PGP Universal Gateway Email

PGP Universal Gateway Email 2.8 is an integrated part of the PGP Encryption Platform. It encrypts, decrypts and digitally signs all outbound emails without having to install local clients on each host machine. PGP offers the Gateway Email by using a soft-appliance concept. Organisations have the choice of product installations that match a number of common hardware vendors (Dell, HP, IBM etc).

We found installation to be very straightforward on our test machine. Although we did not test specific product integration, the ability to integrate Universal Gateway Email with other PGP and third-party tools (data leakage, e-discovery etc) is impressive. It also comes integrated with PGP's Universal Server, which allows for centralised administration of all PGP enterprise products.

Once installed, the solution performed very well, although we would caution buyers to choose higher-end hardware to help manage the additional load of digital signatures in the enterprise. The administrative interface is very slick. The centralised, yet granular, policy management via Universal Server makes integration into the enterprise easy.

Encryption and signing internal emails is completely transparent to both parties, with a choice of using S/MIME or OpenPGP. External users without an encryption client can receive messages via a webmail interface or PGP's PDF Messenger, which encapsulates the message within a secure PDF file.

Documentation is contained within informative and comprehensive PDF files and the PGP website offers a wealth of support information.

Basic office-hour support is included with the product for the first year. Other options are available. PGP's website is one of the best in the business and includes community forums and several other support features.

Subscription pricing starts at £39 per user per year. Although the price is slightly toward the high end, the product is truly enterprise-class and represents solid value.