FaceTime Announces RTG500TM
Industry's First Network Appliance to Secure Instant Messaging and Peer-to-Peer Communications
Foster City, Calif.-March 22, 2004-Furthering its leadership as a premier provider of solutions that secure, manage, and extend instant messaging (IM) and other forms of real-time communications in the enterprise, FaceTime Communications today announced the immediate availability of FaceTime RTG500TM, an industry-first network appliance built for the safe, controlled and easy adoption of instant messaging in the enterprise.
RTG500 is a purpose-built, hardened network device that is easy to install, requires minimal IT administration resources and has no impact on network performance. The appliance delivers complete, non-stop protection from unauthorized IM connections, while also eliminating peer-to-peer (P2P) filesharing. KaZaA, Grokster, and Morpheus are among the P2P applications commonly downloaded by employees without IT knowledge. These applications decrease employee productivity, drain network performance, open corporate networks to attack, and render organizations liable for copyright infringement. With RTG500, IT administrators can easily keep up with an ever-growing number of threats through automated, real-time protocol updates to ensure their corporate networks are safe. In addition to blocking, RTG500 allows organizations to standardize on specific IM networks as dictated by corporate policy.
"We needed an extensible, comprehensive IM management and security solution that would address our needs to adhere to strict compliance and regulatory mandates," said Oscar Im, Director of Technology at Betzold Research & Trading, Inc., a fixed-income broker-dealer in Chicago, IL. "After an extensive technical evaluation, we found that FaceTime's RTG500 was the solution that provides the greatest network protection from rogue IM and P2P usage while posing the least strain on corporate IT to protect the productivity and cost saving benefits of legitimate IM usage."
"Managing instant messaging and peer-to-peer communications is a complex problem requiring a simplified solution," said Matt Cain, vice president at META Group. "As the recent 'Osama Found' adware and 'Bizek' worm demonstrated, enterprise IM users can be easily manipulated to expose their corporate networks to attack. But keeping traditional software solutions current with the latest protocol updates can place an enormous strain on IT. Hardware solutions that automate this process can effectively maintain up-to-the-minute network security without overburdening administrators."
"Most companies have come to realize the business benefits of IM, but its complex nature has left many wondering how it can be managed without the cost of additional IT resources," said Rahul Abhyankar, director of product management at FaceTime Communications. "RTG500 helps to make IM more useful by eliminating rogue IM and P2P use in a very simplified way."
RTG500 extends the core real-time management and control capabilities of FaceTime IM DirectorTM and IM AuditorTM. Designed to be deployed in the corporate DMZ, RTG500 acts as a security gateway for real-time communications, providing security from unsafe IM features-such as file and image sharing, games and direct connections-by providing valuable network usage statistics and controlling rogue behavior through the blocking of port scanning and dynamic port negotiation. RTG500 detects and enforces application behavior based on patterns in the OSI model's application and is designed to seamlessly deploy within existing network security infrastructures. RTG500 complements existing enterprise network security products and firewalls.
RTG500 offers key functionality in three areas: detection, protection, extension and integration:
Detection:
Detect network behavior of all popular public IM networks and P2P applications
Generate detailed IM and P2P activity reports, including bandwidth and application behavior
Deploy seamlessly within existing network infrastructure
Protection:
Block unauthorized IM connections, including protocol tunneling and port scanning
Defend the network by blocking unsafe IM features such as games, image sharing and direct connections
Block wide variety of P2P file sharing applications, including popular VoIP applications such as Skype
Extension and Integration:
Key Benefits:
Purpose-built and hardened security appliance with protocol updates for non-stop protection
IM remains an efficient business tool while blocking undesired P2P applications
Supports standardization on specific IM networks if desired
Certified by leading security solution providers
RTG500 is generally available with pricing starting at $5,000. For additional sales information, FaceTime can be reached at http://www.facetime.com/imwithus.htm, (888) 349-FACE, or via IM screen name FaceTimeLive.
About FaceTime Communications
Founded in 1998, FaceTime Communications is the leading provider of extensible real time security and management solutions that address network and information security, regulatory and corporate compliance, and call center customer service. FaceTime's award-winning solutions are used by over 300 customers, with over 50 percent of the largest global 100 financial institutions, including seven of the eight largest U.S. banks. Hundreds of customers worldwide, including Amica Insurance, BankOne, Hewlett-Packard, NCR, Standard Bank London, Thomas Weisel Partners and Wachovia Securities among others rely on FaceTime solutions. FaceTime has strategic partnerships with all leading public and private IM network providers, including AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo!, IBM, Bloomberg, Jabber and Reuters.
FaceTime is headquartered in Foster City, California. For more information on FaceTime, visit http://www.facetime.com or call 888-349-FACE.