Cloud Computing Protection for Maximum Security and Lower Costs

As email-borne threats continue to escalate and IT budgets shrink, enterprises seek new ways to improve security while simultaneously lowering costs. Proofpoint SHIELD™ reduces the volume of email reaching your organization’s on-premises appliances by up to 90%, moving connection management and front-line anti-spam features into the cloud. This Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution defends against malicious and spammy email connections, dramatically reduces inbound spam volume and prevents denial-of-service and directory harvest attacks—improving the performance of any on-premises appliance and maximizing the value of your current email security investment.

Proofpoint SHIELD provides a first line of defense against spam and malicious email connections, reducing the volume of inbound email that must be processed by your existing on-premises email security appliances by 80 to 90 percent. Deployable in minutes, Proofpoint SHIELD protects your organization from out-of-control spam growth, sudden spikes in email traffic and ever-evolving email attacks. It provides a cost-effective alternative to traditional approaches to email connection management and capacity planning challenges.

Compatible with Any On-Premises Email Security Gateway

For the first time, Proofpoint SHIELD makes the power of Proofpoint MLX™ machine learning anti-spam and connection management features available to organizations that use any on-premises email security appliance.

As a SaaS solution, it can be deployed in minutes in front of any email security appliance including the Proofpoint Messaging Security Gateway™ as well as third-party solutions from vendors including Cisco (IronPort), McAfee (Secure Computing/CipherTrust), Symantec, Trend Micro and Tumbleweed.

Proven Technology, Seamless Scalability

Proofpoint SHIELD works in conjunction with on-premises email security solutions to deliver an optimal combination of protection and control. First, Proofpoint SHIELD uses Proofpoint Dynamic Reputation™ and netMLX™ technology to make intelligent decisions about whether to accept, throttle or reject incoming email connections.

Accepted messages and their attachments are then scanned for blatant spam characteristics, using Proofpoint MLX anti-spam technology, which examines hundreds of thousands of structural and content attributes to accurately block spam messages.

After processing, the remaining messages are delivered to your organization’s on-premises email security appliance, which can apply additional anti-spam and anti-virus scanning, policy enforcement, email routing and other MTA features.

Administrators retain full control over important routing, policy, reporting and end-user functions delivered by the on-premises appliances.

Rapid Return on Investment

Proofpoint SHIELD protects and extends your email security investment without having to add new appliances, datacenter resources, network infrastructure, network bandwidth or additional IT management resources.

Proofpoint SHIELD ensures that the load on your existing appliances is consistent and predictable, protects against massive traffic spikes and unrelenting spam volume growth and simplifies your email security infrastructure.

For less than the cost of a typical appliance, Proofpoint SHIELD increases the performance of your entire on-premises email security solution, giving even “maxed out” appliance deployments enough headroom to support to your organization’s natural email growth.

Help for IT Administrators—Easy Setup, Administration and Reporting

Proofpoint SHIELD was designed with the IT administrator in mind. The service can be deployed in minutes with minimal involvement from your organization’s IT staff. It requires zero ongoing administration and there is no impact on your email end-users.

Hosted in world-class data centers, performance is guaranteed by Proofpoint’s best-in-class service level agreements including “five nines” availability and sub-minute email latency.

Designed for true, “lights out” operation, Proofpoint handles all deployment, 24x7 monitoring and operational support, updates and upgrades for the solution.

Email-based reports keep administrators informed about the status and actions of the system, including information on final connection and message disposition trends.

Proofpoint SHIELD also provides valuable business continuity benefits during routine maintenance or upgrades of downstream email gateways, by providing 24 hour retention of queued mail and 48 hour retention of email logs. Email administrators can focus on the task at hand, confident that email is still being processed and queued by Proofpoint SHIELD.

Connection Management and Front-line Spam Protection in the Cloud

Proofpoint SHIELD is a SaaS solution that works in conjunction with any email security appliance—making it easy to realize the advantages of a “hybrid” on-demand/on-premises email security deployment.

Your organization’s inbound email is routed to Proofpoint’s cloud computing resources which provide connection management and front-line spam protection.

Each inbound email connection is evaluated using proprietary machine learning techniques. Malicious connections—typically 80% or more of all connections received—are rejected.

Valid connections are accepted and the messages associated with them are scanned for blatant spam characteristics using Proofpoint MLX technology, which analyzes hundreds of thousands of structural, content and reputational attributes to accurately identify spam. Obvious spam messages are blocked. Legitimate messages are passed to your organization’s on-premises email security solution for further content inspection, policy enforcement, routing and delivery to end-users.

Proven Technology

Proofpoint SHIELD uses the same enterprise-proven connection management and anti-spam technologies used in Proofpoint's on-demand and appliance solutions.

Connection Management: Proofpoint Dynamic Reputation™ and netMLX™ Technology

Proofpoint SHIELD assesses connection reputation using the same connection management technology found in the Proofpoint Dynamic Reputation module. Proofpoint SHIELD uses this predictive, behavioral analysis of incoming IP traffic to eliminate email traffic spikes and block or throttle malicious connections from botnets.

