For Administrators

Web Admin Console

• Organizations and resellers have full control over the administration and management of the Secure Messaging Platform. When the Secure Messaging Platform is configured, the organization designates a group administrator who is responsible for creating User Groups and setting User levels and capabilities, as well as invitation policies.

Group administrators can choose to explicitly set up or approve each new User account, grant invitation privileges to certain Users, or make the Secure Messaging Platform open-access for all current Users to invite new Users at their discretion. The published API can be used to automatically provision User accounts or create new secure messages through another program, such as web service or Active Directory (LDAP).

The Web Admin Console allows administrators to set User configuration options and security authentication levels, and whether they want to enforce secure communications for all email traffic. The web-based Admin Console includes an intuitive and straightforward dashboard that quickly displays important statistics. At a glance, administrators can review the total number of Users, or the total amount of storage for their account, along with many other useful statistics including usage analysis. Additionally, all actions are recorded and logged to provide a clear audit trail for reporting purposes.

Administrators have the ability to:

• Set the proper security settings such as ‘open’ or ‘by invitation only’.
• Design User Groups on-the-fly, establishing feature access and security settings for Users throughout the entire organization.
• Control User configuration options such as storage and bandwidth limitations, and set permissions for inviting new Users.
• Set and manage a unique security option that prevents any email program or web browser from storing Pro or Guest User copies of messages locally (even if using MS Exchange®).
• Create grouped views by dragging a category into the grouping bar and export the User list into Microsoft Excel or any other billing or reporting program through the use of the published API.

Customizable User Group Management

• Enable automatic assignment of special privileges and feature set access based on email domain through custom User Groups. Disable feature access such as ‘Message Recall’ per User-group or throughout the entire Secure Messaging Platform.

Every User of the Secure Messaging Platform is automatically part of a User Group that determines their access of secure message features and functionality. Each User can be upgraded or downgraded at any time by the group administrator or be automatically provisioned via the API. Every single function and feature of the Secure Messaging Platform is driven through the User Groups. Organizations have complete flexibility in how their own specific User Groups are designed. For example, this may include: allowing external Users to only use the Secure Message Center, renaming the navigation tabs to reflect the organization’s terminology, restrict video messaging, and defining who is permitted to invite new or Guest Users.

The cost associated with setting up and maintaining a branded Secure Messaging Platform is based on the number of ‘Professional’ and ‘Guest’ User types. There are two distinct types of Users or ‘roles’ with the default SaaS offering: Professional’ and ‘Guest’ Users. Licensing is available ‘per seat’ or as enterprise bundled packages and can accommodate small groups of 10 Users up to thousands of internal and external Users. Every deployment includes a branded Secure Message Center, access to all security & compliance features, large attachments, workflow and content delivery automation features, as well as L1 L2 & L3 support for Professional Users.

User types or ‘roles’ are set as part of a ‘User Group’. Custom User Groups can be designed to control User functionality including access to certain features and storage capacity. The User type is the only variable that determines monthly billings:

• Professional User:
  A Professional User has full rights to the Secure Messaging Platform, to invite new Users and create new secure messages. A Professional (registered) User counts as a ‘Professional User’ for billing purposes.

• Guest User:
  A Guest User is an invited recipient and can only read, reply or create new Secure Messages to Professional Users. They cannot invite new Users.

While deletion of Users is not allowed for audit purposes, Users that do not require access can be set as ‘Disabled’ preventing them from accessing Secure Messaging Platform further. Disabled Users do not count toward billing purposes.

Email Aliases Management

• Email aliases can be self-configured by each Professional User under the ‘Tools’ section of the web-enabled Secure Message Center, or set by the Group administrator on behalf Professional Users within the User Group.

Email aliases are often created within an organization so that multiple versions of an email address can reroute all traffic to a final email account. Unlike any other product, the Secure Messaging Platform supports email aliases and allows each User to define as many email aliases as appropriate. These additional email aliases only count as one Guest license for billing purposes – or free!

