The Encrypted Mail Gateway from Echoworx offers a full cloud-based platform for seamless email encryption throughout the enterprise. Since this product is based completely in the cloud, there is no need for administrators to install or deploy any software or hardware within the existing environment. This policy-based encryption appears completely transparent to end-users, and policy can be configured to meet the compliance needs of almost any organization - ensuring all sensitive email is transmitted securely to meet regulatory and compliance standards.
Since there was no hardware or software to install, deployment of this gateway product was quite simple. The initial rollout consisted of pointing outbound email to the Echoworx cloud. After that, all policy configuration was done via a web-based management console. We found the management console to be well-organized and intuitive to navigate with an overall clean layout. We also found this product to be highly configurable with many policy options and functions. Policies can be created to use very granular or broad conditions for email encryption and there are several pre-configured policies ready to go out of the box. Some of these policies include regulatory compliance, such as HIPAA, as well as basic policies for managing personally identifiable information.
Overall, we found this product to provide a great deal of policy flexibility and reporting options. On the end-user side, all functionality is completely transparent and users can deploy their existing email client, including mobile email clients, just as they always have. When a user sends an outbound email, it is automatically forwarded up to the cloud and encrypted if it meets policy conditions, ensuring that sensitive email is always encrypted when leaving the enterprise, which avoids possible human error. Users also can retrieve email from a secure pick-up portal allowing for secure email to be easily transmitted to anyone, even users outside the organization.
Documentation was quite limited and only included a few reference manuals that could be found in the help section of the management consoles for the tool's components. We found these reference guides to be helpful, but there was a lack of detail. With that said, the material did include step-by-step instructions and many screen shots, though there were no administrator or configuration guides submitted at the time of review.
Echoworx offers customers full 24/7 email- and phone-based technical support as part of the subscription cost. Customers also can access several support resources via a support section on the website. This section includes a knowledge base, FAQ section and technical resources.
At a cost of $1.00 per user per month, we find this offering to be a reasonable value for the money. Since it is completely hosted, there is no additional overhead, operating costs or hardware to buy. Plus, support adds quite a bit to the overall value of the product. We also found the solution was quite easy to use and manage - both from an administrative standpoint, as well as from the side of the end-user. While it has an ongoing recurring cost, we find it reasonable given the features and functionality of the product.
