Main News Desk

Proofpoint Hunts Down the Latest Email Blunders

Barack’s BlackBerry, TMZ Trepidation and College Acceptance Alerts Grab the Headlines

SUNNYVALE, Calif. - May 04, 2009

Issues surrounding email continue to capture media headlines, according to Proofpoint, Inc. (http://www.proofpoint.com), the leading provider of unified email security, archiving and data loss prevention solutions. Six months removed from its 2008 email blunders news, Proofpoint uncovered ten of the most recent email-related news stories.

From political scandals to messaging missteps, these stories highlight not only the importance of email in our society, but also the risk it carries if done improperly. In no particular order, Proofpoint presents its top email headlines:

1) Curiosity Proves Costly

News hit in November that an Oregon woman lost $400,000 to Nigerian email scammers. The nursing administrator believed she was sending money to a long-lost relative and would be paid more in return, taking a lien out on the family car and losing her husband’s entire retirement account before she was convinced to stop.

2) President Bush’s Missing Emails

Instead of enjoying the last few days in office this January, the Bush administration was focused on recovering 14 million missing emails due to an urgent court order. Without a clear search and discovery method in place, over $10 million was spent on recovering the data to turn over to the National Archives.

3) BlackBerry’s User-in-Chief

Not so much a blunder as an email breakthrough, President Obama was finally given permission by his security team in late January to keep his beloved smartphone while in office, after months of public debate. His new device is preloaded with special software developed by intelligence officials that protects against hackers and lets him communicate with family, friends and associates.

In April, The Washington Post’s “Inside the Ring” blog got the scoop that the president’s next-generation mobile email device would be the high-security BlackBerry 8830.

4) Gmail Panic Button

Google’s free email service, Gmail, added an unsend message function in March. Taking advantage of the 5-second delay in outgoing emails, the new feature allows users to quickly catch messages with errors before it arrives at the recipient’s inbox, preventing some potentially embarrassing situations.

5) Madoff Email Evidence

Also in March, US prosecutors filing against fraudster Bernie Madoff submitted email messages from victims of the Ponzi scheme as evidence. However, an e-discovery misstep led to the inclusion of a 419 scam email in the documents.

6) TMZ and Twitter Threats

As reported on March 25, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s Director of New Media caused a buzz by sending an email to Democratic press secretaries, warning them that TMZ was on Capital Hill and asking questions about Twitter. The email pointed out that Twitter is allowed in the House, but not on the Senate floor.

7) College ‘Acceptance’ Letters

In late March, officials at UCSD and NYU wrongfully alerted thousands of high school seniors they were granted admission to the universities. Several hours later, the schools realized the mistakes and sent out corrected notification emails. An assistant vice chancellor at UCSD admitted, “No member of this department is more acutely aware of the emotional roller-coaster that this could cause for our applicants.”

8) Notes from the White House

While issuing the President’s daily schedule to the White House press corps in April, an Obama staffer forgot to remove internal notes before emailing. The notes detailed how members of the Jewish community were complaining about not being invited to the White House’s Seder.

9) No. 10 Downing Drama

In April, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown was recently pulled into a massive email scandal in which his close advisor Damien McBride sent emails to Derek Draper, a former advisor to Lord Mandelson, proposing a smear campaign against prominent Tories.

10) Missing Work Message

A recent email from a manager demanding that employees return to the office on Good Friday was causing a stir online. In the email, John Soden III, a managing director at Thomas Weisel Partners, told members of the company to “Join Wells Fargo and become a teller if you want to take bank holidays.”

Keep up with more news and views from the world of email security, email archiving and data loss prevention by subscribing to the Proofpoint Email Security Blog (http://blog.proofpoint.com). Follow Proofpoint on Twitter @Proofpoint_Inc (http://www.twitter.com/Proofpoint_Inc).

Executive quote

“Email continues to increase in importance for our everyday business and personal lives,” said Peter Galvin, chief marketing officer for Proofpoint. “As transparency becomes more important and controversy and scandal remain on the media agenda, it is even more important for businesses to ensure they have the proper solutions and policies in place for all their email archiving, security and encryption needs. By being prepared, they can avoid costly scandals and court battles such as the above.”

About the company

About Proofpoint, Inc.

Proofpoint secures and improves enterprise email infrastructure with solutions for email security, archiving, encryption and data loss prevention. Proofpoint solutions defend against spam and viruses, prevent leaks of confidential and private information, encrypt sensitive emails and archive messages for retention, e-discovery and easier mailbox management. Proofpoint solutions can be deployed on-premises (appliance), on-demand (SaaS) or in a hybrid architecture for maximum flexibility and scalability. For more information, please visit http://www.proofpoint.com.

Proofpoint is a registered trademark of Proofpoint, Inc. All other trademarks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.

Contact details

Kate Sowell

LEWIS PR

408-573-3664

proofpointus@lewispr.com

Marty Tacktill

Proofpoint

408-850-4110

mtacktill@proofpoint.com

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Proofpoint Hunts Down the Latest Email Blunders

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