Company Offers Free Emergency E-Mail Protection During Hurricane Season

An e-mail security company is offering free emergency message protection to Florida companies being directly threatened by a hurricane.

AppRiver, a Gulf Breeze, Fla.-based company, announced that the deal will run from June 1 through Nov. 30, which meteorologists consider the official hurricane season. According to an AppRiver release, businesses with an Internet domain name can activate the service online in less than 10 minutes once their area has been issued a hurricane warning.

AppRiver said that once a business signs up for the service, the e-mail security company will monitor that business' e-mail server activity. If the receiving server is affected by a hurricane, AppRiver will begin queuing the business' incoming e-mail messages in one of its own securely located data centers until that victim business' e-mail servers are up and running again. The business being served also can request for its e-mail to be redirected elsewhere or made available online, so the business can remain functional during the storm and the post-storm recovery period.

The service also includes spam and virus filtering.

"As a business that relies heavily on secure e-mail services, we know first-hand how critical e-mail is to function in today's business market, and we hope to make it easier for other businesses to avoid the lost customers and lost opportunities that can come with the disruption of e-mail service," said Michael Murdoch, CEO of AppRiver. To access the free service, businesses should go to the Florida Chamber of Commerce Web site or the AppRiver Web site and click the button marked "Digital Disaster Preparedness."