti-virus defense, and it delivers real-time protection against both new and known virus threats.”

MailFrontier Gateway guards the perimeter of Virginia Hospital Center’s networks against costly and dangerous email threats. Manageable in just a few minutes a week, MailFrontier blocks 98 percent of spam and uniquely identifies spam, phishing and virus emails in a single quarantine, keeping Virginia Hospital Center ahead of emerging email threats. In addition, the self-managing and self-running application integrates easily with the hospital’s email infrastructure through Active Directory. “The MailFrontier implementation was smooth—it was one of the easiest technology installs for the hospital,” added Rein.

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, 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.

###

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.