Postini boosts botnet protection and email security

Available as a Postini standalone service or through Google Apps Premier Edition, Postini claims to have added data analysis technologies for email attachments, which automatically enforce options such as encrypt or block.

In addition, features include anti-spam capabilities to detect and block newer, more sophisticated bot-net based attacks.

Scott Petry, founder of Postini and director of product management at Google said companies of all sizes are seeking to reduce email security and compliance risk.

"They [businesses] are seeking to encrypt email communications automatically based on message content, prevent sensitive content from leaving the company via email and have visibility into policy violations," said Petry.

According to Postini, administrators can create advanced policy rules based on text patterns and apply a variety of dispositions including blocking, sending a carbon copy to supervisors or quarantine.

Content policy management is expected to be extended in the future to additional communication protocols, including Instant Messaging and HTTP.

Google acquired Postini for US$625m in July 2007.