London, April 26, 2006 - MessageLabs, the leading provider of messaging security and management services to businesses, today announced that its MessageLabs Anti-Virus Service is the first managed service to be awarded the UK Government’s CSIA Claims Tested (CCT) Mark.

The CCT Mark Scheme provides accredited independent testing on services and off-the-shelf products, enabling the public sector to have added confidence and assurance that its chosen information security products and services meet preferred standards.

Primarily aimed at IT and information security managers across the public sector, the scheme will also provide an invaluable guide to small and medium-businesses wanting reassurance in their purchasing choices.

“Deciphering between clever marketing hype and genuine product capabilities can be very confusing. Through this scheme, ambiguity is removed and product confidence heightened. Having pioneered Internet level security services in 1999 with the launch of the first “in the cloud” anti-virus service, we are proud to now be the first and only managed service to be acknowledged by this rigorous quality testing scheme. The CCT Mark allows us to provide both government and businesses an unparalleled level of certainty and confidence in their security choice,” said Jos White, co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer, MessageLabs.

Steve Marsh, Head of the Central Sponsor for Information Assurance (CSIA) said “Managed services are of particular interest to the public sector in terms of data sharing within and between organisations. We are extremely pleased that this service has achieved the award which will help give assurance to the public sector that the information security products and services they use make the grade for the government’s quality mark”.

MessageLabs Anti-Virus service provides protection against email threats, such as viruses and Trojans, saving businesses valuable time and resource otherwise spent dealing with unwanted outbreaks and the associated clean up.

The multi-layered service uses multiple commercial virus scanners to identify existing threats and Skeptic™, MessageLabs predictive proprietary technology to identify new, unknown threats. Using predictive intelligence Skeptic learns from every message it sees, updating and evolving with every new threat – constantly building on its already vast knowledge base. Skeptic is supported by an internationally recognized anti-virus team which researches and identifies new threats at the zero hour and pre-emptively updates the service to offer up-to-date 24*7*365 protection and support.

With 99.999% availability and backed by a service level agreement providing 100% protection against any known or unknown virus infecting a client’s network, the service is run in secure data centres on multiple sites to ensure continuous availability in the event of a disaster. Even with MessageLabs global infrastructure, client emails can still be guaranteed to be scanned within certain countries or regions to ensure compliance with data protection legislation and specific client requirements.

By offering a complete range of integrated managed services for email, web and IM, MessageLabs protects organizations from threats like viruses and spam and also allows businesses to secure, control and archive messaging according to their needs. These services help businesses to be certain of the integrity of electronic communications and ensure policy enforcement, thus helping to manage and reduce risk while securing critical infrastructure and business information. This managed service approach also allows organizations to manage their messaging without the burden or additional cost of traditional software or hardware solutions.

Founded by brothers, Ben and Jos White and based in Gloucester since 1999, MessageLabs is recognized as the leading provider of messaging security and management services to business worldwide. Scanning web traffic and over a billion business emails each week on behalf of its 13,000 business customers for viruses, spam, inappropriate images and unwanted content, MessageLabs now employs more than 400 people in eight countries.