Northern Rock has employed Symantec's PGP Universal Gateway Email as part of its data protection strategy.

Northern Rock has 75 branches throughout the UK, as well as postal, telephone and internet operations.

Symantec was selected as Northern Rock's vendor of choice following a rigorous competitive tender. The product has since been rolled out to all email users within the organisation, allowing them to communicate securely with customers, partners and regulatory authorities.

Symantec's PGP Universal Gateway Email provides centrally managed, standards-based email encryption to secure email communications with customers and partners. By encrypting data at the gateway, Symantec's PGP Universal Gateway Email ensures data is protected from unauthorised access in transit over the public Internet and at rest on a recipient's mail server. With Symantec's PGP Universal Gateway Email, organisations can minimize the risk of a data breach and comply with partner and regulatory mandates for information security and privacy.

"At Northern Rock we take a proactive approach to data protection but with increasing regulatory pressures, we thought the time was right to upgrade our existing security strategy," said Rick Hunkin, Chief Risk Officer at Northern Rock. "Symantec offered a transparent solution which helps us deliver the appropriate levels of security."

"In today's compliance driven society, an effective data security policy should be top of mind for all CIOs," said John Brigden, senior vice president, EMEA, Symantec "Northern Rock is a great example of an organisation which is proactively taking steps to upgrade and guard against today's threats, whilst also anticipating tomorrow's challenges."