News

News Archive- 17 June 2005

What’s in your email? PixAlert launches first solution to scan email for pornography 

Companies may be inadvertently backing up paedophile images

 

At next week’s Inbox/Outbox Exhibition in London, PixAlert will unveil the world’s first tool that allows organisations to scan email files (.pst) and zip files to detect any inappropriate or illegal images.  The new version 3.1 of PixAlert Auditor identifies pornographic images in emails and other files distributed, stored or archived across an entire enterprise.

“As most financial organisations now archive email communications to comply with new Corporate Governance legislation such as Sarbanes-Oxley, it is possible that they are inadvertently backing up and duplicating paedophile images,” said Andy Churley, VP Marketing at PixAlert. “By eliminating illicit images in the workplace and identifying the people responsible, PixAlert Auditor helps organisations and individual managers or directors to avoid corporate or personal litigation.”

A recent survey conducted by PixAlert and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, CIPD, revealed that over 70% of UK companies have already had to take disciplinary action as a result of employees viewing pornographic images on their company computers. An Audit Commission report published this month also reported a huge increase in the viewing of computer pornography by public sector workers and called for better protection and controls.

But while many organisations use simple web filtering to prevent access to pornographic web sites, PixAlert® offers the only solutions that identify, eliminate and prevent unwanted images that get on to desktops or networks via any point of entry including email, memory sticks, laptops, digital cameras, scanners, CDs/DVDs, Wi-Fi or 3G phones.

Manual auditing can take months, but with PixAlert Auditor’s high-speed image analysis software, it can take less than a week for a large organisation to detect inappropriate or illegal content stored on all PCs, servers and removable media.

A demo is available at www.pixalert.com. PixAlert also provides urgent incident triage, a risk assessment service, a managed audit service, Acceptable Computer Usage Policy review and enforcement as well as auditing and real-time monitoring software.

“The rapid increase in digital devices along with email and multimedia messaging has made the problem of managing inappropriate and illegal images in the workplace a major challenge for IT and HR managers,” said John Nolan. “The reality is that most companies do not know the level of risk they face and may be inadvertently breaking the law by storing and backing up child pornography. PixAlert is the only solution that provides a quick way to eliminate and prevent illicit material getting on the network from any source.”

See PixAlert at the Inbox/Outbox Exhibition, The Royal Horticultural Halls, London on 22 and 23 June