[July 29, 2015] |
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Mimecast Opens Australian Data Centers to Address Email Disruption and Data Residency Concerns
Mimecast,
the email security, continuity and archiving cloud service provider,
today announced that its local Australian data centers are open for
business. Mimecast confirmed that the first customers are now live on
its Australian data centers with more than 50 other customers expected
to migrate their data before the end of the year.
Mimecast has also opened a new sales office in Sydney this month in
response to significant demand for its services as it grows. Mimecast
Australia employs 22 people across its Sydney and Melbourne offices up
from 12 at 31st March.
Mimecast services are live
Mimecast's two replicated data centers are in separate co-located
facilities in New South Wales and operate on its own proprietary cloud
infrastructure and software architecture. The following services are
available to support Microsoft (News - Alert) Exchange, Office 365 and Google email
environments:
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Continuity - Mimecast Mailbox Continuity allows employees to continue
using email during planned and unplanned outages on any device
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Security - Mimecast Email Security helps protect against malware,
spam, advanced phishing and other emerging attacks, and prevent data
leaks
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Archiving - Mimecast Enterprise Information Archiving unifies email,
file and Instant Messaging data to support e-discovery, compliance and
give employees fast access to their complete historical personal
archive via PC, Mac and mobile apps
The new Australian data centers help form a global network of ten data
centers around the world, serving the email security and data needs of
over 13,000 customers and millions of their employees.
"Our ongoing investment in Australia - including the new data
centers, and the opening of our new offices in Sydney - is ultimately
making email and corporate data safer for Australian organisations,"
said Nicholas Lennon, country manager, Mimecast Australia.
"Email is a critical IT service for organizations of all sizes. Every
year we hear of organizations around the world becoming victims of data
leaks and cyber attacks that cost them money, cripple their operations
and damage reputations, often irreparably," said Peter Bauer, chief
executive officer, Mimecast.
"In the last year alone, Australia has seen its fair share of data
leaks, hacks and ransomware attacks. Email is often the starting point
for all of this and has become a primary way to attack organizations. It
is also the IT system our employees rely on most to get work done. So
protecting it from attack, as well as saving and securing the data it
carries is a vital service," added Bauer.
New Australian business survey: From Cryptolocker to Cloud
Today Mimecast has also shared the findings of a new study "From
Cryptolocker to Cloud - The Value and Management of Email and Corporate
Data in Australia." The study was conducted to investigate how
Australian organisations prioritize and protect email, and understand
the importance of data residency.
The research demonstrated that email is still the most critical business
tool (74%), even more so than smartphones (5%), and confirmed that
having a local data center presence is a key business requirement when
considering cloud services.
The study also revealed the biggest concerns arising from an email
outage are an increase in customer service complaints (29%) and employee
dissatisfaction (28%). Ransomware is seen as a growing threat in
Australia, with one in three companies surveyed confirming they had been
targeted but only five percent said they would pay the ransom to
retrieve their email and corporate data.
Other key findings are summarized below:
Office 365 deployment is growing but concerns remain about risks
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Around one in five organizations (19%) are already using Office
365/Exchange Online. A further 29% are planning to migrate within the
ext two years
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IT Managers recognize that there are challenges associated with a
migration to Microsoft Office 365, the biggest being the risk of
potential email disruption (46%)
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Others are concerned about the lack of administrative control (34%),
email archiving and e-discovery (33%), and security and spear phishing
protection (33%)
Data staying in Australia is important
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Most IT Managers (77%) consider it important for their business and
customer data to be hosted within Australia
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The key reasons for hosting and storing business and customer data in
Australia is for legal (78%) and compliance requirements (78%). Other
factors include latency and application performance (75%), to allay
potential customer concerns around data location (72%) and a distrust
of foreign national governments (50%)
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The overwhelming majority of IT Managers (83%) would be more likely to
choose a supplier or partner who has a local data center in each
market they operate in
Email and data needs protection from growing threats
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Australian IT Managers are aware of and managing multiple threats to
company data and email, such as malware and viruses (86%), outages
(84%), and ransomware (69%)
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Outages (29%) are considered the single biggest threat to company data
and email, followed by malware and viruses (24%) and ransomware (15%)
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IT managers demonstrate strong confidence in their level of
preparedness for these threats, however while 77% rate their company
as highly prepared for malware and viruses, only 52% consider their
organizations to be highly prepared for outages
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The majority of IT managers are not prepared to deal with e-discovery,
the location and securing of electronic data for use as evidence in
legal cases, with only 48% saying they are prepared for this
"Work runs on email. It's vital to organizations and their employees.
