Sunnyvale, Calif. – December 12, 2007 – Proofpoint, Inc., the leading provider of unified email security and data loss prevention solutions, today announced that Lincoln County Medical Center has deployed the Proofpoint Messaging Security Gateway™ appliance to ensure that sensitive and confidential information is not shared via email and that the organization is compliant with HIPAA and other data security regulations. Lincoln County Medical Center is also using Proofpoint to protect its employees from incoming spam and viruses.

Lincoln County Medical Center wanted a messaging security solution that could defend against inbound messaging threats with a high rate of effectiveness, but that could also prevent leaks of confidential information and aid in regulatory compliance. The organization’s employees were spending up to an hour a day to review and delete spam in order to ensure that legitimate business emails weren’t mistakenly overlooked.

“During the evaluation phase of the Proofpoint Messaging Security Gateway, I asked employees to share feedback with the CFO if they saw a dramatic difference in the volume of incoming spam,” said Ben Miller, IT technician for Lincoln County. “Within just two days of running Proofpoint, the CFO said, ‘I surrender. I’ve heard again and again from individuals that not having to deal with spam is a really great thing.’ Proofpoint eliminated virtually all spam, while also eliminating employees’ hassles of sifting through daily spam messages, making it very easy for me to show a clear return on our Proofpoint investment.”

While spam protection was a priority for Lincoln County Medical Center, the organization required a robust messaging security solution that could also protect its outbound messaging streams. Lincoln County Medical Center deployed the Proofpoint Regulatory Compliance™ module, which automatically detects non-public information, such as social security numbers and private health information, and is completely transparent to employees, allowing them to send and receive email as usual.

To help cope with the complexities of HIPAA email compliance, Proofpoint connected Lincoln County Medical Center with a security specialist to provide guidelines around what information the organization was legally required to protect and to ensure that the technology safeguards implemented through the Proofpoint appliance matched Lincoln County Medical Center’s existing security policies. The organization also utilized the built-in, managed dictionaries included with the Proofpoint Regulatory Compliance module, which define common protected health information, such as drug, treatment and diagnosis codes used by the healthcare industry, easing HIPAA compliance.

“Deploying Proofpoint was a no-brainer for us,” said Ben Miller, IT technician for Lincoln County Medical Center. “The onslaught of spam drove us to Proofpoint, but the appliance’s comprehensive messaging security features are what really sold us. With Proofpoint, we can easily tailor the appliance to provide the highest level of protection of our patient information. By deploying Proofpoint, we’re fully prepared today for messaging threats that might arise in the future, which is truly unheard of in IT.”

Since the Proofpoint Messaging Security Gateway is controlled by a single management and policy console, Lincoln County Medical Center can easily define the actions that should be taken for noncompliant email communications. For example, every outgoing email from Lincoln County Medical Center is tagged with department information, allowing emails in violation of security policies to be automatically stopped and sent to the corresponding department head, along with IT. Lincoln County Medical Center also uses Proofpoint’s extensive reporting functionality, to review daily content security trends and to help track compliance progress within the organization.

“Increasingly, healthcare organizations, financial services firms and other regulated entities are discovering the benefits of taking a unified approach to solving their email security and data loss prevention challenges,” said Sandra Vaughan, senior vice president of products and marketing for Proofpoint. “By combining anti-spam, anti-virus, robust content security and encryption features in a single platform, Proofpoint customers realize substantial cost savings, spend less time on administration and ongoing maintenance and have the flexibility to deploy new defenses as their needs change.”

To learn more about Proofpoint’s email security and data loss prevention solutions, sign up to attend Proofpoint’s free, live web seminar, “Top 10 Email Security Challenges – and Solutions – for 2008 and Beyond.” To register, please visit:

http://www.proofpoint.com/top10for2008

About Proofpoint, Inc.,

Proofpoint provides unified email security and data loss prevention solutions for enterprises, universities, government organizations and ISPs to defend against inbound threats such as spam and viruses, prevent leaks of confidential and private information across all protocols, and encrypt sensitive emails. Proofpoint’s products are controlled by a single management and policy console and are powered by Proofpoint MLX™ technology, an advanced machine learning system developed by Proofpoint scientists and engineers. Proofpoint provides the most scalable and flexible deployment model including: hardware appliance, virtual appliance, hosted services and software. For more information, please visit http://www.proofpoint.com.

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Proofpoint, Proofpoint MLX, Proofpoint Messaging Security Gateway, Proofpoint Regulatory Compliance, Proofpoint Spam Detection and Proofpoint Virus Protection are trademarks, registered trademarks or licensed trademarks of Proofpoint, Inc. All other trademarks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.