Tumbleweed Survey Finds Email Displacing Postal Mail as Important Customer Communication Channel

Phone Remains Contact Method of Choice Amidst Email Security Concerns

REDWOOD CITY, CA - October 10, 2002 - Tumbleweed® Communications Corp.(Nasdaq:TMWD - News), a leading provider of secure messaging applications for businesses using the Internet, today released the results of the company's recently conducted survey on enterprise information security. The survey, conducted between July and September of 2002 by NFO Prognostics, a global leader in IT customer research and consulting, garnered responses from over 750 IT and business professionals representing 9 vertical industries, including financial services, insurance, healthcare and government. The survey found that 68% of respondents feel email is an important customer communications channel, where only 60% valued postal mail as an important way to communicate with customers. The telephone was listed as the most important customer communications vehicle, with 86% listing it as important.

"The convenience, cost savings and immediacy of email has made it a more popular customer communication method than postal mail," said Jeff Smith, co-founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Tumbleweed Communications. "But before organizations can take full advantage of the cost savings and enhanced responsiveness offered by email, they must provide an email channel that is as private as a phone conversation. Similar to phone-based communication, the secure email solution deployed needs to be universal in order to maximize the adoption rate."

In related findings, respondents listed customers as the number one group they need to protect email communications with (84% feel it's important; 56% say "very important"), and 89% regard protection of customer privacy during email discussions as important.

Email Security Concerns: Loss of Intellectual Property, Regulatory Compliance and Legal Liability
With industry analysts estimating that 70-90% of a typical company's intellectual property now exists in digital form, it's not surprising that 84% of the survey's respondents listed preservation of intellectual property and trade secrets as an important requirement for email based supplier/partner communications. More surprising were the primary methods that organizations listed to prevent loss of confidential information via email. The most popular approach indicated was to train and regulate employees on proper use (42%), followed by adjusting firewall port settings (22%), adoption of secure email solutions (18%) and use of PKI/digital certificates (5%). 12% of respondents reported that they currently employ no specific approach to prevent loss of intellectual property via electronic mail.

Other findings that reflect respondents' views and actions regarding enterprise information security include:

• 76% feel regulatory compliance is an important requirement for email based customer communications; 74% for supplier/partner communications



• 79% feel enforcement of company policies and liability limitations is an important requirement for email based customer communications; 76% for supplier/partner communications



• The #1 enterprise information challenge is securing data from unauthorized access (32%)

Smith continued, "It's encouraging to see these organizations acknowledge the vulnerability and potential liability of corporate email, yet disconcerting to notice that such a great number still feel training on email policy is sufficient to address this challenge. This leaves organizations dependent on behavior change and susceptible to human error. Real world experience has shown that to truly protect a company's valuable intellectual property and ensure compliance with government regulations, there needs to be a gateway-based solution in place to automatically enforce email policy."

For more information on Tumbleweed's secure messaging solutions, please visit: http://www.tumbleweed.com/en/products/index.html.

About Tumbleweed
Tumbleweed is a leading provider of secure messaging solutions for businesses using the Internet. Tumbleweed's robust policy-based framework empowers organizations to safely share and protect critical information, increase customer loyalty and privacy and dramatically reduce costs. Tumbleweed is trusted by 1,000 blue-chip customers including American Express, Chevron, Datek Online, the European Union's Joint Research Council, First Union Wachovia, John Deere, Merrill Lynch, Nike, Northern Trust, NTT, Salomon Smith Barney, Travelers and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. One hundred of the Fortune 500 are Tumbleweed customers. Tumbleweed Communications was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in Redwood City, Calif.

NFO Prognostics is a global leader in delivering customer research based consulting to the IT industry with such companies as Cisco Systems, Inc., Compaq Computer Corp., Hewlett-Packard Company, IBM Corp., Microsoft Corp. and Sun Microsystems, Inc. NFO Prognostics is a member firm of NFO WorldGroup, Inc. (www.nfow.com) which delivers custom and syndicated marketing information to over 4,000 clients. For additional information about how NFO Prognostics can integrate the Voice of the Customer into effective business planning visit www.prognostics.com.