BUSINESS SITUATION
Prior to deploying Proofpoint Enterprise Protection, Pinnacle Capital Mortgage (PCM) had been using an on-premise email security system for tracking spam emails and anti-virus. Lacking the IT resource bandwidth to take on additional email security management responsibilities, PCM began to explore its options. A third-party email-security system that was preconfigured, and had all the bells and whistles, would reduce IT manpower hours and cut down on rising data-center power bills.

PCM evaluated a variety of email security systems in search of a service that was cost-effective, flexible, and offered efficient email tracking capabilities. Plus, the company needed to add additional email security capabilities, such as email encryption, to comply with government email security regulations.

SOLUTION
After reviewing all the major players in the email security marketplace, PCM found that Proofpoint Enterprise Protection, hosted on a virtual appliance, was the right answer. The Proofpoint email security system provided more functionality, offering both inbound and outbound email security features including anti-spam, anti-virus, and email policy enforcement.

In addition, Proofpoint Enterprise Protection email tracking functionality allowed IT to access the interface with a simple click of a button to determine the status of an email. Furthermore, Proofpoint support was able to help PCM customize processes that were more aligned with the way IT wanted to structure email security.

EFFICIENT EMAIL TRACKING SYSTEM
With most of its loan brokerage business conducted over the Internet, many of Pinnacle Mortgage Corporation's emails included extremely large attachments containing sensitive financial information. When "sent" emails never appeared in a loan brokers email box, it was imperative to track what happened to the email. IT mostly needed to track where the email went and/or why the email dropped. The potential for virus infestations due to the large email attachments was also a concern.

"We now are not worried about getting external viruses introduced to the system, and we have a lot more flexibility over the attachments. We have more real-time reporting features like load, traffic, inbounds, and we have a lot more insight into what's actually going through our systems," said Colin Weiner, system engineer, Pinnacle Capital Mortgage Corporation.

The time spent meticulously going through email tracking logs to try and figure out what happened to an email plummeted.

Once the Proofpoint Enterprise Protection email tracking system was deployed, the time needed to track email was reduced by 80%. With Proofpoint's email security system, email tracking that used to take an hour could now be completed in five minutes.

PRIVATE CLOUD PCM
Also liked the fact that, unlike other cloud-based email security providers, the company had its own virtual machine and did not have to share virtual resources with other clients. Plus, with a cloud-based email security system, the IT department doesn't have responsibility for the updates or maintenance. "Choosing to deploy with a virtual appliance gave us the freedom to not have to manually input updates or do our own maintenance, and unlike a lot of the other providers we looked at, Proofpoint was the only one that offered a private virtual cloud," commented Weiner.

MEASURABLE BENEFITS
So far, PCM has experienced the following benefits:

• An 80% reduction in time spent tracking emails
• More functionality, with less IT involvement retention policies
• Real-time reporting features on load, traffic, inbounds
• An interface with single click access to email tracking status

Proofpoint Enterprise Protection also simplified PCM's email security system, while enhancing inbound and outbound email security by combining critical features like anti-spam and anti-virus, connection management, email firewall and email policy enforcement features into a single easy-to-use and easy-to-manage system. PCM also had total control and flexibility over email security system preferences, policies, enabled services, end-user controls, alerts and reporting.

"I'd say that before we deployed Proofpoint, we had high visibility issues, on average, a couple of times a week. Now, I don't get any calls. What has been nice is that we don't really have to think about our email security or support. In the past, we always had to tweak settings on our side and needed a lot of help. Those issues are a thing of the past," remarked Wiener.

ABOUT PINNACLE CAPITAL MORTGAGE 
Headquartered in Roseville, California, with offices in Northern California and Oregon, Pinnacle Capital Mortgage Corporation specializes in wholesale, retail, and affiliate mortgage lending, and offers loans in a number of western states.