Application Review - Secure Email

I recently went to a conference concerning secure email, and found the ZixCorp (http://www.zixcorp.com/) solution to be really interesting.

From a health care perspective, its becoming increasingly apparent that more emails between payors (eg: Blue Cross/Blue Shield; Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Tufts Health Plan) to providers & providers to patients should be sent via a secure methodology that is not a hindrance to people receiving or sending emails.

The ZixCorp solution uses two different methodologies to send secure emails:

The Pull Method (ZixPort secure portal) requires the recipient who doesn't use zix to log onto the Zix secure email servers to retrieve messages.


BENEFITS
1. No client software to download
2. Automated authentication process
3. Secure reply capabilities


The Push Method - (ZixDirect) assumes the email is being sent to a zix member, and will encrypt the email over the internet, then decrypt it automatically when loading the message into your email application.

BENEFITS

1. Internal/outboard encryption
2. Encryption of message body & attachments
3. Integrated with Outlook versions
4. Sent/received emails are stored encrypted

A final note, there are also other secure email vendors like Tumbleweed (http://www.tumbleweed.com/), I will check into as well.