Galix, a reseller of Mimecast solutions in South Africa, has announced that it is now reselling Mimecast’s new service – Mimecast Secure Messaging – to the South African market. This service will assist organisations to confidently send and receive sensitive or confidential information via e-mail, reducing the risk of data leaks and supporting compliance to data privacy and protection regulation.

The service allows employees to easily send secure messages and attachments directly from their familiar Outlook and Mac applications. Recipients access messages via a secure Web portal, fully customised and branded with the sender’s company name, colours and logo – helping ensure brand recognition and recipient confidence. Administrators can set policies to automatically invoke Secure Messaging for recipient domains, subject lines and other message content.

“Many local businesses rely heavily on e-mail to conduct their business. However, many threats enter the organisation via e-mail communication. With Mimecast’s Secure Email service, business can exchange information securely, without the risk of e-mails that contain confidential information being intercepted. Furthermore, this service can also provide the confidence for organisations to share documentation electronically and minimise the need for courier services,” says Simeon Tassev, MD and QSA at Galix.

The new service is designed to:
* Address the complexity and overheads of traditional e-mail encryption;
* Allow administrators to enforce policies to automatically invoke Secure Messaging depending on business or compliance requirements;
* Enable employees to selectively invoke Secure Messaging, for any e-mail; and
* Ensure recipients can securely read and reply to messages and attachments with a Web browser. No additional client-side software required.

Steven Malone, security product manager at Mimecast, commented: “Email just wasn’t designed for sending sensitive or confidential information. Standard e-mail communications aren’t encrypted, so anyone with the tools to intercept your e-mail can easily read all of your information.

“In the wake of continued high profile data breaches, individual e-mail users now expect to see a higher level of protection to be confident that appropriate measures have been taken to safeguard their sensitive data. They’re not impressed when their healthcare, financial or customer details appear in their inbox attached to a standard e-mail.”

“Mimecast Secure Messaging is designed to help strengthen information security, data governance and compliance, but without the added IT overhead and complexity of traditional e-mail encryption solutions.”

Message controls allow senders or administrators to confirm message delivery, instantly recall a message, set message expiration, prevent printing of messages, or prevent replies being sent.

How it works
Secure messages are routed securely to the Mimecast cloud, where they are scanned for malware and checked against content and Data Leak Prevention (DLP) policies before being stored in an AES encrypted archive.
A notification message is sent to the recipient containing instructions on how to access the e-mail and attachments.
The notification and recipient portal can be customised with the originating organisations name, colours and logo ensuring brand recognition and recipient confidence.
Recipients can read, reply and compose new messages to the originating company.
Secure message content never leaves the Secure Messaging portal.

Secure Messaging is part of Mimecast’s wider cloud e-mail security suite; working alongside gateway, DLP and content controls to provide robust e-mail protection. It also integrates seamlessly with Mimecast’s cloud e-mail archiving service for long term message retention and access to support compliance with business and regulatory requirements.

“Galix delivers the critical skills to configure Mimecast’s solution in-line with various business requirements including e-mail compliance policies, allowing organisations to maximise their investments. Furthermore, we are able to customise reporting and e-discovery as well as provide organisations with on-premise e-mail solution support,” concludes Tassev.