Mimecast Opens Australian Data Centers to Address Email Disruption and Data Residency Concerns

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• 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

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – July 29, 2015 — /BackupReview.info/ — 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

U.S. Press Contact
March Communications
Stephanie Jackman, +1-617-960-9875
Mimecast@marchpr.com

Source: Mimecast

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