Extending Targeted Attack Protection to Stop Social Phishing, Safeguards Employees’ Social Media Accounts

Proofpoint, Inc., (NASDAQ: PFPT), a leading next-generation security and compliance company, today announced that it is extending its Proofpoint Targeted Attack Protection solution to enable organizations to safeguard individual social media accounts from advanced malware, social phishing and compliance violations. With this new capability, Proofpoint will protect email, branded social networking pages and key employees’ social media activities from advanced targeted attacks.

“Our research indicates that the same attackers are increasingly using both email and social media vectors to directly target key executives,” said David Knight, executive vice president and general manager of Information Security Products for Proofpoint. “We have seen social media spam and phishing rates increase by more than 300 percent for the last two years. Extending Proofpoint Targeted Attack Protection to social networks allows employees to safely connect with business prospects on social channels.”

A recent Proofpoint study found that Fortune 100 brands are experiencing at least one compromise per business day on their branded social media channels. High-profile social media attacks on major brands, media properties and government agencies, attributed to ISIS and the Syrian Electronic Army, demonstrate how quickly a hack can make headlines. That vulnerability extends to key executives and employees using social media. Now, with one click, employees can activate Proofpoint Targeted Attack Protection for their social media channels to help ensure live protection from account takeovers, social phishing, malicious URLs and compliance violations.

“Adding Proofpoint Targeted Attack Protection for Social Media demonstrates the power of our combined portfolio of capabilities to stop advanced targeted attacks and social phishing,” said Devin Redmond, vice president and general manager of Nexgate for Proofpoint. “Increasingly social networks, such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter are becoming critical communication channels that require advanced security and compliance controls similar to those applied to email protection.”

Proofpoint Targeted Attack Protection uses the latest in big-data anomaly detection and advanced malware sandboxing to protect users from sophisticated, targeted phishing attacks. Proofpoint Targeted Attack Protection for Social Media will extend the Proofpoint Nexgate capabilities to stop social media users from seeing and clicking on malware, spam and abusive language. Backed by Deep Social Linguistic Analysis (DSLA) classifiers, Proofpoint Targeted Attack Protection for Social Media also will enforce policies to maintain compliance with a wide-range of social media regulatory requirements, including FTC, FINRA, FFIEC, FDA, HIPAA, PHI, SEC, ABA and more.

General availability for Proofpoint Targeted Attack for Social Media is planned for the third quarter of 2015. For more information about Proofpoint Targeted Attack Protection, and the new social media protection for individual employees, please visit HERE.

About Proofpoint, Inc.

Proofpoint Inc. (NASDAQ:PFPT) is a leading next-generation security and compliance company that provides cloud-based solutions for comprehensive threat protection, incident response, secure communications, social media security, compliance, archiving and governance. Organizations around the world depend on Proofpoint’s expertise, patented technologies and on-demand delivery system. Proofpoint protects against phishing, malware and spam, while safeguarding privacy, encrypting sensitive information, and archiving and governing messages and critical enterprise information. More information is available at www.proofpoint.com.

Proofpoint, Nexgate, Proofpoint Targeted Attack Protection are trademarks or registered trademarks of Proofpoint, Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other trademarks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. These forward-looking statements include statements regarding future offerings and solutions and the features of such offerings and solutions. It is possible that future circumstances might differ from the assumptions on which such statements are based. Important factors that could cause results to differ materially from the statements herein include: technical challenges in implementing future offerings and solutions in a timely fashion; changes in strategy; unforeseen delays in developing new technologies and the uncertain market acceptance of new products or features; and the other risk factors set forth from time to time in our filings with the SEC, including our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the three months ending March 31, 2015, and the other reports we file with the SEC, copies of which are available free of charge at the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov or upon request from our investor relations department.  All forward-looking statements herein reflect our opinions only as of the date of this release, and Proofpoint undertakes no obligation, and expressly disclaims any obligation, to update forward-looking statements herein in light of new information or future events.