January 9, 2000 Web posted at: 6:20 p.m. EST (2320 GMT) by Stephanie Sanborn

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(IDG) -- Viasec and Elron Software have pledged interoperability between Viasec's Consus encryption product and Elron's CommandView Message Inspector's policy-based text analysis technology, to provide for security and monitoring of email content.

Consus, a server-based product for encrypting and decrypting messages and adding digital signatures, works with any system that supports S/MIME, such as Microsoft Outlook or Lotus Notes. Message Inspector, which analyzes the text of messages and attachments based on a company's pre-determined communication policies, can filter incoming and outgoing e-mail for spam as well as inappropriate or confidential information. Additional security packages can be added to a Consus-Message Inspector foundation as modules.

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MESSAGE BOARD Encryption

"Before the communications even leave your site, you can make sure they're appropriate, [and that] they don't have any confidential information that's coming from someone you don't want it to be leaked from; and then, in conjunction with inspecting [the message] for content, it gets encrypted for security out on the public Internet," said Chris Belthoff, product manager for Message Inspector.

The two products will not be bundled together or rolled into one solution. Instead, customers will be advised of the interoperability between Consus and Message Inspectors when looking for increased e-mail security.

"It's not a tight partnership by any means," said Larry Derany, vice president of engineering for Elron Software. "It's an agreement between the companies to release information about how we tested the products together and how they can be configured in a company's network in a complimentary way."

The two companies are targeting their solutions toward enterprises and large businesses that are looking for an e-mail security "quick fix," said Viasec officials.

"Those are the kind of organizations that are most concerned about all the risks that are present with the way email is right now," said Derany. "[Email is] so popular, so accessible, that they're worried about things like liability and loss of confidential and intellectual property of the company."

Consus pricing starts at $3,400 for a 25-user license; CommandView Message Inspector pricing starts at $1,195 for 25 users.