FOSTER CITY, Calif. - August 3, 2004 - FaceTime
Communications, the leading provider of solutions that secure,
manage, and extend instant messaging (IM) and other forms of
real-time communications, today responded to the recent guidance by
the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) on the use and
handling of IM communications. FaceTime's comprehensive suite of
solutions exceeds the standards suggested by the organization. The
FDIC's statement, which was released July 21 http://www.fdic.gov/news/news/financial/2004/fil8404.html,
http://www.fdic.gov/news/news/financial/2004/fil8404a.html,
called for its 5,300 member banks and financial institutions to
take measures guarding against security risks, privacy and identity
hijacking and legal liability. Specifically, the memo called for
firewalls to block incoming and outgoing public IM traffic and
strongly urged members to adopt intrusion detection system (IDS)
software while, at the same time, highlighting some of the port
crawling and tunneling capabilities of IM clients that make them
particularly difficult to secure. Further expanding on its long and
well-established relationship with FaceTime, America Online, Inc.
extended its AOL® Instant Messenger™ (AIM®) Certified Application
Partner Agreement to include RTMatrix, a free IM and presence
platform and tool kit that will be made available to developers
that leverage the security, management and compliance benefits of
FaceTime IM Director™ or IMAuditor™. FaceTime's "defense-in-depth"
solution not only meets the requirements spelled out by the FDIC,
but it also provides the only guaranteed solution to block IM and
P2P representing a stronger measure than the firewall and IDS
recommendations laid out by the organization which can easily be
circumvented. FaceTime's solution includes the RTG500 perimeter
security appliance that delivers complete, non-stop protection from
unauthorized IM connections, while also eliminating peer-to-peer
(P2P) filesharing, plus IMAuditor 5.0 for logging, auditing and
user behavior control within the network. The "defense-in-depth"
approach is the only solution of its kind in the industry and
provides a way to safely enable IM use in an organization within
the constraints of the FDIC's guidance. "The Firewall and IDS
language in the FDIC guidance assumes companies are blocking IM,"
said Henry Wolfgang Carter, CEO of H.W. Carter Consulting, LLC a
consultancy firm specializing in electronic communications and
associate regulatory issues. "Unfortunately, a firewall and IDS
software implementation by themselves do not protect from
unauthorized IM and file sharing. FaceTime's comprehensive solution
supercedes any firewall and IDS configuration and provides banks
the option of safely using IM while addressing the FDIC's security
concerns." Michael J. Zamorski Director, Division of Supervision
and Consumer Protection at the FDIC, issued the edict and raised
the bar for IM security and compliance significantly. Where past
guidances from other financial services organizations focused on
the archiving and logging of communications for proper regulatory
compliance, the FDIC expanded the discussion of information
security to include threats posed by viruses, worms and Trojans
from outside the company's walls, as well as the protection of
information that could potentially be leaked from within. Over 80
percent of financial services firms have employee usage of IM at
work, while only 30 percent formally sanction its use. With the
FDIC putting IM to the top of the industry's agenda, the industry
is bound to have a greater sensitivity and awareness of the risks
associated with its use. "We are pleased that the FDIC has raised
the bar for IM security and compliance standards," said Kailash
Ambwani, President and CEO of FaceTime Communications. "FaceTime
has been meeting this standard for more than half of the largest
100 financial services firms worldwide over the past few years, and
we will continue to stay ahead of the industry's curve when it
comes to IM protection. We hope that this direct and detailed
guidance provided by the FDIC with regards to IM will now be
replicated by the Security and Exchange Commission, other
governmental regulatory agencies and the self-regulating bodies
which oversee financial services companies worldwide. Most of these
organizations have been noticeably absent to date regarding the
requirements to log, audit and archive IM, as well as the security
risks posed by their uncontrolled use." The complete text of the
FDIC guidance along with information on FaceTime's defense-in-depth
solutions and how they address the recommendations can be found at
www.facetime.com/fdic
About Actiance, Inc. (Formerly FaceTime Communications, Inc.)
FaceTime Communications became Actiance, Inc on January 11, 2011 following an agreement to
transfer the FaceTime trademark to Apple.
FaceTime Communications enables the safe and productive use of Unified Communications and Web 2.0,
including instant messaging, blogs and social networking. Ranked number one by IDC for five consecutive
years, FaceTime's award-winning solutions are used by more than 1,500 customers for the security,
management and compliance of real-time communications. FaceTime supports or has strategic partnerships
with all leading IM, unified communications providers and social networks including AOL, Google, Yahoo!,
Skype, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
FaceTime is headquartered in Belmont, California. For more information visit
http://www.facetime.com or call 888-349-3223.
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