MultiCare Health System Selects Tumbleweed’s
Secure Messaging Suite to Ensure HIPAA Compliance and Fight
Spam
Health Care System Selects One Vendor to Fulfill
All of Its Secure Communications Needs
Redwood City, CA – May 4, 2004 – Tumbleweed® Communications
Corp. (NASDAQ: TMWD), a leading provider of secure Internet
messaging software and appliances for enterprises and government
agencies, today announced that MultiCare Health System
has chosen Tumbleweed’s entire suite of secure communications
solutions, including Tumbleweed’s email firewall,
email encryption, anti-spam service, and secure file transfer
products to secure and protect their Internet communications.
“Tumbleweed provided us with a comprehensive secure messaging platform
that integrates all functions we needed in one box,” said Harold
Moscho, Director of Technology Management for MultiCare Health System. “This
solution allows us to fight spam and provide email encryption to any recipient,
while reducing our administration time and costs. In addition, Tumbleweed’s
SecureTransport has allowed us to automate the transferring of data securely.”
MultiCare Health System, a not-for-profit group of doctors and nurses,
clinics and hospitals with headquarters in Tacoma, Washington, serves
over 4,000 employees and 2,000 external users, including physicians, business
partners, and vendors, and is comprised of 56 separate facilities, including
three hospitals, 14 major clinics, and other remote sites. MultiCare initially
was evaluating messaging security solutions for compliance with the Health
Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and learned about
Tumbleweed’s products to fight spam and securely send large files
over the Internet. They soon realized that it didn’t make sense
to purchase and manage multiple products for secure communications from
different vendors.
Secure The Email Channel
MultiCare needed a HIPAA-compliant solution for sending
email containing Protected Health Information (PHI). MultiCare put together
a set of requirements for a new secure messaging infrastructure, including
the ability to inspect each outbound email to determine if it contains
PHI, and the ability to encrypt and securely deliver the message to
the recipient without the need for any client-side software. After evaluating
a number of secure email communications vendors, MultiCare selected
Tumbleweed’s Email Firewall. The Email Firewall allows MultiCare
to automatically scan outbound emails, and identify and encrypt those
containing PHI. MultiCare also developed an internal campaign to promote
secure communications and train users. Looking ahead, MultiCare plans
to establish a system on their Intranet that allows users to determine
the best way of securely sending high volumes of patient data, either
through Tumbleweed’s Email Firewall or SecureTransport products.
Automate Secure File Delivery
MultiCare wanted to automate and secure the transfer of
large files containing patient claims data, or business confidential
data like payroll and tax information. End users had devised various
ad hoc solutions for transferring these files and data, which often
involved one-off encryption of large files using PGP or WinZip, sent
via FTP or email. But the lack of a centrally managed, standards-based
file encryption and delivery infrastructure was causing significant
problems. It put the security management burden on end users, clogged
the email servers, left some data exposed, and locked other data permanently
when users would forget their PGP keys.
To meet the growing need for electronic delivery of files that require
encryption, MultiCare selected Tumbleweed’s SecureTransport to automate
and secure the delivery of large files over the Internet. SecureTransport
goes beyond traditional FTP, and supports enterprise-class file transfer
features including authentication and access control, automated batch
transfers, reliable delivery of very large files, data integrity, logging
and auditing, and event-driven agents for application integration.
Fight Spam with an Email Firewall
Like all organizations, MultiCare receives a large volume
of Internet email spam. This was becoming an increasingly significant
business problem, as more and more network storage and bandwidth was
eaten up, and as employees spent more and more time searching through
their inboxes to find business related messages. MultiCare’s previous
solution was not capturing enough spam, so the company decided to look
for a replacement.
After installing the Tumbleweed Email Firewall, MultiCare’s spam
problem was virtually eliminated. The company filters 21.000 email messages
each day, blocking 76% of email messages as spam, with a very low false
positive rate.
About Tumbleweed's Email Firewall
The Tumbleweed Email Firewall has been recognized as the
#1 enterprise software solution for fighting spam according to Network
World (http://www.nwfusion.com/reviews/2003/0915spam.html), and the
#1 email firewall software for large enterprises by Information Security
Magazine. Tumbleweed Email Firewall protects, filters and secures email
traffic at the Internet gateway with an integrated set of anti-spam,
anti-virus, anti-hacker, content filtering, email relay, and encrypted
messaging capabilities -- minimizing email communications risks and
reducing email management costs. Tumbleweed Email Firewall is used by
over 400 of the largest, most demanding messaging infrastructures in
the world, and is available in both appliance and software editions.
About Tumbleweed's Secure Redirect
Tumbleweed Secure Redirect automatically secures and encrypts
outbound email based on company-defined security policies -- without
user intervention. Through intelligent, policy-based routing and encryption,
Secure Redirect enables organizations to safely use email to communicate
with customers, partners, and suppliers by automatically applying the
most appropriate security delivery method for each recipient. Secure
Redirect offers numerous ways of delivering secure email, including
S/MIME to the gateway or desktop, online web delivery with email notification,
and offline web delivery via Secure Envelope(TM). This represents the
industry's broadest set of proven secure delivery options, ensuring
ease of use and rapid adoption, regardless of what email client users
have on their desktops.
