WatchGuard XCS gains spam blocking and encryption capabilities

WatchGuard released a free update to its XCS (extensible content security) line of email and web content security appliances that includes new features to make stopping spam even easier along with new email encryption capabilities.

The new add-in for Outlook allows end users to mark any delivered messages that bypass the XCS spam filters as either “spam’ or ‘not spam’. This way, end users gain the ability to report false positives, where legitimate messages were marked as spam, as well as false negatives, where a good message was tagged mistakenly as spam. In addition, the tool adds senders to the end user’s personal “trusted’ or ‘blocked’ senders list giving them more control over their messages.

WatchGuard has also allows end users to encrypt sensitive outbound messages directly from the WatchGuard XCS appliance, without the need for a local encryption server or additional desktop software. Messages are secure until they are delivered and unencrypted via a simple authentication process by the recipient.

The WatchGuard XCS platform combinines email inspection technologies with data loss prevention capabilities and IP reputation to combat spam, viruses, malware and other forms of blended threats.

Designed to address a wide range of business needs, the WatchGuard XCS platform tackles email security needs of small to medium sized businesses up to 1,000 users with the WatchGuard XCS 170, 370 and 570 series; and for mid-tier and enterprise organisations of 10,000 or more users that require advanced messaging and content protection, WatchGuard offers the WatchGuard XCS 770, 970 and 1170 series of appliances.

All of these appliances share best-in-class quality detection for maximum coverage and accuracy, as well as rapid response capabilities for zero-day threat outbreaks and automatic updates to protect against new forms of crimeware, spyware, rootkits, mobile malware and other malicious attacks.

Additionally, all of the WatchGuard XCS appliances can take advantage of WatchGuard’s in-the-cloud security technology, Reputation Enabled Defense. Given that spam messages are a major carrier of viruses, phishing attempts and blended threats, having Reputation Enabled Defense pre-screen and eliminate this unwanted traffic makes business networks, applications and data better protected as part of WatchGuard’s defence-in-depth architecture.