Washington, D.C. - November 8, 2004 - FaceTime Communications,
the leading provider of solutions that secure, manage, and extend
instant messaging (IM) and peer-to-peer (P2P) applications, today
announced two key security initiatives aimed at mitigating the
growing risks of unmanaged IM and P2P use: the FaceTime Instant
Response Security Team (FIRST) and a free process for enterprise
customers called VAST (Vulnerability Assessment Survey and Test).
In addition, the Company announced the immediate availability of
the industry's only IM and P2P security gateway appliance,
RTGuardianTM 2.0. The announcements were made at the CSI Computer
Security Conference and Exposition being held this week in
Washington, D.C. IM and P2P networks are quickly emerging as the
delivery vehicles of choice for malicious programmers. Last month,
the System Administration, Networking, and Security Institute
(SANS) listed IM and P2P as two of the top ten most critical
Internet security vulnerabilities for Windows systems. Security
experts have noted that over the last year, eight of the 10 most
common viruses used IM and/or P2P as their propagation methods. A
survey conducted by AssetMatrix showed 40% of business users have
downloaded files using a P2P file sharing application, with ISPs
reporting that P2P-related traffic represents as much as 70% of the
IP traffic on their networks. Such unchecked P2P use creates
substantial security and legal risks. FIRST is the only singularly
focused and specialized intelligence and response organization
addressing the rapid proliferation of new IM and P2P protocols and
the growing frequency of IM and P2P-related information security
attacks. FIRST is comprised of FaceTime's experienced team of IM
and P2P protocol analysis and security experts working from the
Company's U.S. and Indian locations to monitor, analyze and report
on all malicious IM and P2P-related activity on a global scale. The
team will deliver documented countermeasures to the IT community at
large while providing FaceTime customers with automated product
updates to instantly defend against the latest attacks. The second
of FaceTime's security initiatives is the VAST service, designed to
help FaceTime customers and prospects identify and resolve network
weaknesses that may render them particularly vulnerable to external
IM and P2P attacks as well as employee misuse of IM and P2P behind
the firewall. The free FaceTime service, available to current and
prospective customers, is driven by a consultative discovery
process that evaluates an organization's existing policies,
procedures and products. The evaluation is followed by specialized
testing for real-time communication based vulnerabilities, the
results of which are compiled by FaceTime's team of security
specialists into a detailed, customized report and a set of
recommendations. To request a free VAST assessment, prospects and
existing FaceTime customers can visit http://www.facetime.com.
"Effectively securing and managing IM and P2P in the enterprise
requires specialized expertise," said Michael Osterman, president
and founder of Osterman Research. "FaceTime is going the extra mile
by educating and alerting the IT community on the latest security
threats and what can be done to defend against them. The company is
clearly embracing its leadership role in IM and P2P security with
these new initiatives." FaceTime also announced the immediate
availability of RTGuardian 2.0. RTGuardian 2.0 doubles the security
capabilities previously provided by FaceTime's RTG500TM by
detecting and blocking over 40 IM and P2P protocols and
applications for the broadest level of protocol support in the
industry. Among the 20 new protocols added are Azureus, BitTorrent,
eMule and Koala DC. Competitive offerings provide a false sense of
security with support that extends to only a handful of protocols,
allowing users to easily switch from a P2P file-sharing application
that has been blocked to another one that hasn't. With the
formation of FIRST, the launch of VAST, and the availability of
RTGuardian 2.0, FaceTime is working to resolve the risks associated
with IM and P2P by blending its industry-leading solutions with
global, real-time intelligence. "FIRST and VAST represent
FaceTime's commitment to leadership in the field of messaging
management and security," said Kailash Ambwani, CEO at FaceTime.
"Because IM and P2P do not need to be proactively deployed to pose
a threat to corporate networks, this is an urgent, present-day
dilemma for all businesses. FaceTime is proud to provide these new
services, which are immediately available to customers and the rest
of the IT community, so they can protect their businesses as well
as the value they derive from IM."
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.
PR Contact Information: