- New national survey finds 77% of IT
managers want their business and customer data to be hosted on
Australian soil
- Mimecast customers are migrating
their email and data to its local services
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 Exchange,
Office 365 and Google email environments:
- Continuity - Mimecast Mailbox
Continuity allows employees to continue using email during planned
and unplanned outages on any device
- Security - Mimecast Email Security
helps protect against malware, spam, advanced phishing and other
emerging attacks, and prevent data leaks
- 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
- Around one in five organizations (19%)
are already using Office 365/Exchange Online. A further 29% are
planning to migrate within the next two years
- 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%)
- 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
- Most IT Managers (77%) consider it
important for their business and customer data to be hosted within
Australia
- 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%)
- 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
- 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%)
- Outages (29%) are considered the single
biggest threat to company data and email, followed by malware and
viruses (24%) and ransomware (15%)
- 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
- 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: Kim.mcmillan@text100.com.au.
“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
- LinkedIn: Mimecast
- Facebook: Mimecast
- Twitter: @mimecast
- Blog: Challenging Complexity
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version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150729006847/en/
U.S. Press ContactMarch CommunicationsStephanie Jackman,
+1-617-960-9875Mimecast@marchpr.com