An AT&T Inc. subsidiary, Sterling Commerce, announced today the availability of a security solution for managed file transfer (MFT), Sterling Secure Proxy™, that sits outside a company's firewall to protect file transfers with advanced security features such as multifactor authentication. Sterling Secure Proxy, by enforcing tighter security controls, s it moves across the Internet into an organization's enterprise systems, protects companies against theft or compromise of sensitive customer data as well as proprietary, financial data and intellectual property.

Frank Kenney from Gartner said: "With security of paramount concern, companies moving away from highly distributed, ad hoc file transfers to centrally managed file transfers must decide whether they want to expose MFT suites to the "outside world". "Since the risk of exposing an MFT suite to the Internet is relatively high and would expose sensitive information, such as internal FTP IP addresses and application interfaces, to the public, most vendors offer a proxy server that extends the reach of an MFT server past the firewall into the DMZ", said Kenney.

A number of new and severe security threats were created by the increasing reliance on electronic payment systems, data mining and other information technologies, and the growth of the Internet and e-commerce. Sterling Secure Proxy, providing perimeter security best practices, enforces multiple layers of security for file transfer operations, including secure socket layer (SSL) session breaks, firewall navigation and multifactor authentication to protect against these threats. By tracking the movement of files in transit, it facilitates audits, which provides a higher level of security and also helps meet compliance requirements.

Vice president, Global Managed File Transfer for Sterling Commerce, Geoff Baird, said: "Organizations are exchanging increasing volumes of critical data with a growing number of partners, creating the need for a scalable solution that leverages their existing security infrastructure". "Sterling Secure Proxy provides advanced security with a defense-in-depth approach while leveraging more than 25 years of experience in managed file transfer, providing companies with the highest assurance that their mission-critical file transfers are secure."

Sterling Secure Proxy, is a part of the Sterling Managed File Transfer suite of solutions. To enhance or replace file transfer protocol (FTP), a growing number of organizations are investing in managed file transfer products. Sterling Managed File Transfer is a market-leading solution for managing file transfers of any size, volume or format securely and reliably. Sterling Commerce solutions are also used by organizations around the globe to ensure the delivery of data between enterprises in diverse industries to:

    * Meet service level agreements (SLAs) and by rapidly identifying and resolving file transfer problems, increase customer satisfaction.
    * Reach higher levels of performance and reliability to handle growth.
    * By removing the security exposure for file-based transfers, increases customer retention and decrease liability.