Trusttone

ACME Benefits is a health benefit administration provider. It manages health benefit administration for medium to large organizations. In this capacity, it interacts with the employers as well as the employees of these organizations.

To provide the services efficiently and inexpensively, ACME uses online portal for self-service and email for communication.

The emails however contain sensitive patient health information and identity information that must be protected from hackers and from casual unauthorized users. This level of confidentiality is expected by the customers. More importantly, it is required for compliance with the HIPAA regulations.

After evaluating half a dozen alternative solutions, ACME decided to deploy TrustTone Stealth Appliance (SMTP/POP model). The deployment was a straight forward 'drop-in' model. The IT administrator configured the appliance in less than an hour and deployed it in the mail path. With the default policy, users could start sending encrypted emails right away. However, ACME wanted to provide 'smart encryption' to its employees. Therefore, they set up a set of policy rules suitable for their business needs. With the comprehensive policy in place, the appliance does all the work - examining the outgoing emails and encrypting them on the fly if the policy required it to be encrypted.

The IT folks like the solution because of the security it provides by having all the keys and crypto engine on premises with no risk and liability associated with hosted solutions. They also like the fact that high quality and reliability of the product offers them 'deploy and forget' convenienct.

Recipients of her encrypted emails like the fact that they do not need to download or install any software and can view and reply using just the Web browser using a familiar paradigm.

It is a win-win for ACME and its customers. The system makes communication with the customers more efficient. It also reduces the cost of managing paper mail. The customers love the convenience of having encrypted email delivered straight into their inbox and not having to keep checking the online account.