This protection is provided by Proofpoint netMLX reputation analysis technology, a global machine learning fabric built over and extending the machine learning technology that powers each Proofpoint customer deployment. Proofpoint netMLX creates the industry's most accurate and up-to-date database of reputation for IP addresses sending email across the Internet, allowing each customer site to benefit from the network effect provided by Proofpoint's real-time, machine learning analysis of global sender behavior.

Each minute, hundreds of data points for all IP addresses are parsed with advanced machine learning algorithms to generate a score that represents the sender's reputation, whether positive or negative. Proofpoint Dynamic Reputation then uses these scores, combined with local behavioral data, to make intelligent decisions about accepting, throttling or rejecting incoming email connections.

Proofpoint SHIELD analyzes each connection using a wide array of reputation related attributes, including:

• SPF (standard, best guess)
• Percentage of spam, virus, phish and invalid recipients associated with IP
• URL and domain block lists
• DHCP addresses (zombies, botnets)
• Image history (fuzzy matching)
• Recipient list sizes
• Hundreds more

Proofpoint MLX™ Technology: Advanced Machine Learning for Anti-spam

Proofpoint SHIELD also employs a specialized version of the Proofpoint MLX anti-spam engine, designed for the rapid detection of blatant spam. After connection analysis, messages that are accepted by Proofpoint SHIELD are scanned by this engine for obvious spam characteristics. Messages that are assuredly spam are blocked. The accuracy of this system is backed by Proofpoint's false-positive SLA, which guarantees a less than 1 in 350,000 false positive rate.

Proofpoint MLX is an advanced, patent-pending machine learning system developed by the scientists at the Proofpoint Attack Response Center. Based on advanced statistical techniques including logistic regression and information gain analysis, Proofpoint MLX enables the accurate classification and identification of unstructured content, as found in email and other documents.

Using MLX, Proofpoint SHIELD analyzes hundreds of thousands of structural, image, content and reputation attributes to accurately differentiate between spam and valid messages. Traditional anti-spam solutions evaluate only a limited number of attributes and are unable to decisively classify spam, leading to low effectiveness and a high rate of false positives.

Proofpoint's intelligent anti-spam technology continually updates itself to defend against new forms of spam. Ongoing self-training and new techniques developed by Proofpoint scientists allow MLX to predict and adapt to new forms of spam as they appear. The MLX engine used by Proofpoint SHIELD is continually and automatically updated to ensure the highest accuracy and performance at all times.

Proofpoint SHIELD: Hybrid Email Security Made Simple

Benefits of Deploying Proofpoint SHIELD

• Reduces volume of connections and email messages hitting on-premises email security solutions by 80-90%
• Maximizes the value of your current appliance investment—reduces or eliminates the need to add new appliances
• Protects against sudden email volume surges, denial-of-service and directory harvest attacks
• Improves anti-spam effectiveness
• Restores predictable email volume and appliance utilization
• Zero administration overhead
• No impact on email end-users

Compatible with Third-party Email Security Appliances

• Cisco (IronPort)
• McAfee (Secure Computing/CipherTrust)
• Symantec
• Trend Micro
• Tumbleweed

Key Features of Proofpoint SHIELD

• Connection management: Blocks malicious connections using Proofpoint Dynamic Reputation technolog
• Front line spam defense: Blocks blatant spam using patent-pending Proofpoint MLX machine learning technology
• Robust, easy-to-understand reporting
• Performance guaranteed by industry-leading SLAs

Additional SaaS Email Security Solutions from Proofpoint

Proofpoint SHIELD is designed for enterprises that want to take advantage of the security, performance and cost benefits of a hybrid on-demand/on-premises email security solution. Organizations that desire a completely SaaS solution should consider Proofpoint ENTERPRISE and Proofpoint PROTECT, which deliver Proofpoint's unified email security and data loss prevention features as cost-effective, easy-to-adopt and easy-to-manage hosted services:

• Proofpoint ENTEPRISE: Designed specifically to meet the needs of mid- and large-sized enterprises, Proofpoint ENTERPRISE is the first hosted email security solution to offer the level of flexibility, security and control that larger organizations require. On-demand email security doesn't have to be "one size fits all." Proofpoint ENTERPRISE can be configured with nearly any combination of Proofpoint's modular email security, data loss prevention and email infrastructure optimization features.
• Proofpoint PROTECT: For Organizations that demand powerful spam blocking, virus protection and content filtering capabilities, but don't require the advanced customization or data loss prevention (DLP) features of Proofpoint ENTERPRISE, we also offer Proofpoint PROTECT. Proofpoint PROTECT is an easy-to-use, lower-cost version that offers the lowest total cost of ownership—as well as simplified configuration and administration—coupled with Proofpoint’s unrivalled anti-spam, anti-virus and content filtering accuracy.

In addition, the on-demand Proofpoint ARCHIVE™ solution addresses email storage management, legal discovery and regulatory compliance challenges without the overhead of managing an in-house email archive.

Proofpoint SHIELD Case Studies

Hampton City Schools (Virginia) uses Proofpoint SHIELD to provide connection management and front-line anti-spam capabilities in front of its Proofpoint appliance deployment. Using Proofpoint SHIELD allows Hampton City Schools to ensure that they can handle even massive spikes in email volume, without having to add additional hardware and network infrastructure.

• Read the full press release

Find many more Proofpoint case studies in the Proofpoint Resource Center