Southend secures email with Proofpoint

Southend University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is rolling out a secure email solution from Proofpoint across its 2,500 PCs.

The move follows a review of IT in May 2008, which showed the trust needed to improve its email security to meet Department of Health guidelines introduced as a result of data leaks in the NHS.

At the time, Southend had taken a strategic decision not to use NHSmail, because it had already invested heavily in a Microsoft Exchange 2003 environment. It was also concerned about the amount of administrative work involved in setting up and running NHSmail accounts.

However, it needed an email encryption solution that would work with its existing set up. Konrad Hutchins, acting 3rd line team leader said: “The key benefits had to be that it was invisible to the end user and easy to deploy as well as being simple for the user and recipient to use.”

The trust organised a 30-day proof of concept trial on outbound mail to assess how much sensitive information could potentially leak. The Proofpoint appliance highlighted more than 1,000 instances of unsecured outbound mail containing information that should have been encrypted.

“The audit provided the means of tracking data when liaising with other trusts and third parties such as external GPs, social services and other organisations,” said Hutchins. “Users could send an email that was automatically encrypted and the recipient had to come to us to retrieve the information securely.”

Proofpoint offers end-point security while providing anti-spam and anti-virus protection all within one system. Hutchins continued: “We’re now able to control our data and track where it is going. We’ve deployed a secure mail system, which is simple and easy to use for everyone.”

Link: Proofpoint