This reports reflects this and shows the range of risks an IT team needs
to consider today to keep email working, safe from attack and its data
stored securely," said Mimecast CEO Peter Bauer. "This is true
for organizations using traditional on-premises email like Microsoft
Exchange, but it is also true for those taking their email to the cloud
with services like Office 365. Australia is advanced in terms of cloud
adoption yet our research shows concerns remain over where data is
stored and what happens when services like this fail, disrupting email
and workplace productivity.
"Mimecast makes email safer. We mitigate the risks organizations face
from email. And for those considering a move to the cloud for email we
specifically mitigate the single vendor exposure this represents. Adding
our continuity, security, data backup and archiving services ensure you
stay online when a service like Office 365 goes offline. You also have
layered security protection and an all-important independent, verifiable
copy of your data. Relying solely on a single cloud provider for
everything is a recipe for future heartache. No one should entrust a
critical IT workload completely with a single vendor, no matter who they
are, without a back-up plan."
"We also understand the growing importance of data sovereignty for
Australian organizations. Ensuring all data is held in Australia
helps Health, Finance and Government clients to meet regulatory
requirements, and removes concerns from finance or risk departments who
are concerned about hosting data offshore on foreign cloud services," Bauer
added.
Customer perspectives
KordaMentha, a specialist advisory and investment firm, uses
Mimecast for both Office 365 risk mitigation and e-discovery: "Microsoft
has a strong proposition with Office 365 that Mimecast makes even
stronger by providing 'wrap around' services to address additional
security risks, high availability, as well as backup and archiving. Due
to the nature of our business, we have one of the largest forensic
practices in the region. Mimecast's ability to provide rapid e-discovery
services is an essential component enabling us to carry out complex and
sensitive issues for our clients." said Ryan Wadsworth, Director of
Technology at KordaMentha.
NRMA Motoring & Services, the roadside assistance and
services organization, has signed up with Mimecast for security, backup
and continuity services: "Protecting our customers' data from
spear-phishing attacks looking for financial and other sensitive data is
a number one priority at NRMA. The Mimecast solution is not only easy to
deploy, but Mimecast offers our team premium support and a great
customer experience," said Paul Bendevski, Infrastructure Services
Manager, NRMA Motoring & Services.
To set up an interview with a Mimecast spokesperson or to obtain a copy
of "From Cryptolocker to Cloud," please contact: Kim
McMillan, Text100: Telephone: +61-2-99565733; Email: [email protected].
"From Cryptolocker to Cloud" methodology
Mimecast commissioned Galaxy Research to conduct a study among a sample
of IT Managers throughout Australia by a combination of online and
telephone interviews. The sample of 175 respondents was sourced from
available lists. Interviewing commenced on Wednesday 8 July and was
completed on Monday 20 July. Galaxy Research designed the questionnaire
together with Mimecast, a copy of which is available on request.
About Mimecast
Mimecast makes business email and data safer for more than 13,000
customers and millions of employees worldwide. Founded in 2003, the
company's cloud-based security, archiving and continuity services
protect email, and deliver comprehensive email risk management in a
single, fully-integrated subscription service. Mimecast reduces email
risk and the complexity and cost of managing the array of point
solutions traditionally used to protect email and its data. For
customers that have migrated to cloud services like Microsoft Office
365, Mimecast mitigates single vendor exposure by strengthening security
coverage, combating downtime and improving archiving.
Mimecast Email Security helps protect against malware, spam, advanced
phishing and other emerging attacks, while preventing data leaks.
Mimecast Mailbox Continuity allows employees to continue using email
during planned and unplanned outages. Mimecast Enterprise Information
Archiving unifies email, file and Instant Messaging data to support
e-discovery and give employees fast access to their personal archive via
PC, Mac and mobile apps.
Mimecast Social Media Resources
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150729006847/en/
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