Email aliases can be self-configured by each User under the ‘Tools’ section of the web-enabled Secure Message Center, or administered by the Group administrator on behalf of the User. Before adding an email alias for a User, a User must have access to the basic email account for the email address as they will need to manually confirm ownership of the email account.

Legal Disclaimers Management

• Custom notifications allow mandatory legal disclaimers to be added to any secure messages. Meet National and International email standards regulations and reduce liability risks.

Email legal disclaimers are statements that are appended to outgoing messages. The Secure Messaging Platform offers full management of custom legal and non-legal disclaimers. The content of the ‘disclaimer’ message is managed by the Group Administrator from a single source and can be added as a variable several ways (one-to-many relationship):

• Injected automatically ‘server-side’ to every secure message at the database level so there is no room for error (automatic server side injection to every thread on ‘send’), and/or
• Included automatically with every secure message notification (message notifications are what recipients not using the MS Outlook® Toolbar see in their regular email inbox, containing a link to access the secure Message Center), and/or
• Some additional disclaimers can be added throughout the application including the login screen and invitation message.

Spam Throttle

• Users are approved by the organization and can be banned at the first sign of abuse.
• Message throttling prevents inappropriate use of the system and prevents sending of large volumes of unsolicited email. Self-executable viruses are not able to infect the organization’s network. Authorized Users are in, spammers are out.

The Secure Messaging Platform is the “gated community” of the email world. Users are approved by the organization, and can be banned from the community at the first sign of abuse. Message throttling prevents inappropriate use of the system and prevents sending of large volumes of unsolicited email. It automatically blocks specific Users or IP addresses based on criteria specified by the organization.

The Secure Messaging Platform also eliminates unwanted ‘spam’ by providing an option to limit communication to a specific User group. With basic email, anyone who can guess an email address can contact an individual, with or without their consent. Once a spammer has an individual’s email address, they can contact them from as many different email addresses as they like, as often as they like. There have been major advances in the area of spam filtering, but large amounts of spam messages still manage to get through every day, wasting busy professionals’ time and affecting productivity. Since sender identity is always known and authenticated, there is built-in accountability and an implied trust of all messages being received. Spam does not exist in messages sent via the Secure Messaging Platform because spammers do not have access to this exclusive gated email community. If an organization receives an enormous amount of email on a daily basis, as is the case with government and many other organizations, the organization may want to consider simply ‘ignoring’ basic email and turn exclusively to secure messages. Using the Secure Message Center, basic email messages are not present, and therefore 100% spam-free.

The risk of contracting a computer virus is also mitigated. Computer viruses are often transmitted via email attachments, and some are so powerful that merely storing them unopened on a computer is dangerous. The Secure Messaging Platform attachment system doesn’t automatically download attachments once they are received (at the User’s option); instead Users are notified of the attachment and prompted to download it. Self-executable viruses are not able to infect the Secure Messaging Platform and propagate themselves because files are broken into encrypted parts then stored, resulting in an overall more secure global network. Allowing recipients to manually retrieve messages once the Delivery Slip has been reviewed substantially reduces the probability of being infected by a virus. Additionally, Users are guaranteed to retrieve messages from an authentic sender or organization, resulting in a reduction in ‘phishing’.

Patented Interchangeable Cryptographic Engine

• Unique customer-defined encryption eliminates cross-contamination of data and ensures privacy & confidentiality.

The patented Interchangeable Crypto Engine supports multiple encryption algorithms, (some exclusive to specific Secure Messaging Platform implementations). This allows for a very flexible and extensible way of protecting the customer data at-rest on the Platform server.
The Secure Messaging Platform uses a “Seed Key” or “Key File’ process in order to ensure integrity of the organization’s data at rest on the Secure Messaging Server, and eliminates cross-contamination of data between customers in a multi-tenanted environment.