About Tumbleweed's Dynamic Anti-Spam Service
The Tumbleweed Dynamic Anti-Spam Service (DAS) is rated
as the top anti-spam software and appliance for large enterprises by
Network World magazine, and the product is currently used to block over
32 million spam messages per day on behalf of our customers. DAS is
an Internet-based subscription service that updates the Tumbleweed email
firewall with new heuristic defenses as they are published, similar
to the way anti-virus engines work. The email firewall includes a highly
effective Spam Analysis Engine, which automates the identification of
spam using powerful heuristics-based analysis technology; typical customers
see an immediate 90%+ capture rate with one-tenth of one percent false
positive rate before tuning. Tumbleweed's Message Protection Lab develops
and publishes the heuristic updates: the Lab is staffed by experts who
continually analyze spam to identify new spammer trends and tactics,
and create and publish new heuristics to stop them. The Lab analyzes
both spam and legitimate email gathered internationally and provided
by enterprise customers, to ensure that the Dynamic Anti-Spam Service
minimizes false positives in a business environment.
About Tumbleweed SecureTransport Enterprise Edition
According to industry analyst Gartner, secure file transfer
with automation and back-office integration has become a critical piece
of an enterprise's B2B strategy and overall application integration
initiatives. Tumbleweed SecureTransport is a family of GLB and HIPAA-compliant
enhanced secure file transfer products for moving financial messages,
EDI files, critical business documents, very large files, XML and B2B
transactions over the Internet.
Tumbleweed’s SecureTransport was recently awarded the “Best
Communications Security” solution by SC Magazine. Tumbleweed SecureTransport
Enterprise Edition is designed for customers with high-grade security
requirements, large-scale deployments or advanced integration needs. The
Enterprise Edition builds on SecureTransport Standard Edition and includes
these additional components and capabilities:
•
An Application Proxy component for secure DMZ streaming
deployment
•
Transaction Manager for rule-based processing and application
integration using Active Agents or Java agents
•
Signed audit records for tracking file transfer transactions
and non-repudiation
•
Hub Manager for centrally managed server-to-server transfers
In addition to this prestigious SC Magazine award, industry
analyst Meta Group recently rated Tumbleweed SecureTransport as a Market
Leader in the enhanced file transfer market.
“
Organizations, particularly healthcare providers, are looking
for vendors who offer comprehensive, integrated solutions for email hygiene,
secure email and large file delivery,” said Dave Jevans, Senior
Vice President of Marketing for Tumbleweed Communications. “Tumbleweed’s
Email Firewall, Dynamic Anti-spam Service, Secure Redirect and SecureTransport
products offer Multicare a one-vendor, one-stop solution. ”
About MultiCare Health System
MultiCare is a not-for-profit health system headquartered
in Tacoma that includes Tacoma General Hospital, Mary Bridge Children’s
Hospital and Health Center, Allenmore Hospital and Day Surgery of Tacoma.
It also includes MultiCare Clinics, MultiCare Urgent Care Centers, MultiCare
Home Services, MultiCare Medical Group, MultiCare HealthWorks and Laboratories
Northwest.
About Tumbleweed Communications Corp.
Tumbleweed is a leading provider of secure Internet messaging
software and appliances for enterprises and government agencies. By
making Internet communications secure, reliable and automated, Tumbleweed's
anti-spam email firewall, secure file transfer, secure email, and identity
validation solutions help customers significantly reduce the cost of
doing business. Tumbleweed products are used to communicate with millions
of end-users and tens of thousands of corporations. Tumbleweed has more
than 600 enterprise customers, including ABN Amro, Bank of America Securities,
Catholic Healthcare West, JP Morgan Chase & Co., The Regence Group
(Blue Cross/Blue Shield), St. Luke's Episcopal Healthcare System, the
US Food and Drug Administration, and the US Navy and Marine Corps. Tumbleweed
Communications was founded in 1993 and is headquartered in Redwood City,
California. For additional information about Tumbleweed go to www.tumbleweed.com
or call 650-216-2000.
SAFE HARBOR STATEMENT
Tumbleweed cautions that forward-looking statements contained in this
press release are based on current plans and expectations, and that a
number of factors could cause the actual results to differ materially
from the guidance given at this time. These factors are described in the
Safe Harbor statement below.
Except for the historical information contained herein, the matters
discussed in this press release may constitute forward-looking statements
that involve
risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results
to differ materially from those projected, particularly with respect
to the features and performance
of Tumbleweed's secure messaging suite. In some cases,
forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "may," "will," "should," "potential," "continue," "expects," "anticipates," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates," and
similar expressions. For further cautions about the risks
of investing in Tumbleweed, we refer you to the documents Tumbleweed
files from time
to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, particularly
Tumbleweed's Form 10-K filed March 15, 2004.
Tumbleweed assumes no obligation to update information contained in this
press release, including for example its guidance regarding its future
performance, which represents the Company's expectations only as of the
date of this release and should not be viewed as a statement about the
Company's expectations after such date. Although this release may remain
available on the Company's website or elsewhere, its continued availability
does not indicate that the Company is reaffirming or confirming any of
the information contained herein.
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